And when the “digital apparatus” takes over the territory, how will the occupation of the territory be presented? Here is a truly intriguing question for the near future.
Here comes the “connected objects industry”. Henceforth, we can make “plantations” of these connected objects, that is, everything will be smart, sooner or later: the city, the housing, the factory, the hospital, the airport, the university, the commercial center, but also the agricultural field, the livestock company, the forest, the natural park, etc.
Today, moreover, in the field of agriculture, technological advances are unstoppable, sensors and agribots, are everywhere. Here are some examples related to precision agriculture, technologies and precision, agricultural company 4.0:
>Remote irrigation management.
>Monitoring of cultures from aerial images (obtained with drones).
>Algorithmic calculation of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI).
>Surveillance cameras in stables and barns.
>Milking and feeding robots.
>Chips in animals to monitor their life cycle.
>Robots to carry out the work in the vineyard (winebots).
>Autonomous vehicles such as agricultural machines and tractors.
>The sensing of the forest (the eyes and ears of trees).
>Thermal cameras (the night eyes of firefighters).
>Images by drone areas with the greatest accumulation of scrub.
>Robots to do the firefighting.
>Collection and processing of raw information: date e cloud computing.
>Computational models for the development of intervention scenarios.
>Creating applications in smartphones for use by farmers and firefighters.
>Artificial intelligence (machine learning) for various simulations, etc.
This short summary illustrates well what the field of the future and the future of the field could be, according to a certain technological determinism. If we add to this "digital plantation-connection" the technological constellation formed by nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, life, soil and water sciences and the food industries, we will surely have an occupation of the territory very different from the current one, with fewer people , and more people ex situ busy in surveillance, programming, planning and remote control tasks.
That said, the great question of society seems to be, then: after a first agricultural exodus promoted by industrialization and urbanization (the 1st rurality), we are on the verge of triggering a second agricultural exodus with smartification of the territory, aggravating all conditions relating to depopulation and desertification of the so-called low density areas or, on the contrary, there is a virtuous low density that smartification can help design and build?
This question is all the more pertinent, as the impact of climate change and forest fires is now being discussed, as well as the models of agricultural and forestry exploitation that must occupy the territory in an orderly manner, as taught by architect Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles , when referring to the “organicism of the global landscape”.
Our fear is really this, that is, that “the smartification casuistry does not know how to respect the organicism of the global landscape”. Let's look at some fundamental questions in this regard.
The smartification of the territory
1. Bioproductive and agroecosystemic logics
A smartification the territory allows, let's say, this bifurcation, it depends on our productive options, but the bioproductivist logic is clearly hegemonic and is the one that best fits the “algorithms” of the smartification.
In any case, it is important to state that the smartification is not incompatible with the agro-ecosystem logic, in addition to allowing a rationale rural employment much more favorable to the territories. Moreover, there is a huge scope for progress here in terms of action research.
2. Smartification and capitalization of agriculture
I have many doubts that the phase of smartification of territory, and of agriculture in particular, for the capitalization and technical knowledge they imply, is a task of “traditional owners, tenants and farms” to use the current euphemism.
A smartification of agriculture is already underway, in a diffuse and selective way, but the agribots they are not compatible with traditional agriculture, but rather demand a much more capitalized bioproductive agriculture.
Most likely, this investment will be carried out by “agents outside” the territory in question. Moreover, it is not just about investment, but also about a new conformation of the production system to new users, which may have some ecosystem implications.
3. A smart territorial ecosystem
Third, the smartification of a territory goes far beyond the smartification of agriculture, is a very demanding task in terms of regional planning and programming and supposes the construction of an intelligent ecosystem not only to attract a new generation of entrepreneurs, but also to create a more collaborative and cooperative mesoeconomy oriented towards new territorial configurations. , for example, the creation of network territories and network actors with certain structural characteristics.
4. The organicism of the global landscape
Following the previous topic, the technological determinism of a smartification of the territory made of geographic information systems (GIS and GPS) and a series of applications in smartphones to rotate some agribots and some drones monitoring the status of crops, although that may be essentially at this stage.
