The study by Mariana Tamari, with Joana Varon at Coding Rights for the Tramas Project of the Coalizão Feminista Decolonial pela Justiça Digital e Ambiental analyses how artificial intelligence, automation and other digital tools are transforming land use in Brazil. It documents how modern agribusiness brings together Big Tech, Big Agro and large financial interests to build a highly digitalised model often framed as "precision agriculture," using sensors, remote monitoring, automated fleets and predictive AI to manage production.
Researchers report that this digital model displaces communities, reduces agricultural diversity and systematically replaces ancestral, empirical knowledge with data-driven decision making. Digital instruments such as the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) can institutionalise digital land grabbing: irregular registrations overlay historical occupations and create what the authors call a "Fictitious Brazil," where algorithmic records convert public and collective lands into market assets. When databases fail to erase communities, drones have been used to intimidate inhabitants and to spray agrochemicals over small farms, forcing people out. The report cites violent displacement in the Matopiba frontier (parts of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia) and the case of Gleba Tauá in northern Tocantins.
The researchers propose concrete responses: reject the idea of technological neutrality; demand transparency, decentralised governance and public technological infrastructures that support collective participation; scrutinise Big Tech and Big Agro; and value regenerative, agro-ecological and ancestral practices that sustain biodiversity and food security. In place of techno‑solutionism they argue for cooperative approaches that subordinate AI development to socio‑environmental justice and the protection of life.
Difficult words
- digitalise — convert processes or information into electronic formdigitalised
- displace — force people or communities to leave placesdisplaces
- institutionalise — make a practice official or part of institutions
- ancestral — from ancestors, traditional and passed down generations
- precision agriculture — farming that uses technology for exact management
- algorithmic — produced or governed by computer rules and calculations
- regenerative — helping restore ecosystems and biological health
Tip: hover, focus or tap highlighted words in the article to see quick definitions while you read or listen.
Discussion questions
- What social or environmental risks can arise when companies combine Big Tech, Big Agro and finance in a highly digitalised farming model?
- How could communities use public technological infrastructures to participate more in land governance, based on the report's suggestions?
- Do you think valuing ancestral and agro-ecological practices is compatible with using some digital tools in agriculture? Why or why not?
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