A Tale of Two Green Valleys: Power Struggles over Data-Driven Agro-Innovation in Kenya's Rift Valley and California's Central Valley

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Digital technologies are generating massive amounts of data on farms, ranging from information about soil characteristics, local climatic conditions, cropping patterns, use of fertiliser and pesticide, labour practices, to financial behaviour. The collection and use of this data may lead to greater efficiency, more targeted use of chemicals, higher farm productivity and stronger coordination capacity. It is also likely to bring value to those outside agriculture such as finance and real estate firms, as well as public authorities like tax agencies and environmental bodies. Yet these impacts will not be neutral; some actors will benefit more than others.This project asks who is capturing the economic and strategic value of data? Will big business use these new data infrastructures to more deeply penetrate markets and control agricultural systems? Or will small-holder farmers use them to 'de-commodify' their goods (through organic or fair-trade labeling), and increase their profits and security? Will these systems lead to more controlled workforces and thus weaker labour rights? Or will these systems allow unions to enforce stronger worker protection? Will these systems strengthen the power of US based entities or will they even the playing field for African economic actors? Much depends on how governance evolves and which groups claim ownership and control. Our project takes a 'Political Economy' approach to these questions and thereby documents the role that politics, ideas and ideology play in determining who benefits from growth and digital transformations. We examine power struggles between actors over the control of economic and strategic value both at the local level on farms (between owners, workers, traders and agribusiness) and at the national/international level (between policy-makers and firms over public policy and finance for innovation).We examine these power struggles in two valleys: a developed agricultural cluster (California's Central Valley) and a developing agricultural cluster (Kenya's Rift Valley). Both valleys are hugely productive agricultural heartlands and are also situated near to advanced technological clusters. We take this transnational approach because US commercial interests are part of African agriculture; one cannot understand development without understanding their power and influence. In addition, extremely important conversations are taking place within US farming about data ownership and commercialization, which are likely to have implications in Africa and other regions including the UK.This project is important because governments all over the world are prioritizing public support for the tech industry as it is seen as the driver of future economic growth and employment. To ensure that this growth is both inclusive and transformative, it is vitally important for public officials and the public to understand the distributional impacts of digital innovation policies, particularly in agriculture, a sector that employs huge numbers of poor people across the world and serves as the ecological base of human life. Data will no doubt revolutionise our economies but we must ensure it does so in inclusive and sustainable ways.Practically, our project aims to equip policy-makers with evidence and ideas to help them develop smarter and more inclusive digital economy policies and to raise ground-level awareness among farmers and workers about how they can expand control over their privacy and economic infrastructures. We do so through traditional outreach meetings with beneficiaries, policy briefs and publications but also through entertaining and accessible podcasts, co-produced with professional journalists. Academically, we aim to theorize the role that politics and ideas play in influencing who benefits and loses from technological innovations, and to contribute developmental and cross-national perspectives to the field of the political economy of innovation and digital economy