Digital platforms in the agricultural sector: Dynamics of oligopolistic platformisation

Digital platforms and their ecosystems have become the dominant organisational form in the digital economy, reorganising markets and redefining value creation, industry coordination and innovation (Gawer, 2021; Kenney et al., 2019). Referred to as the ‘platform economy’ (Kenney and Zysman, 2016) or ‘platform capitalism’ (Srnicek, 2017a), these platforms, powered by big data and artificial intelligence (AI), form the core of new business models. In their analysis of ‘platformisation’ across sectors like news, urban transport, health and education, Van Dijck et al. (2018) show how platforms often disrupt existing markets and lead to the rise of (new) dominant players.

In contrast, the agricultural (ag) sector presents a diverging case. Rather than new entrants disrupting the market, digital platforms in agriculture have integrated into pre-existing oligopolistic market structures dominated by a few multinational agribusinesses and Big Tech companies. This paper introduces the concept of ‘oligopolistic platformisation’ to describe the specific dynamics of collaboration and competition amongst and between two of the most profitable and highly concentrated global industries: multinational upstream agribusinesses¹ and Big Tech companies.² Unlike platformisation in other industries, where new entrants often disrupt existing structures, oligopolistic platfomisation in the ag sector reinforces market concentration amongst existing players. By employing digital platforms, agribusinesses and Big Tech companies aim to further consolidate their influence over ag inputs, data and services, which can significantly impact industry coordination, innovation and overall value creation.

This paper qualitatively explores how these oligopolistic market structures shape the process and outcomes of platformisation in the ag sector, particularly in commodity cropland farming systems.³ We show that the integration of digital platforms into this industry has resulted in the formation of an Ag-Big Tech Complex, where agribusinesses operate sectoral platforms focusing on specific niches, whilst Big Tech provides the underlying infrastructural platforms for data analytics, AI and cloud computing.⁴ Multinational agribusinesses, spanning ag machinery, agrochemicals, seeds and biotechnology, offer sectoral platforms to farmers for decision-making support. These platforms can create digital twins of farms (Pylianidis et al., 2021), integrating real-time field-specific data for decision-making and optimisation of farming operations. They combine datasets with factors such as space, climate, weather, machine and agronomic⁵ data into forecasting models. Notable sectoral ag platforms include Bayer's Climate Field View, BASF's xarvio, John Deere Operations Center, CLAAS connect and its 365 FarmNet, Yara's YaraPlus and Syngenta's Cropwise. Conversely, Big Tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google lease their infrastructural platforms to these agribusinesses, enabling them to utilise advanced data analytics and cloud computing.

Research on digital technologies in agriculture highlights their potential to address climate change, food insecurity and environmental degradation. By precisely measuring field conditions and adapting the strategies accordingly, digital ag platforms promise to produce more food on less land with fewer inputs and a smaller ecological footprint, improving soil health, conserving water and enhancing resilience to extreme weather events (Finger et al., 2019; Gebbers and Adamchuk, 2010; McNunn et al., 2020; Weersink et al., 2018). However, scholars emphasise concerns about how digital technologies in the ag sector may exacerbate power asymmetries between farmers and multinational agribusinesses (Bronson, 2019; Bronson and Knezevic, 2016; Clapp and Ruder, 2020; Rotz, Duncan, et al., 2019; Verdonk, 2019). Issues regarding ag data ownership, privacy and security have also been raised (Atik, 2022; Sykuta, 2016; Wolfert et al., 2017). Additionally, there are potential adverse effects on ag labour practices and social relationships across global food production systems, including increased inequalities between smallholder farmers and agro-industrial producers (Drach et al., 2017; Klerkx and Rose, 2020; Prause et al., 2021; Tsouvalis et al., 2000).

Whilst contributions from Maschewski and Nosthoff (2022), Bronson and Sengers (2022) and Hackfort et al. (2024) provide valuable insights into the role of Big Tech and agribusinesses in transforming ag data into value, their focus is primarily on data strategies, technological control and socio-ecological implications. However, a significant research gap remains in understanding the economic relationships and platform business models employed by these industries to create and capture value within digital agriculture. This paper addresses this gap by investigating the cross-sectoral collaborations and competitive dynamics between and amongst multinational agribusinesses and Big Tech companies, offering a deeper examination of the potential of platformisation in reshaping market power and control over ag data and services.

