Scientific development of smart farming technologies and their application in Brazil

TLDR

Smart farming integrates information and communication technologies into agricultural machinery, equipment, and sensors, with emerging Internet‑of‑Things, cloud computing, robotics, and artificial intelligence expected to accelerate its development. The paper aims to map the global scientific knowledge on smart farming by country and time, and to assess current prospects in Brazil through expert perspectives. The authors conducted semi‑structured interviews with Brazilian market and research experts and performed a bibliometric survey using data‑mining software. They found that system integration gaps and farmers’ limited technical skills are the main barriers to smart farming adoption in Brazil, while high R&D investment and publication output in countries such as China, the United States, South Korea, Germany, and Japan indicate future leadership, and the combined interview and bibliometric approach clarified these constraints.

Abstract

Smart farming (SF) involves the incorporation of information and communication technologies into machinery, equipment, and sensors for use in agricultural production systems. New technologies such as the internet of things and cloud computing are expected to advance this development, introducing more robots and artificial intelligence into farming. Therefore, the aims of this paper are twofold: (i) to characterize the scientific knowledge about SF that is available in the worldwide scientific literature based on the main factors of development by country and over time and (ii) to describe current SF prospects in Brazil from the perspective of experts in this field. The research involved conducting semi-structured interviews with market and researcher experts in Brazil and using a bibliometric survey by means of data mining software. Integration between the different available systems on the market was identified as one of the main limiting factors to SF evolution. Another limiting factor is the education, ability, and skills of farmers to understand and handle SF tools. These limitations revealed a market opportunity for enterprises to explore and help solve these problems, and science can contribute to this process. China, the United States, South Korea, Germany, and Japan contribute the largest number of scientific studies to the field. Countries that invest more in R&D generate the most publications; this could indicate which countries will be leaders in smart farming. The use of both research methods in a complementary manner allowed to understand how science frame the SF and the mains barriers to adopt it in Brazil.