We describe how the set of tools, practices, and social relations known as “precision agriculture” is defined, promoted, and debated. To do so, we perform a critical discourse analysis of popular and trade press websites. Promoters of precision agriculture champion how big data analytics, automated equipment, and decision-support software will optimize yields in the face of narrow margins and public concern about farming’s environmental impacts. At its core, however, the idea of farmers leveraging digital infrastructure in their operations is not new, as agronomic research in this vein has existed for over 30 years. Contemporary discourse in precision ag tends to favour emerging digital technologies themselves over their embeddedness in longstanding precision management approaches. Following several strands of science and technology studies (STS) research, we explore what rhetorical emphasis on technical innovation achieves, and argue that this discourse of novelty is a reinvention of precision agriculture in the context of the growing “smart” agricultural economy. We overview six tensions that remain unresolved in this promotional rhetoric, concerning the definitions, history, goals, adoption, uses, and impacts of precision agriculture. We then synthesize these in a discussion of the extent to which digital tools are believed to displace farmer decision-making and whether digital agriculture addresses the biophysical heterogeneity of farm landscapes or land itself has become an “experimental technology”—a way to advance the general development of artificial intelligence. This discussion ultimately helps us name a larger dilemma: that the smart agricultural economy is perhaps less about supporting land and its stewards than promising future tech and profits.

我们描述了被称为“精准农业”的一套工具、实践和社会关系是如何定义、推广和辩论的。为此，我们对流行和行业媒体网站进行了批判性话语分析。面对微薄的利润和公众对农业环境影响的担忧，精准农业的推动者倡导大数据分析、自动化设备和决策支持软件将如何优化产量。然而，就其核心而言，农民在其经营中利用数字基础设施的想法并不新鲜，因为这方面的农学研究已经存在了 30 多年。当代精准农业的话语倾向于支持新兴数字技术本身，而不是它们在长期精准管理方法中的嵌入性。在科学技术研究 (STS) 研究的几条线索之后，我们探讨了对技术创新的修辞强调所取得的成果，并认为这种新颖性的话语是在不断增长的“智能”农业经济背景下对精准农业的再创造。我们概述了在这种宣传言论中仍未解决的六大紧张局势，涉及精准农业的定义、历史、目标、采用、用途和影响。然后，我们在讨论数字工具被认为在多大程度上取代了农民决策，以及数字农业是否解决了农场景观或土地本身的生物物理异质性是否已经成为一种“实验技术”——一种促进普遍人工智能的发展。