Our paper makes several contributions to the literature on digital platforms within the ag sector. First, it is the first paper that applies Van Dijck et al.'s (2018) concept of platformisation to the ag sector. Second, we introduce the concept of ‘oligopolistic platformisation’, presenting a theoretical framework to elucidate how digital platforms tend to reinforce rather than disrupt existing oligopolistic structures, thereby consolidating market power amongst dominant players. Third, our paper maps the relationships between Big Tech firms and agribusinesses, as well as amongst agribusinesses themselves, uncovering a concentrated power dynamic that often disadvantages smaller start-ups. These mappings illustrate the coexistence of collaboration and competition, where selective data sharing and technological integration enable incumbent firms to protect their market positions, despite some degree of cooperation. Finally, the paper provides critical policy insights for addressing power asymmetries and data fragmentation in the sector.

The paper is structured as follows. We begin by developing the theoretical framework of ‘oligopolistic platformisation’, integrating platform studies with economic theory. The paper then outlines our qualitative research design, based on expert interviews, economic relationship mapping, field observations and a semi-structured literature review. Next, we provide an overview of macro-structural trends in ag industrialisation. The analysis applies Van Dijck et al.'s (2018) platform mechanisms of datafication, selection and commodification, demonstrating how oligopolistic platformisation unfolds in the ag sector, with agribusinesses and Big Tech companies using digital platforms to expand their market position, shaping industry coordination, collaboration, competition and innovation. Finally, we discuss the potential implications of these dynamics for farmers, policymakers and stakeholders in the ag sector.

Digital platforms have emerged as powerful drivers of industry transformation, with newcomers disrupting and reshaping sectors, compelling established players to adapt or lose market share (Ciligot, 2020). These platforms are particularly well-adapted to the novel ways of creating and capturing value given the new technological conditions of the digital age (Gawer, 2021), reshaping industrial architectures from products to services and solutions (Gawer, 2009). As key drivers for restructuring the global economy, they have gathered enormous influence, potentially giving their owners more power than early industrialists (Kenney, Zysman et al., 2021). Central to their dominance is the potential for winner-takes-all dynamics (Schilling, 2002), where platforms leverage network effects to exponentially increase their value as their user base grows, leading to market concentration and creating high barriers to entry for competitors (Baldwin and Woodard, 2009; Boudreau and Jeppesen, 2015; Rochet and Tirole, 2002; Tirole, 2023).

A key feature of digital platforms is their reliance on data as a foundational resource. Training data enhances algorithms, personalises content and generates data-driven services, creating ‘feedback loops’ that further solidify a platform's market dominance (Bajari et al., 2019; Srnicek, 2017a). Early entrants often gain a first-mover advantage, benefitting from network effects and creating high barriers for competitors (Katz and Shapiro, 1994; Shapiro and Varian, 1999). Although some platform companies, like Uber, have historically reported losses (Cusumano et al., 2019), investors continue to invest due to the anticipation of a ‘winner take all or most’ scenario (Cusumano, 2022).

Digital platforms typically function as two-sided markets, connecting diverse customer groups and facilitating extensive goods and services, often relying on an ecosystem of autonomous agents to co-create value (Boudreau and Hagiu, 2008; Hein et al., 2020; Rietveld and Schilling, 2021). Their success is driven by economies of scale, which enable cost reduction and the reinforcement of a platform's dominant position (Baldwin and Woodard, 2009; Boudreau and Jeppesen, 2015; Rochet and Tirole, 2002; Tirole, 2023). As a result, many digital platforms evolve into concentrated markets, characterised by limited competition and dominant players (Scott Morton et al., 2023).

