DIGITALIZATION AND SMART AGRICULTURE

Abstract

Although there is a lot of literature from the viewpoint of natural or technological science on various ways of digitalization in agriculture (big data, internet of things, virtual reality, robots, cameras, 3D printing, device convergence, universal communication, artificial intelligence, digital twins, and blockchain among others), social science scholars have recently started exploring different facets of digital agriculture in relation to farm production processes, value chains and food systems. This has contributed to a burgeoning but dispersed social science body of literature. Hence, there is a lack of analysis of how this area of study is evolving and the existing, emerging, and current trends and topics. This is where this essay seeks to make a contribution, beyond presenting this special issue social, economic and structural complexities of precision farming, modern agriculture, smart farming or agriculture 4.0. An exploratory literature review reveals that five thematic clusters of extant social science literature on digitalization in agriculture can be identified: 1) Implementation, uses and adaptation of digital technology on farm; 2) Impact of digitalization on farmer identification, farmer skills, and farm work; 3) Control, ownership, privacy and ethics in digitalizing agricultural production systems and value chains; 4) Digitalization and agricultural information and innovation processes (AKIS); and 5) Economics and management of digitalized agricultural production systems and value chains. The key contributions of the special issue papers are mapped against these thematic clusters, revealing new perspectives on the relation between digital agriculture and farm diversity, new economic, business and institutional structures both on-farm, in the value chain and food system, and in the innovation system, and evolving ways to ethically regulate digital agriculture. Emerging lines of social science enquiry within these thematic clusters are established and new lines are proposed to build a potential research agenda on digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0. Also, four possible 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 activated agricultural transformation pathways; and 4) Global geography of digital agriculture growth. This future research agenda offers ample space for future interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary science on precision farming, modern agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0.