The organicism of the global landscape, the harmony of its constituent elements and the well-being of the resident populations are beyond "artificial intelligence" and only seem possible in the framework of "desired network territories" managed by a dedicated and network actor endowed with sufficient cognitive capital for the purpose.
5. Centralized and distributed digital networks
A smartification precision agriculture conducted in a bioproductivist logic generally obeys a centralized digital network in accordance with a well-designed chain of command, often foreign to its own territory; on the other hand, the agro-ecosystem logic and the organicism of the global landscape obey a distributed digital network (a network peer to peer, P2P) which requires “another cyberculture” much closer to the local communities of neighborhood and proximity.
6. The new managers of "smartification of the landscape"
The “global landscape” by Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles is a complex multifunctional mosaic where the conservation of nature, the production of fresh food, the agrotourism amenities and the management of protected landscape areas, according to technical but also aesthetic criteria and ethical.
This means that, in terms of processes and procedures related to agroecological systems, the smartification it can also contribute to a profound revolution in the integrated management of landscape units and protected landscape areas, agricultural and forestry businesses, and environmental amenities and services that, together with population centers, form the basic structure of land use and landscape planning. .
Final Notes
As long as this “culture of the global landscape” is not established (and we all hope that it does not arrive for the worst reasons due to the emergence of climate change), we will increasingly have a “populated” agriculture of microchips and sensors, and managed at a distance by “augmented beings” who manage all kinds of electronic and digital interfaces.
The big challenge of this new phase is a "smartification “intelligent” of the territory as a global organic landscape, as I am convinced that the smartification it is not incompatible with the agroecosystem logic.
With regard to this logic and this landscape organicism, I remember the following: tree plantations are not forest, forestry is not forestry, transgenic crops are not agriculture, cloned animals are not livestock, land operations are not biophysical engineering, green arrangement is not landscape architecture, crop greening is not ecosystem service delivery and product system management is not system product management.
There is, therefore, in this context, a lot of research-action work to be carried out for future distributed digital networks.
In this aspect, it is important to say, "distributed digital networks" are lateral and collaborative relationships, a kind of Internet of citizens, through which the economy of collaborative common goods is practiced, an economy without intermediaries in which producers are also consumers and vice versa.
The companies start-ups that create technological platforms and computer applications are, in the dominant narrative, the main agent of these distributed digital networks and here the imagination has no limits.
It is essential, however, to leave a warning for navigation. The most remote and hostile territories are a challenge to the technological and digital imagination and we are always waiting for the start-up bolder are able to bring us new ways to occupy these territories.
However, the “new immaterial economy”, to prove its life, communities are not enough online created spontaneously in spaces of coworking ou fablab municipal.
The start-up generated in incubators and accelerators, like solitary runners in search of a safe track that guarantees them a minimum of sustainability.
There is, in fact, a long way to go from the comfort of a community-managed digital network online and the discomfort of a real problem managed by a real community, municipal or associative, not to mention the quality of the actor-network that manages the distributed digital network.
I mean, we will have to quickly review the matter given with regard to spaces for coworking, the fablab, incubators, research centers, local development associations, which until now have been the privileged places to give birth to these distributed networks and to better understand the virtuous side of low density and the reasons for such low performance and effectiveness of these intervention instruments in the territory.
In a country so small, so fast and so unequal from an urban-cultural point of view, the “death of distance” operated by digital technologies puts citizens to live on the coast, depending on an urban center or a metropolitan area.
All in all, however, it's not all that bad, as we can have the best of both worlds: on the one hand, the agglomeration economies of the two large metropolitan cities and, on the other hand, at a distance of just over an hour, being able to enjoy of the benefits and potentialities of economies of range, niche and low density, beyond the recreation and leisure that the so-called interior always offers us.
Instead of the death of distance, we would have the glorification of distance and against the disadvantage of the interior, we would have the obligation to create a dense network of complementarities and positive external effects that it would be important to organize carefully in order to reduce the accumulated liability regional and territorial inequalities.
Author António Covas is a full professor at the University of Algarve and a PhD in European Affairs from the Free University of Brussels
Comments