Digitalization and Big Data in Smart Farming – Bibliometric and Systemic Analysis

Abstract

Agriculture has always had a great significance in the civilization development. However, modern agriculture is facing increasing challenges due to population growth and environmental degradation. Commercially, farmers are looking for ways to improve profitability and agricultural efficiency to reduce costs. Smart Farming is enabling the use of detailed digital information to guide decisions along the agricultural value chain. Thus, better decisions and efficient management control are required through generated information and knowledge at any farm. New technologies and solutions have been applied to provide alternatives to assist in information gathering and processing, and thereby contribute to increased agricultural productivity. Therefore, this article aims to gain state-of-art insight and identify proposed solutions, trends and unfilled gaps regarding digitalization and Big Data applications in Smart Farming, through a literature review. The current study accomplished these goals through analyses based on ProKnow-C (Knowledge Development Process – Constructivist) methodology. A total of 2401 articles were found. Then, a quantitative analysis identified the most relevant ones among a total of 39 articles were included in a bibliometric and text mining analysis, which was performed to identify the most relevant journals and authors that stand out in the research area. A systemic analysis was also accomplished from these articles. Finally, research problems, solutions, opportunities, and new trends to be explored were identified.

Reference Model as Support for the Implementation of Agriculture 4.0

“…Based on that previous study carried out by the authors [11], [36], it was accomplished that researches related to Agriculture 4.0 do not present a systemic view, deal with the subject in a restricted way, seeking to find isolated solutions. Also, companies that provide agricultural equipment are equipping their products with sensors that can collect various types of data, but these data are not used to generate information useful, either to improve the overall productivity of the farms [11], [36].…”

“…According to [11] it is possible to perceive the inexistence of works focused on the agricultural area that consider creating a model that characterizes Agriculture 4.0. It is also possible to notice the absence of a model that depicts, in an integrated and universal way, all the farm-oriented agents to Agriculture 4.0, with all technologies and relations between them.…”

Agroecological risks of the digital economy

“…Article is dedicated to study of research trends and opportunities related to digitalization of agriculture [10]. According to the authors, it is necessary to develop IoT devices that consider the advanced encryption algorithms in order to increase the security of the collected data.…”