‘Smart Farming’ in Ireland: A User Centred Approach to Understanding Farmer Engagement with Digital Technology

The agricultural sector is entering a new era of farming, characterised by the introduction and proliferation of digital technologies in the sector. There is a growing push towards digital agriculture with digital tools being primed as the ‘silver bullet’ solution to many of the sectors’ challenges. However, despite promises to enhance farm efficiency, productivity, and environmental sustainability, the transition to digital agriculture is facing significant challenges and resistance. These include low adoption rates and high levels of uncertainty and scepticism regarding the implementation and impact of digital tools. Applying a social science lens to digital agriculture, this thesis explores if and how the social sciences can address these challenges and help to support this digital transition. Employing a scoping study methodology, this thesis reviews and provides an overview of 200 social science references relative to digital agriculture to explore what this discipline has learned about agricultural digitalisation so far. This research finds 7 key themes pertaining this research area, all of which have been reported on both positively and negatively, highlighting the complex, and double edged nature of agricultural digitalisation. To mitigate the negative impacts of digital technologies and to improve the characteristically low technology adoption rates amongst farmers, this research underscores the need to reframe some of the sectors digital challenges. This research emphasises the need to shift the focus from solely attributing low technology adoption to farmers, to instead considering how digital technologies are designed for farmers to adopt and use. This research explores the applicability of novel and innovative methods of technology design to improve farmers’ acceptance of technology. This research does this by applying a participatory design approach to the design of a novel innovation for animal health use. Using qualitative approaches (focus groups), this research engages dairy farmers and veterinarians to consider the design of this innovation. Engaging end users to contextualise the concept of an animal health testing tool was useful in identifying the tools potential value and key user needs for its successful adoption and use. This approach also allowed end users to highlight potential design issues and concerns with the device prior to its development. As well as this, this approach identified some unintended negative impacts this tool could have if it is not sufficiently designed. A subsequent multi-stakeholder co-design workshop addressed these design concerns and participants generated co-created and context specific solutions to support the tools successful design. The co-design workshop also fostered discussions on other important considerations for innovation design such as what is needed for successful deployment and use of the tool. These insights can be used by the tools technology developers to guide the design of this device, ensuring that the device addresses end user values and needs, contributing towards its successful adoption and use. Overall, this doctoral thesis highlights the pivotal role the social sciences play in understanding and addressing the challenges of agricultural digitalisation. By synthesising existing knowledge and exploring innovative approaches to technology design, this thesis offers valuable theoretical and practical insights that can inform the successful creation of responsive digital innovations. These insights, and the approaches used, can be replicated to support and navigate the agricultural industry towards achieving a more sustainable and responsible digital farming future.