Drawing on these insights and The Platform Society (Van Dijck et al., 2018), we analyse how platformisation reshapes economic relationships and organisational forms in the ag sector along three central mechanisms: datafication, selection and commodification. Datafication captures and circulates data on platforms, including previously unquantifiable aspects like behavioural metadata (Van Dijck et al., 2018: 33), allowing platforms to function as ecosystems through data exchange. Big Tech companies, positioned at the centre of this ecosystem, control the circulation of data to and from other platforms via their infrastructural platforms. Selection curates relevant content and services through personalisation and moderation practices (Van Dijck et al., 2018: 40), using data-driven algorithms based on user behaviour. Finally, commodification transforms user data and interactions into tradable commodities and marketable products (Van Dijck et al., 2018: 37). The latter is closely connected to datafication and selection as commodification relies on the extensive data collection and algorithmic curation to combine data, user behaviour and preferences into commodities and services for commercial purposes.

The ag sector presents a unique case where pre-existing oligopolistic structures, rather than disruptive new entrants, dominate platformisation. Multinational agribusinesses such as Bayer, John Deere, BASF and Syngenta have long played a significant role in ag markets for seeds, agrochemicals and machinery. Along with Big Tech companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft, these incumbents have extended their dominance into digital agriculture, a process we term ‘oligopolistic platformisation’. Oligopolistic platformisation differs from platformisation described by (Van Dijck et al. (2018) in four key ways as summarised in Table 1.

Our study follows a qualitative triangulation design which is particularly suitable because the ag sector's oligopolistic market structure differs from other sectors where platformisation is driven by disruptive new entrants, requiring a flexible and iterative method to capture its unique dynamics. The qualitative methods employed include a semi-structured literature review, expert interviews and field observations, as well as information gathered from press releases and registration on various sectoral ag platforms.⁶ Guided by an abductive research design, which involves developing new theoretical insights through iterative refinement based on empirical data, we develop our concept of ‘oligopolistic platformisation’.

Our literature review drew on the academic databases Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar, focusing on peer-reviewed articles, industry reports and white papers. Search terms included ‘digital agriculture’, ‘platform economics’, ‘platformisation’, ‘precision farming’, ‘agtech’ and ‘political economy’. Whilst we did not keep an exact count of all items retrieved, approximately 300 publications were reviewed after screening titles and abstracts. These initial results were further refined using Van Dijck et al.'s (2018) platform mechanisms – datafication, selection and commodification – and literature on market structures associated with platform economics. This process yielded a focused set of 150 sources that informed our theoretical and conceptual framework.

Additionally, we conducted twelve expert interviews from 2022 to 2024 with multinational upstream agribusinesses, including Bayer, BASF, CLAAS and John Deere; from Big Tech companies, including Microsoft, Google and Amazon Web Services (AWS); and key stakeholders like start-ups, farmers’ associations, policymakers and research institutions. Interviewees were selected through strategic LinkedIn searches, university networks and industry and networking events, employing a mix of purposive and snowball sampling methods (Morgan, 2008). Based on insights from the expert interviews additional literature was considered in the analysis.

The semi-structured interview format allowed for discussion of pre-defined factors adapted to each interview partner whilst permitting the interviewees to raise or expand upon aspects they deemed particularly relevant (Clifford et al., 2010). During the interviews, participants highlighted additional economic themes not captured by Van Dijck et al.'s (2018) framework, such as simultaneous competition and collaboration dynamics and lock-in effects. This prompted us to expand our theoretical lens, incorporating these economic factors. The evolving codebook and qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2021) ensured that our analysis remained grounded in empirical realities. Theoretical saturation (Glaser and Strauss, 1980) was achieved, with recurring themes and stakeholder inputs indicating data sufficiency. Interviewees reviewed and commented on their (paraphrased) statements, and consent was obtained before publication, ensuring accuracy and reliability. Only statements that are clearly indicated to originate from an interview partner should be attributed to that person.

Complementing the interviews, we conducted ten systematic field observations (McCall, 1984) between 2022 and 2024 at network events held by various industry stakeholders, international organisations and leading universities in digital agriculture, including both in-person and online events (see supplementary documents). Additionally, we undertook field trips to farms to contextualise and validate findings from expert interviews.

To map the inter-firm relationships amongst leading agribusinesses and between agribusinesses and Big Tech companies, we created two network visualisations based on press releases, platform registrations and company reports. By enrolling in various sectoral ag platforms and systematically documenting data-sharing capabilities from the perspective of the farmer, we comprehensively mapped partnerships amongst agribusinesses (Figure 1). Collaborations involving Big Tech companies, agribusinesses, start-ups and public institutions (Figure 2) were further mapped using publicly available reports, press releases and farm newspapers. The network diagrams were generated using the data visualisation software Flourish.

