Digital Technologies for Sustainable Crop Production

Agriculture faces global challenges such as climate change, resource degradation and biodiversity loss, threatening long-term food security. Addressing these challenges calls for novel approaches that boost productivity while minimizing environmental damage. Digital technologies offer a promising solution by enabling the development of adaptive, resilient cropping systems that sustain vital ecosystem services such as soil fertility, clean water, and biodiversity. Emergent tools including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, robotics, mobile sensing, and remote sensing, are transforming the way we monitor, analyze, and manage fields. These technologies allow for targeted interventions, contributing to more sustainable agricultural practices. This Research Topic explores how digital technologies can be effectively used to support sustainable crop production.

Despite recent advancements, conventional crop systems still rely on uniform applications of fertilizer, pesticide and irrigation. These practices waste resources, degrade soils and erode biodiversity, while climate volatility and skilled labor shortages further threaten agricultural productivity. Digital technologies such as AI, robotics, and high-resolution sensing offer powerful alternatives, by allowing farmers to manage fields with unprecedented precision. Yet, these innovations remain siloed, data-heavy and rarely validated beyond pilot plots, limiting their impact on real-world sustainability.

This Research Topic aims to address this gap by fostering interdisciplinary research that connects agronomists, engineers, data scientists, and policy experts. Our goal is to advance the development of digital tools and ensure they are integrated, scalable, and accessible to farmers. We seek new approaches and studies geared towards demonstrating measurable outcomes such as reduced chemical inputs, lower greenhouse gas emissions, enhanced biodiversity, or improved crop resilience. Further, we encourage studies that address key barriers to adoption, including interoperability, economic feasibility, and responsible data governance to accelerate field adoption. By aligning technical innovation with practical implementation, this Research Topic aims to accelerate the transition toward sustainable, digitally empowered crop production systems.

We encourage contributions on modern and digital technologies supporting sustainable crop production. These technologies include, but are not limited to, robotics, mobile and remote sensing, machine learning, AI, and digital twins, which enable more precise monitoring, analysis, and decision-making at the field level. We also encourage research on new cropping systems and field arrangements, targeted interventions and other management actions, phenotypic trait estimation, simulations and forecasts about the agro-ecosystem. Studies addressing predictions, upscaling, and economic/ecological impact assessments are also of interest. Additionally, we welcome work on multi-trait and molecular breeding and on understanding and managing different types of stresses.

This Research Topic was launched in the context of the DIGICROP 2025 conference. Even if you did not attend, you are welcome to contribute.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: Sustainable Crop Production, Digital agriculture, Precision farming, AI in agriculture, Remote sensing, Robotics, Agroecosystem management

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.