Agrotechnology Colonization 4.0 : Digital agriculture discourses and new coloniality in Argentina and beyond

Argentina is among the largest producers of transgenics and its export occupies a strategic place in the GDP. In 2020, Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and tech-companies lobbied the government to adopt Agro-Technology ecosystem as a strategic plan to intensify and add technologies that present uncertain risk. This work analyzes the hegemony of techno-optimistic discourses that support the adoption of AgTech. Through the analysis of meanings and chaining between key concepts, it was determined that discourses attempt to make power relations invisible by presenting technology as ideologically neutral; and the best solution to increase production while it allows to reach social, economic and environmental sustainability goals. Despite being presented as inclusive, collaborative, scientifically objective and efficient; the analysis conducted determined that the AgTech ecosystem is dominated by corporations and venture capitals. The training programs for AgTech companies impose an image of market-oriented entrepreneurs. In addition, corporations extract and accumulate in the global north flexible values, such as patents, data. Thus, this should be understood as a dependency, compatible with colonial structures, from Argentina towards the corporations that manage to control the agro-industrial system.