Retrofitting AI-driven hydroponic micro-farming across Global South(s) and North(s)

TY - ABST

T1 - Retrofitting AI-driven hydroponic micro-farming across Global South(s) and North(s)

AU - Smith, Rachel Charlotte

AU - Till, Sarina

AU - Jensen, Rikke Hagensby

AU - Fog, Bjarke Vognstrup

AU - Wilson, Taryn

AU - Wanvig, Reece

AU - Feddersen, Mikkel Øbom

AU - Klausen, Oliver Giandrup

AU - Johannesen, Gustav Dyngby

AU - Bertelsen, Casper Lyngholm

AU - Muashekele, Chris Paulus

AU - Winschiers-Theophilus, Heike

PY - 2025/8

Y1 - 2025/8

N2 - Contemporary climate changes urgently call for technological alternatives to drive green transitions that engage diverse communities. Southern African and Scandinavian regions are experiencing drastic environmental changes, with unpredictable weather conditions, including increased temperatures, heavy rainfalls, or persistent drought, destroying crops and future subsistence. Hydroponic farming is a sustainable alternative to traditional farming and food insecurity, allowing rural and urban communities to grow plants with little water and no soil (Wilson et al., 2024). In this paper, we present experiments with retrofitting hydroponics growth tents, designed and implemented with rural farmers in KwaZuluNatal, and in the Eastern Cape regions of South Africa (Joyner & Till, 2023) – and retrofitted into two diverse contexts across Global South(s) and North(s) communities: 1) Namibia’s northern and eastern regions with Indigenous Ovahimba and San communities, and 2) sustainable urban food production at a municipal workplace and a local energy community, Aarhus, Jutland region in Denmark. We focus on the collaborative process of researchers and students retrofitting the AI/IoT-enabled hydroponics from the Global South to North. In this setting, the back-end of the AI-driven hydroponics growth tents are designed by South African software engineering researchers and students, and retrofitted through a Scandinavian user-driven design approach (Bødker et al., 2022), with students and researchers across local communities in Brabrand, Aarhus. We reflect on the visions of responsible AI for diverse communities, the potentials of tiny tech over big tech, and the reversing of decolonial algorithmic design of AI and computational practices (Birhane et al., 2022; Smith et al., 2024) from “the rest of the world”/Global South to North. Tracing the challenges of back-end-to-front-end, south-to-north, we argue that the slow processes of retrofitting align with the de-linking, rethinking, and redesigning (Tlostanova, 2017) that enable technology to support locally situated solutions alternative and co-design that align with local practices, knowledges, and lifeworlds for green transitions (Smith et al., 2025).

AB - Contemporary climate changes urgently call for technological alternatives to drive green transitions that engage diverse communities. Southern African and Scandinavian regions are experiencing drastic environmental changes, with unpredictable weather conditions, including increased temperatures, heavy rainfalls, or persistent drought, destroying crops and future subsistence. Hydroponic farming is a sustainable alternative to traditional farming and food insecurity, allowing rural and urban communities to grow plants with little water and no soil (Wilson et al., 2024). In this paper, we present experiments with retrofitting hydroponics growth tents, designed and implemented with rural farmers in KwaZuluNatal, and in the Eastern Cape regions of South Africa (Joyner & Till, 2023) – and retrofitted into two diverse contexts across Global South(s) and North(s) communities: 1) Namibia’s northern and eastern regions with Indigenous Ovahimba and San communities, and 2) sustainable urban food production at a municipal workplace and a local energy community, Aarhus, Jutland region in Denmark. We focus on the collaborative process of researchers and students retrofitting the AI/IoT-enabled hydroponics from the Global South to North. In this setting, the back-end of the AI-driven hydroponics growth tents are designed by South African software engineering researchers and students, and retrofitted through a Scandinavian user-driven design approach (Bødker et al., 2022), with students and researchers across local communities in Brabrand, Aarhus. We reflect on the visions of responsible AI for diverse communities, the potentials of tiny tech over big tech, and the reversing of decolonial algorithmic design of AI and computational practices (Birhane et al., 2022; Smith et al., 2024) from “the rest of the world”/Global South to North. Tracing the challenges of back-end-to-front-end, south-to-north, we argue that the slow processes of retrofitting align with the de-linking, rethinking, and redesigning (Tlostanova, 2017) that enable technology to support locally situated solutions alternative and co-design that align with local practices, knowledges, and lifeworlds for green transitions (Smith et al., 2025).

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

T2 - SANORD 2025: Knowledge Economies in a Changing World

Y2 - 13 August 2025 through 15 August 2025

ER -