The platformisation of the ag sector builds on long-term trends in ag industrialisation, particularly in the Global North and BRICS countries, alongside the liberalisation, globalisation and concentration of ag markets (Clapp et al., 2018; Robinson, 2018; Van der Ploeg, 2010). Strategic mergers, such as DuPont and Dow Chemical, ChemChina's acquisition of Syngenta and Bayer's takeover of Monsanto, have created oligopolistic market structures blurring boundaries between seeds, agrochemicals, biotechnology and digital agriculture (Strömberg and Howard, 2023).

Monsanto's acquisition of The Climate Corporation, a digital ag company that utilises AI for weather, soil and field data analysis and its later absorption into Bayer's operations,⁷ exemplifies how traditional agribusinesses integrate digital technologies whilst maintaining sectoral control. Similarly, John Deere's (2021) acquisition of Bear Flag Robotics was aimed at advancing autonomous farming technologies (John Deere, 2021). However, rather than disrupting the industry, this acquisition further entrenched John Deere's dominance in the ag sector. Both companies also strategically use corporate venture capital to invest in external start-ups, gaining innovation advantages whilst driving new technologies within their operations (Bayer AG, 2023; John Deere, 2024). These investments align with oligopolistic platformisation, whereby incumbents secure early-mover advantages through vertical integration and corporate venture capital (Fairbairn and Reisman, 2024).

Start-ups face both challenges and opportunities within oligopolistic platformisation. Competing with established multinational agribusinesses, which possess superior resources, brand recognition and well-established customer bases, presents significant challenges (Atik, 2023; Hackfort, 2021; Verdonk, 2019). ‘Scaling solutions and reaching customers pose additional challenges for many startups’ (Expert 365 FarmNet, 2022). However, opportunities arise through collaboration with these dominant players, particularly by joining their platform ecosystems (Figure 1). For example, ‘John Deere collaborates with more than 200 companies on its John Deere Operations Centre platform, many of which are startups’ (Expert John Deere 2, 2024). These collaborations allow start-ups to leverage the extensive resources and reach of established agribusinesses.⁸ As a result, whilst competition with multinational agribusinesses remains challenging, start-ups find new opportunities through these partnerships, shifting the competitive landscape towards differentiation amongst start-ups themselves.

Meanwhile, Big Tech companies have grown to near-monopoly status in their respective areas (Kurban, 2024). Leveraging their market position, they have expanded into various sectors, disrupting industries with advanced AI and cloud computing (Kejriwal, 2023; Srnicek, 2017a). In 2023, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Oracle and Google Cloud, alongside IBM and China's Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud and Huawei Cloud, held over 97% of the market share (Haranas, 2024). Recently, these providers have targeted the ag sector, recognising its potential for digital innovation and new markets. Beyond cloud computing and data analytics, they offer services to enhance digital agriculture. This strategic move aligns with oligopolistic platformisation, as Big Tech companies strengthen their control over essential infrastructures that agribusinesses rely on, deepening the collaboration between the two sectors and entrenching market power. For example, AWS has achieved widespread integration across the agri-food value chain, ‘collaborating with both upstream and downstream agribusinesses’ (Expert AWS, 2023). Additionally, AWS has created ‘a marketplace where software and analytics startups can offer their solutions and reach a broader audience, increasing their impact on the industry’ (Expert AWS, 2023). The AWS Marketplace is a digital catalogue that allows customers like agri-industry players to purchase and deploy third-party software and services to build solutions on the AWS platform (Amazon Web Services, n.d.). It connects buyers and sellers, establishing two-sided markets that include both multinational agribusinesses and start-ups, facilitating valuable exchange. Similarly, Google Cloud collaborated with BASF to introduce a generative AI chatbot service for xarvio users in Japan (BASF, 2024), further extending Big Tech's influence within the ag sector.

