Digitalisation of Agri-Food Systems: A Paradigm Shift?

Abstract Digitalisation in agri-food systems will have major concrete consequences for environmental, ethical, legal and social developments in decades to come. Because of the far reaching consequences of the event of digitalisation, recent developments in the data economy have been described as involving a paradigm shift. This paper offers a conceptual framework that aims to contribute to existing transition theory by enhancing the philosophical perspective on the multidimensional transformation of digitalisation in agri-food. The research works from a broad understanding of paradigm shifts, extrapolating it onto empirical instances of current events in agri-food. It investigates, beyond components such as innovations, policies and institutions, the onto-epistemological basis of system configurations, exploring fundamental and ethical questions at stake in planetary crises and systemic entanglements. It ultimately answers that a complete shift has not yet occurred because the axiological dimension entailing values and ethics has not evolved along with other paradigm dimensions. It concludes in the normative claim that the concept of a paradigm shift should be used consciously, to remain critical of the suggestion that a novel ethical framework exists today and to warn of the risk of falling back into traditional, unsustainable tendencies.