In recent years, digitalization processes have substantially advanced production systems, resource management, and marketing in agricultural production. These processes are not limited to the introduction of technological artifacts but also involve a set of practices through which new actors come into play, new interactions are established, and new rules emerge that transform the social structure of agri-food production (Alarcon-Ferrari, Corrado, & Fama, 2023; Baur y Alistair, 2023). This has given rise to an emerging field within the social sciences to address the social, economic, and institutional dynamics of Agriculture 4.0 (Klerkx, Jakku, & Labarthe, 2019). However, there is still a lack of studies that examine how digitalization processes reconfigure gender inequalities, reorganizes gender relations and leads to the redistribution of gendered vertical and horizontal labor rural market (UNCTAD, 2020; Marshall, 2021; WEF, 2024). This paper focuses on gender gap in digital labor in agriculture in Uruguay. It discusses how digitalization impacts rural women and what role does gender play in the production of digital labor inequalities. Based on interviews in viticulture and livestock to key informant, farmers and rural wage earners, the evidence suggests that women face additional challenges, exacerbating existing gender inequalities in local agri food systems.

References

Alarcon-Ferrari, C.; Corrado, A.; Fama, M. (2023) Digitalisation, politics of sustainability and new agrarian questions: The case of dairy farming in rural spaces of Italy and Sweden. Sociologia Ruralis 63 (3), pp. 703-728.

Baur, P. Y Alastair, I. (2023). “Inserting machines, displacing people: how automation imaginaries for agriculture promise ‘liberation' from the industrialized farm”, Agriculture and Human Values, 40, pp. 815-833

Klerkx, L.; Jakku, E.y Labarthe, P. (2019) A review of social science on digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0: New contributions and a future research agenda, NJAS: Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences, 90-91:1, 1-16

Marshall, A. (2021). Women's Pathways to Digital Inclusion Through Digital Labour in Rural Farming Households. Australian Feminist Studies, 36(107), 43–64.

UNCTAD (2020) Trade and gender linkages: the gender impact of technological upgrading in agriculture United Nations, Geneva.

WEF (2024) Agritech for Women Farmers: A Business Case for Inclusive Growth. World Economic Forum