Datafication is a critical mechanism driving the platformisation of the ag sector, as it transforms previously unquantifiable aspects of farming into measurable digital data. This mechanism involves turning subjects like farmers and their performance, objects like weather, soil and plant health, and practices like harvesting and irrigation into digital data. Whilst agribusinesses, public institutions and ag extensionists have been collecting data about farms and their performance for decades, datafication has introduced Big Tech companies as new stakeholders in the ag sector, producing new types of data (Expert BMEL, 2022). These companies offer predictive analytics for ag production, applying data analytics, machine learning and predictive models for optimising farming practices.

Unlike the platformisation observed in other industries, where a single platform often emerges, datafication in the ag sector is shaped by multiple incumbent firms that maintain control over competing platform ecosystems. For example, in industries like urban transportation, sectoral platforms such as Uber consolidate and control all relevant data flows. In contrast, the ag sector remains divided into silos, with each incumbent agribusiness building and controlling its platform. This creates significant barriers to seamless data integration and leads to sectoral fragmentation, forcing farmers and other stakeholders to navigate a landscape of competing platforms with incompatible data protocols, tools and restrictions.

The mechanism of selection, a critical factor in the platformisation of the ag sector, has undergone a significant transformation. Traditionally based on expert know-how and farmers’ experience, selection is now increasingly driven by algorithm methods, where platforms prioritise and filter information through data analysis rather than human expertise. These algorithms leverage predictive analytics to forecast future choices and trends by analysing historical site-specific patterns of farms or climate conditions (Expert 365 FarmNet, 2022; Expert Climate FieldView, 2022; Expert Microsoft, 2022). For example, digital ag platforms advise farmers about various farming activities, e.g. weed control based on real-time, site-specific conditions on the farm. This shift centralises decision-making in the hands of platforms, reducing the role of human judgment in favour of algorithmic-driven selection.

A key sub-mechanism of selection is moderation, where platforms actively manage content and user access, controlling what information is made available and how it is presented (Van Dijck et al., 2018: 44). In the context of oligopolistic platformisation, moderation is used to reinforce market dominance by curating recommendations and information that favour the platform owner's products and services, often creating information asymmetries that limit farmers’ ability to make fully informed decisions, as well as vendor lock-ins that tie farmers to specific ecosystems. For example, Bayer's Climate FieldView exemplifies how moderation is employed to extend or at least secure its market position. The platform limits its advice and recommendations to the company's products on its platform Climate FieldView (Expert Climate FieldView, 2022).¹⁰ Whilst this focus may stem from the company's expertise in its products, such selective guidance can significantly influence farmers’ decision-making processes. This bias leads to information asymmetries between farmers and agribusinesses, thereby potentially hindering optimal choices, especially when farmers are unaware of it.

Similarly, ag machinery platforms like John Deere use moderation to bind farmers into their machine ecosystems through vendor lock-ins. Machinery from the same company is designed for seamless integration within one brand's platform, whilst intentionally limiting compatibility with equipment from other manufacturers (Hackfort, 2023). Each manufacturer uses a proprietary data format, making it challenging to evaluate and analyse data from different manufacturers within a single platform (Expert 365 FarmNet, 2022; Expert DBV, 2022; Expert Microsoft 2, 2023). This selective data exchange results in data silos, where full interoperability is prevented. Consequently, analysing data from different ag machinery brands within a single platform is only partially possible (Kalmar et al., 2022). ‘This incentivizes farmers to purchase all their farm machinery from a single company, streamlining data integration and operation within one brand's platform and creating lock-in effects that make it difficult for farmers to switch to a competitor's machinery’ (Expert DBV, 2022). In sum, the mechanisms of datafication and selection in oligopolistic platformisation highlight the tension between collaboration and competition within sectoral ag platforms. Whilst collaboration occurs through data sharing, selection sustains competition amongst agribusinesses by creating information asymmetries and vendor lock-ins that restrict farmers’ choices and reinforce firms’ market power.

The commodification mechanism highlights how platforms turn user data and interactions into economic value and marketable products via tradeable commodities and services, often disrupting traditional firms. However, in the ag sector, oligopolistic platformisation allows established companies to strengthen their market position rather than being disrupted. Multinational agribusinesses and Big Tech companies collaborate to commodify personalised ag data, providing data-driven insights to optimise crop yields whilst managing agrochemical inputs. Through these platforms, they aim to centralise digital ag services and make platforms the primary organisational form. Big Tech companies generate revenue through partnerships with sectoral ag platforms, whilst sectoral platforms rely on cross-funding from their agribusinesses’ core businesses, as many are not yet profitable.

