Hendrik Zeddies

• New Technologies
• Agriculture, land use, climate change
• Innovation and science policy

• Germany

Public Perceptions of Digital Farming Technologies and Digital Futures

Digital technologies are changing agricultural production systems and will characterize agriculture in the future.

Studies indicate that a large proportion of arable farms in Germany are already using digital technologies. This proportion will continue to rise in the future. The solutions used are becoming increasingly complex. Currently, mainly computer-based applications, such as farm management systems, are used. Future  farms will probably use machines that can perform tasks on the field autonomously, such as robots.

Topics related to agricultural food production are subject of intensive public debate in Germany. Genetic engineering innovations, for example, have been widely rejected so far.

For this reason, it is important to examine the public perspective on new technologies for arable farming. Moreover, it is important to identify critical factors that can contribute to acceptance, but also those that cause rejection of new technologies.

This project aims at: (1) Exploring what German citizens know about digitization and automation in agriculture and how they perceive current developments, (2) outlining scenarios of what agriculture, especially crop farming, could look like in the future and (3) combining these pieces of information into an overall picture with the experiences from the practical development of machines and models in the PhenoRob project and farmers' perspectives regarding new technologies. Results may help improve public communication around new digital farming technologies.

Data for the project will be collected through representative surveys among the German population and focus group discussions. The data will be analyzed using quantitative (multivariate) and qualitative methods.

The project is part of the Cluster of Excellence "PhenoRob" at the University of Bonn and is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Project Overview: https://www.zef.de/projects

>Intern: Salm-Salm & Partner Asset Management - Forestry and Agriculture (02/2020-04/2020)

>Intern: Deutscher Raiffeisenverband e.V. - German Agri-Cooperative Interest Organization (11/2019-01/2020)

>Farm Hand: LTL Kielmansegg (Summer of 2018/2019/2021)

>Apprenticeship as a Farmer (2014-2016)

>MA Agricultural Science, Georg-August University Göttingen (2019-2022)

>BA Agricultural Science, Georg-August University Göttingen (2016-2019)

Society's Attitudes towards Agriculture, Impact of Digital Farming Technologies, Arable Farming Systems

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) via the Cluster of Excellence PhenoRob

Public Perceptions of Digital Farming Technologies and Digital Futures

Prof. Dr. Matin Qaim

Prof. Dr. Gesa Busch (University of Applied Sciences Weihenstephan-Triesdorf)

Dr. Martin Parlasca

Curriculum Vitae.pdf [PDF]