While there is a lot of literature from a natural or technical sciences perspective on different forms of digitalization in agriculture (big data, internet of things, augmented reality, robotics, sensors, 3D printing, system integration, ubiquitous connectivity, artificial intelligence, digital twins, and blockchain among others), social science researchers have recently started investigating different aspects of digital agriculture in relation to farm production systems, value chains and food systems. This has led to a burgeoning but scattered social science body of literature. There is hence lack of overview of how this field of study is developing, and what are established, emerging, and new themes and topics. This is where this article aims to make a contribution, beyond introducing this special issue which presents seventeen articles dealing with social, economic and institutional dynamics of precision farming, digital agriculture, smart farming or agriculture 4.0. An exploratory literature review shows that five thematic clusters of extant social science literature on digitalization in agriculture can be identified: 1) Adoption, uses and adaptation of digital technologies on farm; 2) Effects of digitalization on farmer identity, farmer skills, and farm work; 3) Power, ownership, privacy and ethics in digitalizing agricultural production systems and value chains; 4) Digitalization and agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS); and 5) Economics and management of digitalized agricultural production systems and value chains. The main contributions of the special issue articles are mapped against these thematic clusters, revealing new insights on the link between digital agriculture and farm diversity, new economic, business and institutional arrangements both on-farm, in the value chain and food system, and in the innovation system, and emerging ways to ethically govern digital agriculture. Emerging lines of social science enquiry within these thematic clusters are identified and new lines are suggested to create a future research agenda on digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0. Also, four potential new thematic social science clusters are also identified, which so far seem weakly developed: 1) Digital agriculture socio-cyber-physical-ecological systems conceptualizations; 2) Digital agriculture policy processes; 3) Digitally enabled agricultural transition pathways; and 4) Global geography of digital agriculture development. This future research agenda provides ample scope for future interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary science on precision farming, digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0.

A review of social science on digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0: New contributions and a future research agenda

Unravelling the role of innovation platforms in supporting co-evolution of innovation: Contributions and tensions in a smallholder dairy development programme

Precision agriculture provides important issues toward a more sustainable agriculture. Many farmers have the necessary technology to operate site-specifically, but they do not use it in practice, a ...

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Promoting sustainable intensification in precision agriculture: review of decision support systems development and strategies

Automated pastures and the digital divide: How agricultural technologies are shaping labour and rural communities

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a megatrend that cuts across all scientific and engineering disciplines and establishes an integrating technical evolution to improve production efficiencies and daily human life. Linked machines and sensors use decision-making routines to work toward a common product or solution. Expanding this technical revolution into the value chain of complex areas such as agriculture, food production, and healthcare requires the implementation and connection of sophisticated (bio)analytical methods. Today, wearable sensors, monitors, and point-of-care diagnostic tests are part of our daily lives and improve patients' medical progression or athletes' monitoring capabilities that are already beyond imagination. Also, early contributions toward sensor networks and finally the IT revolution with wireless data collection and transmission via Bluetooth or smartphones have set the foundation to connect remote sensors and distributed analytical chemical services with centralized laboratories, cloud storage, and cloud computing. Here, we critically review those biosensor and chemosensor technologies and concepts used in an IoT setting or considered IoT-ready that were published in the period 2013-2018, while also pointing to those foundational concepts and ideas that arose over the last two decades. We focus on these sensors due to their unique ability to be remotely stationed and that easily function in networks and have made the greatest progress toward IoT integration. Finally, we highlight requirements and existing and future challenges and provide possible solutions important toward the vision of a seamless integration into a global analytical concept, which includes many more analytical techniques than sensors and includes foremost next-generation sequencing and separation principles coupled with MS detection.

A Megatrend Challenging Analytical Chemistry: Biosensor and Chemosensor Concepts Ready for the Internet of Things.

Networks of practice for co-construction of agricultural decision support systems: Case studies of precision dairy farms in Australia

Precision farming research has primarily focussed on the development of technology while the social component, that of the farmers who are responsible for realising the potential of the new system, is often overlooked. As precision farming becomes more prevalent in the Australian dairy industry farmers will face the challenge of management within information intensive systems. Preliminary research into farm management on farms using individual cow management shows that use of information for decision making, the role of employees, and training and learning processes for users are primary issues requiring attention.

Information management within Australian precision dairy systems.

The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and
Development (PCARRD) of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) as a national agency
mandated to provide central direction and coordination of R&D activities in agriculture and natural
resources has made substantial impact on the agricultural economy of the country through the use of
information and communication technologies and strategies. PCARRD has initiated technology and
outreach programs and activities which have made significant contributions to the development of extension
modalities aimed at bridging the gap between research, extension and the farmers. The Farmers Information
and Technology Services (FITS), a computerized resource center has been established and implemented in
the different areas nationwide to allow the farmer group to make use of modern information and
communication technologies for a wide range of purposes. Its system provides investors and agribusiness
players with information on technology, production statistics, and policy information, among others. The
FITS will provide important role in instituting a new scope in extension delivery service program
particularly in the development of cyber extension in the country.

M.S. Paine

Papers

Networks of practice for co-construction of agricultural decision support systems: Case studies of precision dairy farms in Australia

Information management within Australian precision dairy systems.

From Intuition To Information - Management Information Systems In Australian Dairy Farming