In a world where corporate giants dominate, digital innovation in agriculture is often promoted as the primary solution to the global food crisis. But in reality it is often associated with data extraction, concentrating power while deepening inequalities. Experiences around the world demonstrate the role of informed, independent and critically engaged youth in gaining digital sovereignty for agroecological farmers and other local food system actors. In this piece, the authors argue that young people’s technological fluency can serve as a vehicle for grassroots agricultural digitalisation rooted in data sovereignty – but only if they are equipped to lead.
While ‘inclusive innovation initiatives’ attempt to improve accessibility, responsible governance and usability of digital tools for small-scale farmers, they frequently fail to address deeper structural injustices. Their main limitation lies in a focus on integrating farmers into existing corporate systems rather than questioning who owns the data, infrastructure and decision-making power.
Yet grassroots-driven and grassroots-owned digitalisation in support of agroecology is possible and, in fact, happening. Communities and networks in different regions are making clear that digital tools can support agroecology when food producers retain authority over their design and over decisions about how, and for what purpose, technologies are used. Young people play a leading role in these processes. This is all the more important, because at the same time, rural exodus and farmer aging have created an urgent need to engage youth as central actors in sustaining decentralised, local food systems.
Youth as technology bridges: LITEFARM
The experience of a digital platform developed in the context of a research project in Latin America highlights the untapped potential of youth as facilitators of access, knowledge and digital adoption. The project Agroecology in Latin America: Building Paths, was a participatory action research initiative involving 10 farmer organisations from seven countries. Its main focus was on capacity building in agroecology. Booklets were created collectively, workshops and regional exchanges took place, and quantitative and qualitative surveys and research informed the work of the farmer organisations. Between 2020 and 2025, the project engaged over 527 farming families. They identified a shared challenge: how can we measure agroecological productivity beyond yield, looking at social and environmental impacts?
In response, the University of British Columbia, together with farmers and farmer organisations, developed LiteFarm, a free, open-source farm management platform that enables farmers to record, track and analyse farm activities. Designed to support research on agroecology, climate resilience and social and ecological justice, the platform allows academics to access farmer-owned data under strict governance frameworks.
The data that can be recorded is very diverse: crop plans (number of crops, planting time, harvest time, species, amount harvested, income generated, amount used for self-consumption); labour (wages per hour and per task, labour division amongst gender, age of workers); biological diversity (species of crops, species of insects recorded); animals (amount, species, use, diversity); certifications (certification used, downloadable excel sheets, insights on farm yield and farm performance, etc.). LiteFarm can be used in eight languages and currently has over 8,000 registered users across more than 160 countries.
Young people’s technological familiarity should not be confused with knowledge on ethical data governance
Throughout the project, youth emerged as unexpected yet pivotal actors in the use of the platform, as observed by participants. Karen Valverde (MESSE, Ecuador) said, “Young people have played a key role in the adoption of LiteFarm and technology in general within farming communities.” Youth have often acted as technological bridges within families and communities facing aging populations and limited digital access. Kokaib Saloj (Vivamos Mejor, Guatemala) noted: “Technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, and farmers are falling behind; meanwhile young people are keeping up with it but neglecting agriculture. LiteFarm brought two generations together for a common goal: promoting sustainable agriculture with technology as an ally.”
Results of the project’s final survey also confirmed that integrating youth into agroecology pilots that use digital tools reinforces the interest of youth in continuing agricultural work. However, as Ricardo Eslava (Corambiente, Colombia) emphasised, youth engagement must be understood within its broader socioeconomic and cultural contexts. For example, young people in rural areas and in cities have different responsibilities, upbringing, needs and cultures. Rural youth may face many more structural challenges to accessing resources than city youth, such as having to help in household chores, lack of disposable income/financial freedom, taking care of animals and elders, lack of access to technology, lack of access to schools that closed because of governmental decisions, etc. Integrated policies must therefore recognise rural youth as a distinct group with specific needs and aspirations, while also acknowledging their strategic role in agroecological transitions.
The project revealed important lessons. Despite having high digital literacy in everyday tool usage, many young people lack awareness of technology architecture related to data sovereignty, ownership rights and commercial data extraction. While youth are often described as ‘digital natives’, their technological familiarity should not be confused with knowledge about ethical data governance or critical awareness of the risks of data concentration in the hands of few companies. And even when youth possess the adaptability and technical fluency needed to co-create locally-developed and managed digital solutions, they frequently lack access to funding, legal literacy, technical and political training and institutional support.
