Agricultural value chain organizations in the digitalization of agriculture: use prescription, for which transition?

Digital innovation is seen as having the potential to support the transition of agri-food value chains. While digitalization can be used to ensure transparency and fairness, monitor sustainability and develop knowledge, it can also alter power relations within these chains and lead to large and dominant actors controlling the chain (Meemken et al., 2024). The literature emphasizes the crucial role of intermediary organizations in the transition and innovation of agri-food systems, particularly the role of value chain organizations (Cholez and Magrini, 2023; Kivimaa et al., 2019; Klerkx and Leeuwis, 2009). Regarding digitalization, the literature highlights the essential role of intermediary organizations (Busse et al., 2015). However, little research has been conducted on the specific role of value chain organizations in this digitalization. What role do value chain organizations play in the digitalization of agriculture? How might this affect the transition of agri-food systems? In this study, we argue that digital adoption by farmers is not simply the result of individual choices, but is framed by an innovation system and socio-economic environment. Value chain organizations play an important role in this environment, as strategic economic entities and as innovation intermediaries (Cholez and Magrini, 2023; Kivimaa et al., 2019; Klerkx and Leeuwis, 2009). Based on interviews conducted between 2020 and 2021 with arable farmers (n=98), winegrowers (n=43) and value-chain organizations (n=11), we propose an analysis combining descriptive statistics and qualitative insights, to reveal the roles and functions of value chain organizations in the digitalisation. The results highlight that these organizations: 1) Facilitate the use of digital technologies, by raising awareness of technology, providing logistical or economic access to the technology, sharing knowledge, enabling the adaptation of technologies and facilitating peer-to-peer exchanges. 2) Promote specific uses that are of particular interest to the organization or the associated collective. For example, the use of traceability software to gain access to new markets, or the digital services they commercialize. 3) Compel the use of technologies, particularly by including them in contracts, where digital technologies are seen as a mean of standardizing supply and collecting data for knowledge-building, advisory services, evaluation and creating value. These results demonstrate that, with digitalization, value chain organizations have new intermediary functions and act as prescriptive organizations for the use of digital technologies on farms. This creates opportunities for building knowledge and sharing risk and value, but also generates tensions and trade-offs which impact the transition. As data collectors and technological prescribers, some organizations gain power. Digital technology may perpetuate or even increase power imbalances within agri-food value chains (Fairbairn et al., 2025). It can contribute to the socio-technical lock-in of farmers within a particular production system, preventing them from changing their practices (Lioutas and Charatsari, 2020). Moreover, our results highlight that value chain organizations tend to prioritize a digitalization for efficiency rather than redesign (Schnebelin et al., 2021). They also move towards an "ecologisation of legitimation", where data is used to justify practices without seeking to modify them, creating an "informational quality" that can generate a rent from product differentiation without initiating a real transition. The governance of this technological change must be carefully considered to prevent power imbalances and further lock-in in agri-food value chains.