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Knowledge4Policy
Knowledge for policy

Supporting policy with scientific evidence

We mobilise people and resources to create, curate, make sense of and use knowledge to inform policymaking across Europe.

  • Publication | 2021

Digital Agriculture for Small-Scale Producers: Challenges and Opportunities

Global Food and Nutrition Security

This paper highlights the innovations that are needed across different areas of data science and computer science to enable digital agriculture for small-scale producers. This includes research across various ACM Special Interest Groups (SIGs), such as SIGCOMM, SIGOPS, SIGARCH, SIGCHI, SIGGRAPH, and many more, to devise affordable hardware for cloud and networking solutions, with innovations in AI to handle sparse and incomplete data.

As technology solutions emerge, it is also important to understand the path to market and scalable adoption. As such, we are working on a Digital Agriculture Technology Readiness Index and calculator to evaluate the maturity of different digital technologies for small-scale agriculture in Table 2. The output of this index will guide our efforts towards accelerating research in technologies that are not yet ready for adoption and investing in technologies as they mature. We are excited to work with the computer science community to address some of the hardest problems, so that we may help accelerate the adoption of digital agriculture for smallholder producers, improve the livelihoods of millions of families, and ensure greater global food security.

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