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Digital agriculture is exciting attention because of an expectation that food systems will be disrupted by new digital technologies through improvements in precision, efficiency, volume, speed of process or identity of product. This is against the background of the drive for sustainability in food systems.A diversity of technology applications is unilaterally emerging in all food chains with benefits realized through human acceptance and adoption in business processes. This paper focuses on Australia but the lessons apply to digital agriculture globally. We propose that sustainable food systems frameworks identify the relation of individual changes to broader systemic change, to relate individual changes to one another and to understand how multiple changes within a system can trigger major shifts in entire agrifood chains. With this rapidly-changing landscape in mind, we argue that food system frameworks cover five domains: production, market, capitals, governance and data technologies.We analyse experience from agricultural systems, compare it to digitization in nonagricultural systems and conclude that change will be both disruptive and cumulative. We consider the role of systems governance to be under-reported. Governance will prove critical in areas of IP legislation, policy harmonization and targeted investment.

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PurposeThis paper aims to address the association between the quality and quantity of information in supply chains and the costs and benefits of generating, using and sharing it.Design/methodology/approachThe authors’ conceptual framework draws on multiple disciplines and theories of the value and use of product information. Controllable aspects of information, its quality and quantity, are the focus of the study as drivers of firm and chain performance. Structural equation models of constructs at two stages of the Australian red meat supply chain are employed, using data from a survey of 81 sheep and cattle breeders and commercial producers.FindingsInformation quality influences performance more for some product attributes than others and is more influential than is information quantity. Information sharing for many attributes generates benefits only at high cost. Investment in measurement and transmission technologies is supported for intrinsic and extrinsic measures of quality. Differences in respondents' evaluation of information quality are interpreted as evidence of persistent chain failure.Originality/valueTo the authors' knowledge, this is the first attempt at quantifying and comparing the benefits and costs of information sharing across multiple stages of a supply chain and the first to assess quantitatively the role played by information quality and quantity in generating costs and benefits.