A review of social science on digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0: New contributions and a future research agenda
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present seventeen articles dealing with social, economic and institutional dynamics of precision farming, digital agriculture, smart farming or agriculture 4.0, and reveal 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.
Abstract: 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.
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TL;DR: More attention is needed for the inclusion and exclusion effects of Agriculture 4.0 technologies, and for reflection on how they relate to diverse transition pathways towards sustainable agricultural and food systems driven by mission-oriented innovation systems.
248 citations
Cites background from "A review of social science on digit..."
...For example, there are investments worldwide in large research and innovation programmes on digitalization such as the DigiScape Platform and Food Agility Hub in Australia, the #DigitAg programme in France, and the Internet of Food and Farming programme and Digital Innovation Hubs or SmartAgriHubs in the European Union (Klerkx et al., 2019)....
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...tured meat or cellular agriculture nanotechnology, microalgae bioreactors, drones, internet of things (IoT), robotics and sensors connected to precision farming technology, 3D food printing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and blockchain (De Wilde, 2016; Burton, 2018; Klerkx et al., 2019; De Clercq et al., 2018; NFU, 2019; Herrero Acosta et al., 2019; Stephens et al., 2019; Grieve et al., 2019)....
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...both the production, trade and sales, consumption and waste subsystems) and threatening food sovereignty (Trendov et al., 2019; Klerkx et al., 2019)....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate what roles are being imagined for digital technologies by international actors with the ability to influence the future of food systems and suggest that evaluations of how digital agricultural technologies might affect the delivery of ecosystem services must begin by considering what visions of future food systems are take into account in science, technology development and policy making.
Abstract: Ecosystem services delivery is influenced by food systems and vice versa. As the application of digital technologies in agriculture continues to expand, digital technologies might affect the delivery of ecosystem services in view of the sorts of food systems in which they are embedded. The direction food systems develop towards the future, and the role digital technologies play in this development, is influenced by imaginings, hopes and visions about what these technologies mean for future food systems. In this article, we investigate what roles are being imagined for these technologies by international actors with the ability to influence the future of food systems. We analyze outward-facing policy documents as well as conference proceedings on digital agriculture produced by the World Bank, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Using qualitative textual analysis, we show that these organisations envision future food systems that prioritize maximizing food output through technology. We illustrate how this vision reflects a long-standing narrative about the role of technology in food systems innovation, which makes the controversial assumption that increases in food production lead to improvements in food security. Based on this finding, we suggest that evaluations of how digital agricultural technologies might affect the delivery of ecosystem services must begin by considering what visions of future food systems are take into account in science, technology development and policy making. Supporting similar research on high-level narratives surrounding agroecology and climate smart agriculture, we find that the dominant narrative in our dataset supports the status quo global, industrial agriculture and food system. This system continues to be criticized by many scholars for its environmental impacts. Based on our findings, we suggest that ecosystems service researchers could contribute substantially to the evaluation of environmental impacts of digital agriculture by analyzing the impact digital agriculture may have on the trade-offs between provisioning, regulatory, and cultural ecosystem services for several different food system futures. Such analyses can feed into processes of responsible innovation.
130 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors review trends within agricultural knowledge and advice networks both internationally and in Australia, to anticipate and prepare for potential transformations in these networks and come to three key conclusions regarding the state-of-the-art.
130 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that a mission-oriented Agricultural innovation systems (MAIS) approach can help understand how agricultural innovation systems at different geographical scales develop to enable food systems transformation, in terms of forces, catalysts, and barriers in transformative food systems change.
130 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight the need to incorporate social sustainability (or simply "people") into technological trajectories and outline a framework of multi-actor co-innovation to guide responsible socio-technical transitions.
111 citations
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