Spare A Thought For The Victims As ‘Techno Feudalism’ Takes Control Of Agriculture In India

Several years back, a smartly dressed gentleman came to see me. He had been trying for an appointment for quite some time and eventually we could find a mutually convenient time to meet. After the meeting, I was left wondering about the real purpose of his visit.

What he informed me was that he represented an American defence company that was engaged in collecting data pertaining to agriculture. The company already had a much larger team of researchers, including data processors, fanning in different parts of the country. To my question as to what interest and purpose the defence company had in collecting data about soil texture, soil fertility, and soil types for instance, the answers he gave me left me quite bewildered.

Perhaps, I was too naive to understand where the future of agriculture was headed to in the age of digitalisation. The replies I got did make me think and, of course, read more.

Anyway, to cut the story short, when I read a recent Twitter update by Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece and a professor of economics, I realised where the push for technology was leading to.

His argument was that capitalism is eating up democracy, and in his recent book: “Techno Feudalism- what killed capitalism” (Penguin Random House, 2024) he talks of the new order where the Big Tech takes over.

Unlike the landlords of the past, a new breed of technology lords will lead ‘Techno Feudalism’ of the future.

I haven’t yet read his book but what I gather from the rave reviews that have appeared, the book is not only engaging but rips apart the growing emergence of its sinister replacement by a term he coined – Techno Feudalism. It may take some time for us to understand the working of the DeepState through digitalisation, which is fuelling the enthusiasm and excitement about the new and sophisticated technologies. As the world gets swashed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and gets hooked on to newer and unknown possibilities that are likely to be thrown up or in real terms drowning the society in the months and years to come, it’s important to sit back and see how the rural landscape (and more importantly agriculture) is quietly undergoing a change.

Along with newer technology, appropriate enabling environment being facilitated by economic policies, has already begun to applaud the emergence of a new class of ‘food barons’.

The term ‘food barons” was created by ETC Group, and it ranks the largest food corporations that will dominate the food sector. The report on ‘food barons’ is a must for all those who would like to know more about food prowess or should I simply call it ‘food power’.

“The new cold war between the USA and China, especially after the war in Ukraine, is explained as the repercussion of an underlying clash between two Techno Feudalisms, one whose cloud rents are denominated in dollars the other in yuan,” says Yanis.

It is here that one needs to grasp the importance of how ‘Techno Feudalism’ is taking control of agriculture in India and China.

In an excellent study by Grain -- a small non-profit organisation based out of Barcelona – entitled: ‘Techno Feudalism takes root on the farm in India and China’ says: “If Microsoft is sincere then it will clearly have to focus on India and China, where nearly two-thirds of the world’s small farms are located. This, at least with India, is happening, and Microsoft is not the only tech corporation with its sights on the country’s small farmers. In China, geopolitical tensions with the US over technology are keeping Microsoft and other US-based corporations out of the picture. But there are Chinese tech companies that are moving ahead with similar agenda there too.”

The Grain paper details the approaches being made in India. The boom in agritech startups – up from 450 in 2019 to 6,224 in 2023 – are the building blocks of Microsoft’s cloud – where all of its data is gathered, stored and then converted, using AI, into digital products it can sell.

And if you remember the story of the US defence company representative who had come to see me, you’ll now understand how menacingly the data compilation was being done. Over the years, the tech giants will acquire most of these data-based companies to build a larger cloud base. The startups use this data and in return generate more sophisticated data for Microsoft’s cloud.

In April 2021, Microsoft entered into an agreement for the construction of a massive digital database with the Indian government, known as Agri Stack, containing detailed information about each farmer receiving government benefits –and Grain says it included their land titles to their medical histories as well. As a pilot project that Microsoft’s local partner CropData launched in collaboration with 100 villages in which the company collects personal information about farmers along with agricultural data to offer customised products and services to farmers. All this data sinks into Microsoft’s cloud, and is then utilised to provide farmers with information beginning with innocuously safe weather forecasting information to building more confidence among farmers to relying on information pertaining to soil health of the farms, possibility of pest attack and the inputs required to take control, and then lure them to still more sophisticated technology inputs.

It will be better if I am able to explain the vast partnership being undertaken by Microsoft in India.

Some of Microsoft's key partners in Indian agriculture

Partners(start) Activity with Microsoft

ICRISAT (2016) App sends advice to farmers in local languages through SMS about ideal time to sow their crops.

United Phosphorous Ltd (2017) "Pest Risk Prediction" app uses AI and machine learning to warn farmers on risks of pest attacks.

Government of Karnataka (2017) Agricultural commodity price forecasting model for the Karnataka Agricultural Price Commission (KAPC) to provide improved price forecasting for farmers.

Escorts Kubota Limited (2018) Autonomous tractor that can seed, till and apply pesticides and fertilisers.

India's Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (2021) Agri Stack, a unified farmer service of the central government that will bring together personal information data on 50 million farmers and provide them with a digital interface for accessing extension services, credit, farm inputs and markets.

CropData and UAE's DMCC (2020) "Agriota" app to connect farmers to UAE bulk buyers on an online market platform.

Government of India, AI4Bharat and OpenNyAI (2023) AI-based chatbot, Jugalbandi, to help farmers access government assistance on their mobile devices.

Source: Grain,, Oct 24, 2024.

Similarly, the big agritech push is being backed by the Chinese government.

“On the one hand, farmers are being encouraged to sign-up to corporate controlled digital platforms through programmes that are subsidised by governments or even rolled out by governments and public agencies all too content to cut back on their extension services and substitute them with apps developed in partnership with big tech companies,” Grain observes.

How true is this becomes quite obvious when the CEO of a formidable NGO in Hyderabad told me that their project proposal was turned down by the concerned agricultural department saying that it lacked technology component, meaning it was not backed by an app.

As Yanis rightly says: “Recognising that our world has become Techno Feudal helps us grasp the enormity of what it will take to organise the victims of exorbitant power.”

And that includes farmers, farm workers and daily wage earners as well as food consumers.

(The author is a noted food policy analyst and an expert on issues related to the agriculture sector. He writes on food, agriculture and hunger)