A review of social science on digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0: New contributions and a future research agenda
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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.read more
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New Trends in the Global Digital Transformation Process of the Agri-Food Sector: An Exploratory Study Based on Twitter
TL;DR: The results demonstrate that data harvested from Twitter provide useful insight into perceptions of digital transformation and different digital technologies in the agri-food value chain across different countries.
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Linking the diversity of ecologisation models to farmers' digital use profiles
TL;DR: In this article , the authors define digital use profiles of farmers and explain how they relate to ecologisation models, based on 98 interviews with crop farmers in Occitanie (France) and show that there is a diversity of digital profiles.
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The Economic Results of Investing in Precision Agriculture in Durum Wheat Production: A Case Study in Central Italy
TL;DR: In this article, an assessment of the economic efficiency of an Italian cereal farm that has invested in precision agriculture is presented, which reveals that, unlike what is reported in the literature, after the technological adoption, the farm keeps both the yield and variable costs stable.
Digitalization for transformative urbanization, climate change adaptation, and sustainable farming in Africa: trend, opportunities, and challenges
TL;DR: In this article , the potentials of digitalization to enable sustainable urban farming in the face of unprecedented climate change constraints in Africa and minimize the negative impacts of urbanization on agriculture are evaluated.
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Time-Series Growth Prediction Model Based on U-Net and Machine Learning in Arabidopsis.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors employed multiple deep learning (DL) networks to extract high-quality HTTP data, establish an association between HTTP data and the yield performance of crops, and select essential time intervals using machine learning (ML).
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