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Smart Solutions in AgriTech: Research Trajectories in the Digital Transition

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Electronic Government and the Information Systems Perspective (EGOVIS 2022)

Abstract

The following study investigates and identifies research trajectories pertaining to the digital transition of agriculture and food production. While a vast amount of research aims to discover new technologies, or to apply them in novel ways, their large-scale implications as regards data ownership and data governance are relatively overlooked. Regulatory interventions are demanded to steer data ownership and data governance towards the ‘common good’. It is thus necessary to identify how research can contribute to the discussion on sensitive areas of policymaking that have been the object of environmental regulation, including the EU Green Deal and UN Sustainable Development Goals. In the light of this necessity, this paper identifies issues with ethical relevance emerging from the adoption of new technologies in agritech, including Artificial Intelligence techniques and Internet of Things applications. To do so, this study attempts to systematise and categorise existing research trends by clearly identifying their scope and understanding the relationships that exist among them. The results of this enquiry show that five interconnected research trajectories - namely, technical solutions, data governance, data ownership, ethics and law - can foster the discussion on agritech transition. The connections between these research areas can be understood in terms of a descriptive and a prescriptive perspective.

S. Sapienza—This study has been funded by Programma Operativo Nazionale (PON) “Ricerca e Innovazione” 2014–2020 CCI2014IT16M2OP005, by the Italian Ministry of University and Research approved with Decision CE C(2015)4972 of 14 July 2015, in the light of D.M. 1062 of 10 August 2021.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Communication From the Commission to the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions “The European Green Deal” COM/2019/640 final.

  2. 2.

    [[“Big AND Data” OR “Artificial AND Intelligence”] AND [“Smart AND Farming” OR “Digital AND Agriculture” OR “Agritech”] AND “Review”] was the query used to identified papers that contain literature reviews on the topic under scrutiny. Research was performed on academic databases (namely, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar) using title-based and topic-based queries and refined to avoid duplicates.

  3. 3.

    That is the definition of ‘personal data’ under Article 4(1) of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (Reg. 2016/679).

  4. 4.

    Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC [2016] OJ L 119/1.

  5. 5.

    Regulation (EU) 2018/1807 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 November 2018 on a framework for the free flow of non-personal data in the European Union [2018] OJ L 303/59.

  6. 6.

    Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on harmonised rules on fair access to and use of data.

  7. 7.

    Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on European data governance - COM/2020/767 final.

  8. 8.

    Proposal for a Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the council laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act) and amending certain Union legislative acts - COM/2021/206 final.

  9. 9.

    Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 January 2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food safety [2002] OJ L 31/1. This Regulation has been deeply amended by the 2021 Transparency Regulation to provide more public access to food safety information.

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Sapienza, S. (2022). Smart Solutions in AgriTech: Research Trajectories in the Digital Transition. In: Kő, A., Francesconi, E., Kotsis, G., Tjoa, A.M., Khalil, I. (eds) Electronic Government and the Information Systems Perspective. EGOVIS 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13429. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12673-4_11

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