Our findings indicate that platformisation in the ag sector involves significant collaboration between multinational upstream agribusinesses and Big Tech companies, blurring traditional industry boundaries. Whilst Prause et al. (2021) have raised concerns about Big Tech's potential threat to agribusinesses and Maschewski and Nosthoff (2022) note that agribusinesses heavily rely on Big Tech, our study demonstrates that these views underestimate how, enabled by Big Tech, agribusinesses can enhance digital ag capacities, generating mutual benefits and creating what we term oligopolistic platformisation.

Datafication has led to multiple, fragmented platform ecosystems, each owned and controlled by multinational upstream agribusinesses. These platforms enable farmers to share their data, thereby increasing platform value through network effects. This aligns with previous studies, which have shown that data sharing can enhance platform value by amplifying network effects (Boudreau and Jeppesen, 2015; Rochet and Tirole, 2002; Schilling, 2002). However, despite this potential, fragmentation persists as each agribusiness maintains control over its data flows and platforms, fostering competition alongside collaboration. Oligopolistic platformisation, in this case, hampers the development of a unified data ecosystem, reinforcing data silos that limit interoperability. Cross-industry partnerships, such as those between agrochemical and machinery companies, illustrate how integrated data solutions provide competitive advantages. Yet, each platform aims to become the dominant platform ecosystem, driven by winner-takes-most dynamics.

Selection mechanisms in oligopolistic platformisation reinforce power relations between agribusinesses and farmers through information asymmetries and vendor lock-ins hindering the latter from switching to potentially better and cheaper alternatives (Atik, 2023; Hackfort, 2023). Ag machinery manufacturers often create technical barriers to agronomic data transfer, resulting in a lack of interoperability and the absence of a data interface, incentivising farmers to stick with a single provider (Atik, 2022; Kritikos, 2017). This strategy helps companies preserve their unique selling propositions and proprietary digital ecosystems, but it also concentrates data in the hands of a few large companies, impeding potential efficiencies (Kenney, Visser et al., 2021). Though datafication fosters collaboration, competition persists through selection mechanisms. Future research should address evolving mechanisms under regulations like the EU Data Act, which mandates data access and interoperability (European Commission, 2024).

Our findings on commodification in the ag sector are divergent. Whilst Big Tech companies have commodified their services, sectoral platforms remain largely unprofitable. Oligopolistic platformisation enables this prolonged investment period, as incumbents can cross-fund their digital platforms, ensuring they remain competitive until profitability is achieved. Infrastructural platforms from Big Tech support agribusinesses, start-ups and public institutions, mirroring trends in other sectors where Big Tech companies form the core of the digital ecosystem (Van Dijck et al., 2018). Unlike in many other sectors where commodification is disruptive, in the oligopolistic platformisation of the ag sector, multinational agribusinesses maintain their core business whilst integrating new services. These services include data-driven ag solutions, multisided markets, product-as-a-service models and carbon monitoring tools. Traditional ag machinery manufacturers like John Deere have expanded beyond manufacturing to offer integrated solutions combining software, hardware and services into a comprehensive ecosystem for farmers. Similarly, agrochemical companies like Bayer have shifted from selling large volumes of agrochemicals to providing comprehensive data-driven solutions. This deeper integration of seeds, agrochemicals, biotechnology and digital agriculture reinforces the dominant position of multinational agribusinesses over ag information, knowledge of production and distribution.

