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Tackling land’s ‘stubborn materiality’: the interplay of imaginaries, data and digital technologies within farmland assetization

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  • Sarah Ruth Sippel

    (University of Münster)

Abstract

The nature of farming is – still – an essentially biological, and thus volatile, system, which poses substantial challenges to its integration into financialized capitalism. Financial investors often seek stability and predictability of returns that are hardly compatible with agriculture – but which are increasingly seen as achievable through data and digital farming technologies. This paper investigates how farmland investment brokers engage with, perceive, and produce farming data for their investors within a co-constructive process. Tackling land’s ‘stubborn materiality’ for investment, I argue, has material and immaterial components: it includes the re-imagination of farming as a financial asset that delivers reliable income streams for investors; and the re-engineering of farmland’s concrete materialities with digital farming technologies. Farmland investment brokers develop investor-suitable farmland imaginaries, underpinned by storytelling as well as the calculative ‘evidence’ of (digital) data. At the same time, digital technologies have become a key tool for transforming farms into ‘investment grade assets’ endowed with the rich data on farm performance and financial returns requested by investors. I conclude that the assetization and digitization of farmland need to be seen as closely intertwined and mutually reinforcing processes and identify key areas for future research on this intersection.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Ruth Sippel, 2023. "Tackling land’s ‘stubborn materiality’: the interplay of imaginaries, data and digital technologies within farmland assetization," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(3), pages 849-863, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:40:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s10460-023-10453-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-023-10453-3
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Oane Visser, 2017. "Running out of farmland? Investment discourses, unstable land values and the sluggishness of asset making," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(1), pages 185-198, March.
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    4. Oane Visser, 2021. "Persistent farmland imaginaries: celebration of fertile soil and the recurrent ignorance of climate," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 38(1), pages 313-326, February.
    5. Madeleine Fairbairn & Zenia Kish & Julie Guthman, 2022. "Pitching agri-food tech: performativity and non-disruptive disruption in Silicon Valley," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(5), pages 652-670, September.
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    8. Sarah Ruth Sippel & Oane Visser, 2021. "Introduction to symposium ‘Reimagining land: materiality, affect and the uneven trajectories of land transformation’," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 38(1), pages 271-282, February.
    9. Kean Birch & Fabian Muniesa, 2020. "Assetization: Turning Things into Assets in Technoscientific Capitalism," Post-Print halshs-02878684, HAL.
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    11. Sarah Ruth Sippel & Oane Visser, 2021. "Correction to: Introduction to symposium ‘Reimagining land: materiality, affect and the uneven trajectories of land transformation’," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 38(1), pages 283-283, February.
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