Dr Oane Visser
Political Economy Fellow 2020-25
Digital farms, tinkering farmers, and enlightened hackers: Farmers as the vanguard of data activist movements?
This project will investigate how farmers attempt to resist or mitigate rising data-driven corporate control, as well as explore farmers’ alternative data/technology arrangements and their potential for enabling a transformation towards a more equitable and sustainable agriculture.
More informationResearch outcomes
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Gatti, F., Visser, O., Obala, M. L., Atabo, E., & Atanga, S. N. (2026).
Not-so-digital platforms? Non-use, (in)appropriate technologies, and offline dimensions of digital agricultural services for smallholders in rural Africa. Journal of Rural Studies, 125, 104210.
Areas of interest
Cohort
Biography
Oane Visser is associate professor at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), in The Hague, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He has been visiting researcher at University of Oxford, Toronto University, Cornell University and City University New York.
Building on his long-term research on agrifood issues, his latest research projects study digitalization in the sphere of agriculture, natural resources and global development more broadly. He is principal investigator of a Toyota Foundation funded international project on digital/smart farming, emerging farm data cooperatives and changing values regarding data in the EU, Russia and Australia. Another (ISS-funded) project examines the labour implications of new digital technologies in EU agriculture. Further, together with data scientists, he investigates the role of big data and AI in preventing or mitigating land grabs.
Visser also furthers his longer standing research on (super)large farms, farmland investment and financialisation (investigated amongst others within his European Research Council (ERC) project), increasingly seeking to integrate it with environmental history and the study of the impact of climate change. Another important line of research is around smallholders, alternative food networks and (‘quiet’) food sovereignty, in particular in post-socialist countries.
Visser has (co)-edited various special issues, and numerous book chapters and articles in journals like Globalizations, Journal of Rural Studies, European Journal of Sociology, Journal of Peasant Studies, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Agriculture and Human Values. Visser is coordinator of the Eurasian Agrofood and Land initiative (EURAL), and an editor of Focaal- Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology.
Building on his long-term research on agrifood issues, his latest research projects study digitalization in the sphere of agriculture, natural resources and global development more broadly. He is principal investigator of a Toyota Foundation funded international project on digital/smart farming, emerging farm data cooperatives and changing values regarding data in the EU, Russia and Australia. Another (ISS-funded) project examines the labour implications of new digital technologies in EU agriculture. Further, together with data scientists, he investigates the role of big data and AI in preventing or mitigating land grabs.
Visser also furthers his longer standing research on (super)large farms, farmland investment and financialisation (investigated amongst others within his European Research Council (ERC) project), increasingly seeking to integrate it with environmental history and the study of the impact of climate change. Another important line of research is around smallholders, alternative food networks and (‘quiet’) food sovereignty, in particular in post-socialist countries.
Visser has (co)-edited various special issues, and numerous book chapters and articles in journals like Globalizations, Journal of Rural Studies, European Journal of Sociology, Journal of Peasant Studies, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Agriculture and Human Values. Visser is coordinator of the Eurasian Agrofood and Land initiative (EURAL), and an editor of Focaal- Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology.
Biographical details correct as of 29.05.26