Ziya Kaya is a PhD student in sociocultural anthropology with a minor in geography interested in simultaneous, mutually-reinforcing transformations at the intersection of rural livelihoods and environmental and technological change. His earlier research was on labor processes in and outside a small-scale vegetable-producing greenhouse in western Turkey. For his doctoral dissertation, he will conduct ethnographic research on digital farming technologies as part of food security policies in Turkey and their impacts on farmers’ interactions with agroecology (crops, soils, climate) and farmers’ livelihoods, starting in Spring 2022.

He would like to express his gratitude to the CRFS award committee for supporting his virtual pre-dissertation research on the digital transformation of agriculture in Turkey in Summer 2021. During this remote research, he virtually interviewed digital farming technology companies’ coordinators and farmers and public officials; participated in their virtual meetings and webinars; and conducted archival research on their websites that includes annual reports and scholarly and popular publications on digital farming.