Digital Divide and Digital Inequality in Global Food Systems

Abstract

The article explores the impact of the digital divide and digital inequality on the transformation processes in the world’s food sector through the lens of a new paradigm developed in preparation of the September 2021 UN Food Systems Summit. The purpose of the study is to identify the main causes of the deepening digital inequality in the food sector and ways to overcome it. The authors’ methodology of interdisciplinary comprehensive analysis of socio-economic processes makes it possible to identify the most disruptive points that inhibit food provision to the global population in the context of digitalization. It is argued that the digital inequality in various food systems is based on the multi-speed nature of digitalization processes in individual countries and among groups of economic entities, and this creates new competitive landscape and, consequently, a new ratio of market advantages and risks. It is concluded that the digital inequality in the global food systems has implication beyond the market profoundly affecting social outcomes. It exacerbates the food security problem in terms of economic affordability of food due to a decrease or loss of income of the rural population, who lose their jobs in the digitalization context, and also generates new risks of functioning in digital ecosystems. This situation makes it difficult to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), namely SDG-2 and related goals. However, the impact of government regulation of the food sector on overcoming digital inequality remains ambiguous.