This project taught us that strengthening youth engagement therefore requires fostering financial autonomy, expanding education in data governance and open-source technologies, promoting leadership pathways and supporting youth-led innovation. The lessons from LiteFarm and the Building Paths project demonstrate how targeted capacity-building can reinforce family succession and youth participation in agroecology.
The challenge of positioning youth as digital facilitators: BILIM
However, supporting youth in this role is a bumpy road, as the case of the digital platform of BILIM demonstrates. BILIM is an alliance of agroecology organisations aligned with the Nyéléni Declaration on Agroecology spanning 11 countries in West-Central Asia, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. A digital knowledge platform for BILIM was co-developed with JengaLab as a space where grassroots expertise is centralised and openly shared across languages without compromising community ownership and sensitive data protection.
The BILIM platform is an open-source, multilingual web application that facilitates knowledge exchange on farming practices, policy frameworks and technical solutions among BILIM organisations. It enables sharing of specialised data such as seed maps, geolocation data and biodiversity indicators that is not supported by mainstream platforms. An added value of the platform for BILIM is that it creates a closed community, which makes it a coordination tool for policy advocacy and legal adaptation. The platform holds immense potential, and can offer numerous benefits to the community.
Youth are not always given the space in their organisation to change existing structures
However, adoption of the digital platform by members of the BILIM alliance was not easy, and encountered cultural and structural barriers. Digital fatigue, limited ‘office time’, and the absence of mobile phone designs, position the platform for many as a burdensome task. Additionally, there is a misconception among users that the platform provides information rather than hosts collective contributions. Shifting from passive consumption to active participation remains a central challenge.
In an effort to address these barriers, the co-developers appointed youth moderators within each organisation at the BILIM network’s annual forum in 2023. The idea was that young people’s technical proficiency would position them as natural facilitators who could be responsible for content moderation, information sharing and coordination. However, this has not worked out as was hoped – the platform is still not widely used. A thorough evaluation is yet to take place, but our assessment is that there are several contributing factors. First, the concept of the platform did not emerge from young people themselves, which perhaps made them less motivated. And second, young people are not always given the space within their organisations to change existing structures and norms.
Empowering youth
The examples described here show that youth have the potential to shift the focus of digital use from mainstream platform-centred extractive models toward network-owned approaches. While mainstream tools can be used by farmers for communication and coordination but carry the risks of data extraction and exploitation, community-led digital infrastructures are essential for achieving digital, knowledge and food sovereignty. Retaining control over data ensures that decision-making power remains with farmers rather than corporate algorithms. Youth can play a key role in this shift provided they are supported in this role.
With proper training, young leaders can support autonomous digital transitions rooted in community control. Targeted capacity building should include the topics of digital sovereignty, the political economy of data, open-source systems, ethical data governance and contextual tool adaptation. With that support, youth can transition from passive users to designers, stewards and ambassadors of open and decentralised agtech ecosystems. Empowering youth in this way strengthens community data sovereignty and accelerates agroecological transitions.
Ultimately, technological sovereignty and food sovereignty are inseparable; local food systems resilience closely depends on the decentralisation of digital control and the local control on knowledge more generally. In worldwide struggles for decentralisation and local governance, young people must be recognised and supported to take a position at the centre.
Authors: Carolina Diaz (24) is an agroecological transitions project coordinator at the University of British Columbia, working at the intersection of digital tools, data governance and sustainable food systems. Marco Cattaneo (30) is an agtech and digital sovereignty expert collaborating with Jengalab and Schola Campesina to investigate the intersection of political economy, data justice and digitalisation. Caroline Ledant (39) is part of Schola Campesina and supports the facilitation of the Grassroots Innovations Assembly for Agroecology, advancing the rights of people to maintain, protect and develop their knowledge systems. Barbara Kurek (39) is a journalist and researcher working at the intersection of women’s rights and community-based food systems and a board member of the Agro-Perma-Lab Foundation, part of the BILIM alliance on agroecology. Contact: marco@jengalab.org
This article is part of Issue 4-2026: Youth leading the way in agroecology.
