Exploring actors, their constellations, and roles in digital agricultural innovations

Agricultural innovations can emerge from multi-actor cooperation and so actors, their roles, and their activities will likely influence the character of novel farming practices. Recent studies suggest that such cooperation might be particularly relevant for the digitalization of farming, reflected in the transition from mechanical to data-based agricultural tools and practices, collectively referred to as smart farming technologies (SFT). Here, we aim to understand which actors are involved, the roles they have, and how they contribute to the innovation processes leading to SFT use in farm management. To do so, we selected 6 SFT innovations from different European regions. Timeline and constellation analyses were used to study the actors and their contribution to different phases of the innovation processes. We observed 13 different categories of actors that had three different types of actor roles: developer, supporter, and end-user. We found the highest number of both actor diversity and number of roles during the initiation phase, with a subsequent decrease over the next two phases. Farmers were the only actors who took on all 3 roles, and most actors were supporters. Farmer and IT-experts made up the most common constellation for agricultural apps. Constellations made up of farmers, advisors, and agri-tech actors were the most common in innovative practices dependent on GPS. The divide in the technological complexity and the degree of required learning and change for farmers in SFT innovation processes was reflected by the two innovation categories we studied, namely agricultural apps and in-field practices dependent on GPS. These could therefore constitute a defining difference in how to determine actor constellations in SFT innovation processes.