Legal Implications of AI in Agriculture: A Systematic Review on Farmer Protection and Fairness
Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence, Precision Agriculture, Data Governance, Liability, Smart Farming, Legal RegulationAbstract
Agriculture is the most basic economic activity and the main source of livelihood for millions of farmers. Of late, agriculture has been increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence in the form of precision farming solutions, predictive analytics, decision-making systems, crop insurance solutions and advisory services. Although agriculture and artificial intelligence were often treated as separate domains, this distinction now no longer reflects reality. AI is now directly influencing agricultural decision-making, insurance and risk-sharing in agricultural value chains. The truth is that most farmers are not aware of artificial intelligence and this creates a huge disparity between farmers and agri-tech companies. This enables opaque data handling, algorithms and automated decision-making to be applied against farmers, particularly in AI crop insurance and risk evaluation systems, where errors can be catastrophic to farmers. The absence of a full international legal framework on AI in agriculture also makes farmers insufficiently protected in the rapidly evolving digital agricultural environment. The chapter will examine the key legal problems emerging from the use of AI in agriculture, such as ownership and control of data, informed consent, transparency, liability for automated decision-making and access to remedies. It will contend that even at present, the legal frameworks are inadequate to address the issues arising from AI agricultural applications. The paper will propose a farmer-friendly legal framework for AI agriculture that is based on data sovereignty, algorithmic inclusion, knowledge stewardship, equity and accountability by transparent AI.
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