Harnessing the Potential of Agriculture 4.0: the double challenge of food security and climate change

About this Research Topic

Background

Enabling sustainable and inclusive economic change in agriculture has the potential to address many of the most pressing social and environmental challenges that make it so difficult to achieve the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. The latest food and energy crises resulting from the Russia-Ukraine war have further increased the urgency to move from rhetoric to collective action. A common denominator for such a new type of pragmatic collaboration is based on the insight that the double challenge of food security and climate change can only be addressed through changing institutional framework conditions that encourage investment in sustainable intensification.

Sustainable intensification comprises a range of different practices and technologies associated with Agriculture 4.0. Agriculture 4.0 involves the use AI and biotechnology to make agriculture more productive and resource-efficient combined with new forms of regenerative agriculture designed to improve agricultural sustainability through improved soil health and a landscape approach designed to enhance biodiversity in agriculture.

In this special issue we call for papers that focus on how to harness the potential of Agriculture 4.0 for tailor-made solutions in collaboration with local entrepreneurs to create new income and employment opportunities and foster more diversified rural economic ecosystems, especially in low income countries.

This Research Topic invites contributions that are based on practice-oriented and interdisciplinary research addressing the question on how to enable a sustainable and inclusive transformation of food systems that is effective in addressing the pressing food security and environmental challenges while also enabling local economic empowerment.

The purpose of this special issue is to focus on the potential of the combination of new agricultural technologies with local practices and grassroots innovation to contribute to inclusive and sustainable change in rural economic ecosystems. Scholars and practitioners from all different disciplines and different fields of the world of practice are invited to contribute provided that their research or case studies help advantage the knowledge in the field.

Keywords: Gene-editing, Regenerative Agriculture, Agro-ecology, Precision farming, Popular Narratives, Sustainability Mindsets, Entrepreneurship, Innovation

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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