Opportunities and Barriers to the Development of Agriculture 4.0 in the Context of Low Carbon Agriculture in Poland

Abstract

Agriculture 4.0, as a vision of agricultural development, has great potential for limiting undesirable and harmful pollution of the natural environment resulting from agricultural activity. The multidimensional and cumulative nature of negative phenomena, mainly related to the chemization of agriculture, raises challenges, related to, among others, to the development of information and communication technologies. The aim of this paper is to provide knowledge about Agriculture 4.0 in Poland, including current opportunities and barriers to its development. The background for the presented issues is the development of a low carbon economy. In Poland, there are Information and communication technologies as well as robotics available, which can provide the basis for solving ecological problems in agricultural production. However, according to analyses, farmers constitute the largest social group in Poland without access to computers and the Internet.

Agriculture 4.0

“…Moreover, it will contribute to raising productivity rates, efficiency in the use of inputs, reducing labor costs, improving the quality of work and the safety of workers and reducing impacts on the environment (Massruhá and Leite, 2017). Agriculture 4.0, as a vision of agricultural development, is related to the increasing competitiveness, and implemented through the use of modern information technology (Piwowar, 2018). In addition, it has great potential for limiting harmful pollution of the natural environment, due the multidimensional transformation in agricultural activity, making the complete production chain more sustainable.…”

Systems and Tools for Supporting Farmers' Decisions Regarding the use of Agrochemicals in Poland

“…In the research, farmers mentioned systems popular in Poland, ie the Internet system of pests signalling (PIORiN), the search engine for plant protection products (MRiRW) and the signalling of pests (IOR-PIB). A description of these systems is presented in other works of the author of this article [11,12]. It is worth emphasizing here that innovative systems, described below, are currently being developed in Poland.…”