Smart agriculture, harnessing digital technologies for agricultural intelligence

This year’s Agriculture Exhibition was once again an opportunity to reflect on many aspects, including respect for the environment, increasing production, optimizing farm management and ensuring the safety of farmers. It also made clear that the agriculture of the future must meet a dual objective of performance and sustainability.

For tackling many of the challenges, stakeholders can turn to Smart Agriculture or Smart Farming: digital tools, new technologies, and Internet of Things (IoT). Smart agriculture promises communicating tractors and equipment, drones to observe crops, robots to collect eggs or milk cows, smartphone applications to inform farmers about the evolution of their markets and many more. These systems communicate, exchange, share and generate information, helping farmers and their partners in decision making and introducing new production and farm management methods.

But smart agriculture also entails new challenges and questions like: Which technologies should we prioritize? How can we make these solutions widely accessible?

In addition, smart-agriculture can lead to new markets and economic development policies.

In France today, the commitment of public actors to support start-ups at the heart of innovation and facilitate their relationships with industry and research leaders within the environment still seems essential.