Oligopolistic platformisation has significant implications for stakeholders in the ag sector. The collaboration between Big Tech and multinational agribusinesses raises entry barriers for competitors, as their combined technological and economic strength creates an environment difficult for emerging companies to penetrate. Agribusinesses cross-finance platforms through their core business revenue, invest heavily in R&D and offer freemium versions, making it harder for new entrants to challenge their dominance. However, oligopolistic platformisation also presents new opportunities for start-ups. By focusing on niche areas and collaborating with large agribusinesses, start-ups can integrate their solutions into larger platform ecosystems. These collaborations are often welcomed, as start-ups add value to the platforms – provided they do not pose a competitive threat to the established giants. For example, ‘some agribusinesses, whilst strong in core areas, do not cover all agricultural tasks or regional solutions with in-house technologies or services, leading them to collaborate extensively with startups and other firms to fill these gaps’ (Expert John Deere 2, 2024). Leveraging the networks and resources of multinational agribusinesses enhances startups’ growth and market reach. This dual dynamic of entry barriers combined with collaboration underscores the complex impact of platformisation on the ag sector, offering both challenges and opportunities for new entrants.

Furthermore, potential negative impacts on farmers may arise. Whilst platforms provide immediate benefits through data services and solutions, they can also create or deepen farmers’ dependency and reduce autonomy (Rotz, Gravely et al., 2019). As large entities dominate, farmers face fewer choices for digital tools, increasing their reliance on oligopolistic companies. This dependency may lead to unfavourable terms, like higher costs or restrictive data-sharing conditions. The power imbalance enables these companies to prioritise their business models over farmers’ needs, potentially reducing low-profit margins and limited bargaining power. In this sense, oligopolistic platformisation risks locking farmers into ecosystems controlled by a few large companies.

Lastly, platform and data fragmentation remain issues, as each sectoral platform prioritises its company's core business, such as selling agrochemicals, seeds or machinery. This leads to siloed data systems, potentially limiting innovation, reducing efficiency and slowing the adoption of digital tools in farming communities (GAO, 2024; Kenney, Visser et al., 2021). This contrasts with winner-take-all platforms in other industries that drive rapid technological progress (Evens and Donders, 2018). Without greater data-sharing practices, the sector may risk missing the full potential of a cohesive digital ecosystem.

Analysing the emergence of the Ag-Big Tech Complex within the broader context of ag industrialisation, we explore how the platform economy (Kenney and Zysman, 2016) has entered the ag sector. Collaboration between multinational agribusinesses and Big Tech companies blurs traditional industry boundaries, creating mutually beneficial economic relationships within a concentrated market. We have developed the concept of ‘oligopolistic platformisation’ to describe how digital platforms integrate into established oligopolistic markets. Our findings indicate that Big Tech and multinational agribusinesses attempt to collaboratively establish digital platforms as the core organisational form of digital agriculture, aiming to centralise services through their platforms. However, despite these efforts, most sectoral platforms are not yet profitable, raising questions about the long-term viability of their commodification strategies. Still, this process, shaped by pre-existing market structures, will likely reinforce the market position of established companies.

Our study acknowledges several limitations due to the rapidly evolving nature of digital agriculture. Whilst we identified both entry barriers and new opportunities for start-ups, the long-term implications remain uncertain. Additionally, many platforms by multinational agribusinesses are not yet profitable, and the success of commodification strategies is unclear. More research is needed to fully understand these dynamics and their future impact. Whilst expert insights have been valuable, we acknowledge that more direct citations of these interviews could strengthen our conclusions, yet were sometimes limited by confidentiality concerns or experts’ hesitation to disclose specific details. Despite these constraints, our research provides robust insights into the ag-Big Tech Complex and lays a foundation for future studies on digital platforms in agriculture.

Policy and regulatory implications arise from the high concentration of power in Big Tech and agribusinesses. Market regulations may be necessary as the Ag-Big Tech Complex strengthens its dominance. However, regulating platforms is complex, as traditional approaches to competition, labour laws, privacy and taxation have proven inadequate for multinational firms in a rapidly advancing technological era (Tirole, 2023). The absence of a supranational regulatory authority, coupled with varying geopolitical interests and diverse regulatory approaches amongst major players like the USA, China and Europe (Huang and Mayer, 2023; Van Dijck and Lin, 2022; O’hara and Hall, 2018), complicates the regulatory landscape for ag platforms. Future research should examine additional case studies of oligopolistic platformisation and develop effective regulatory frameworks to ensure the benefits of ag platforms are widely distributed whilst mitigating risks.

The authors would like to extend sincere gratitude to all the experts who generously shared their time and insights during the interviews. Their willingness to engage in thoughtful discussions greatly enriched the research.