Agriculture 4.0 – Relevance, Opportunities, Challenges

Szőke, Viktória – Kovács, László

Keywords: agriculture 4.0, digital agriculture, precision farming, Covid–19, O33, Q10, Q16

In addition to the concept of industry 4.0 we often encounter the concept of agriculture 4.0 on professional portals and in professional publications in Hungary. The concept is getting more and more popular internationally: agriculture 4.0 (or Landwirtschaft 4.0 in German) and its synonyms as smart agriculture, smart farming or digital agriculture became part of the professional and scientific discourse in recent years. Despite its widespread international and limited Hungarian use, the concept of agriculture 4.0 is not yet used in the Hungarian scientific discourse.
The goal of the paper is to coin the concept agriculture 4.0 in Hungarian scientific discourse. We argue, that the concept of agriculture 4.0 is broader than the concept of precision farming: while the latter describes the efficiency of agricultural machinery, the former is characterized by connected tools and by solutions based on various data from internal or external sources. Precision farming – agriculture 3.0 – can therefore be regarded as a prerequisite for agriculture 4.0. Agriculture 4.0 is about data, connection between data, and partially automated data-driven decisions. Thus, the current transformation of agriculture 4.0 goes well beyond the agricultural activities undertaken on the farm.
There are many benefits of connected data; for example, less fuel is consumed, and less fertilizers and pesticides need to be used consequently reducing environmental pollution. Continuous data collection also allows for immediate intervention (e.g. spraying) and digitization makes administrative tasks and the organization of workflows easier.
Data-driven agriculture also presents challenges and dangers. Data processing, establishing appropriate wireless internet connections, data compatibility and related legal regulations are challenging tasks, while data security and data ownership represent potential security issues. The digitalization process could however speed up, as a result of the Covid–19 pandemic.

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