Digital Technologies for a Sustainable Agrifood System: A Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda

ICT-AGRI is an ERA-NET (European Research Area - NETwork) aiming to help coordinating European research in ICT and robotics forthe agriculture sector, and to develop a common Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) based on shared priorities. New technologies are rapidlyemerging and revolutionising farming in the next decade. ICT-AGRI has been supporting the development and implementation of these new technologies fora competitive, sustainable and environmentallyfriendlyagriculture since already2009.In December2012, the ERA-NET ICT AGRI 1 published a Strategic Research Agenda (Lötscheret al., 2012) concerning the global challenges in agriculture. This report made proposals for addressing those challenges and discussed how ICT and robotics could contribute to theirresolution ormitigation. The conclusion of this report defined the focus of calls fortransnational European research projects in ICT and Agriculture, both within the ICTAGRI project as well as influencing otherfunders. In the five years since then, the use of new technologies in agriculture has grown immenselyin significance and there is widespread expectation that we are on the cusp of a “digital revolution” in the agrifood sectorwhich is ¹expected to revolutionise the primarysector, dissolve the boundaries between the agriculture and food systems, create new markets fordata, as well as showing the importance of creating new global policies. In this Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), we have reviewed the majorcurrent and future challenges forsustainable agriculture (in Chapter3) as well as the keygoals. In view of changing awareness and political priorities we have extended ourreach into the whole food system. Thus, we describe the state of the art and current trends in ICT and robotics (Chapter4) foragriculture as well as the widerfood system. The current and future challenges of ICT and robotics adoption in agrifood system are considered in Chapter5. We conclude with a Vision forthe integration of ICT in the agri-food sectorthat addresses the sustainabilitychallenges of the present and nearfuture.