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Annual Review of Resource Economics

Volume 10, 2018

Opportunities and Challenges for Big Data in Agricultural and Environmental Analysis

Abstract

Agriculture stands on the cusp of a digital revolution, and the same technologies that created the Internet and are transforming medicine are now being applied in our farms and on our fields. Overall, this digital agricultural revolution is being driven by the low cost of collecting data on everything from soil conditions to animal health and crop development along with weather station data and data collected by drones and satellites. The promise of these technologies is more food, produced on less land, with fewer inputs and a smaller environmental footprint. At present, however, barriers to realizing this potential include a lack of ability to aggregate and interpret data in such a way that it results in useful decision support tools for farmers and the need to train farmers in how to use new tools. This article reviews the state of the literature on the promise and barriers to realizing the potential for Big Data to revolutionize agriculture.

Keyword(s): Big Data, digital revolution, economics, JEL Q15, JEL Q16, JEL Q55, policy, precision agriculture
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2018-10-05
2024-07-04
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