Configuring the new digital landscape in western Canadian agriculture

Digital technologies are working to transform the global agricultural system. Farmers and firms are creating, adapting and adopting a range of new hardware, software, mobile apps, sensor technologies and big data applications, which is working to disrupt established structures within the farm machinery and associated data sectors. Focusing just on the extension of precision technologies to agriculture, this paper maps the competitive landscape using a 2 × 2 typology that situates entities operating in Canada based on their strategies, distinguishing between top-down and bottom-up networks of competitors and collaborators and the degree of interoperability of their digital applications. We examine the emergence of four specific cases in western Canadian agriculture. The typology and the cases suggest global agri-food firms, industry collectives and a host of entrepreneurial start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises are competing to both organize and disrupt the global agri-food value chain. It is not yet clear which strategy, if any, will prevail and provide the model for broad acre agriculture in Canada and around the world.