Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Computers and Electronics in Agriculture

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compag

Review

An overview of agriculture 4.0 development: Systematic review of

descriptions, technologies, barriers, advantages, and disadvantages
Franco da Silveira *, Fernando Henrique Lermen , Fernando Gonçalves Amaral
Graduate Program of Industrial Engineering, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Osvaldo Aranha 99, 90035-190 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keyword: Agriculture 4.0 upgrades traditional production methods and world agriculture strategies to an optimized value
Agriculture 4.0 chain using a range of emerging technologies that enhance disruptive solutions at all stages of the agricultural
Technologies production chain. Due to the complexity of the changing farm ecosystem, the new technological revolution’s
Barriers
benefits will not be shared evenly. It is necessary to understand the problems and challenges that need to be
Systematic literature review
addressed so that all countries fully benefit from the potential of agriculture 4.0. This study aims to contribute to
the development of agriculture 4.0 by identifying descriptions, technologies, barriers, advantages, and disad­
vantages. Three independent researchers carried out a Systematic Literature Review based on the Protocol of
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. After applying the inclusion and exclusion
criteria pre-established in the Scopus, Science Direct, and Web of Science databases, 50 articles were selected for
analysis. As a result, it was possible to identify the descriptions of agriculture 4.0, propose a definition, and
present a compilation of approaches related to the term. Technologies of agriculture 4.0, responsible for revo­
lutionizing and impacting how commodities are produced, processed, traded, and consumed, were also surveyed.
Moreover, the barriers that hinder the development of agriculture 4.0 and that limit its progress are listed. The
barriers were classified into five dimensions: technological, economic, political, social, and environmental. These
are issues that need to be resolved in different areas to achieve a larger scale in countries looking to implement
agriculture 4.0. Finally, this study’s findings support actors in the agricultural production chain and pave the way
for the successful development of agriculture 4.0. Besides, research helps broaden the inclusive debate that can
shape the introduction of agriculture 4.0.

1. Introduction advanced economies, agriculture may be utilized as a tool to leverage

As the world population grows (Lidicker, 2020; Tamburino et al.,
2020), one of the main challenges of agriculture is to increase food
production (Fu et al., 2020; Singh and Singh, 2020) with significant
reductions in environmental impacts (Pittelkow et al., 2014) and socio-
economic implications (Ofosu et al., 2020). Agriculture is a key factor in
the economic sector for the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in
most countries (Abioye et al., 2020). As to participation in worldwide
economic productivity, agriculture represents a rate of 6.4%, and in nine
countries, it is the dominant sector (Pathan et al., 2020). In Russia,
agriculture has grown more than the GDP since 2012 (Uzun, Shagaida,
and Lerman, 2020). In emerging countries, agriculture may be the
driving force to improve their economies performance in the next 50
years (Mueller and Mueller, 2016; Gusarova, 2019). For countries with
their participation in the international market of agricultural commod­
ities (Veeck, Veeck, and Yu, 2020), transforming them into significant
players in the sector (Scown, Brady, and Nicholas, 2020).
However, there is a 3.3% reduction in grain production throughout
the entire value chain (Minten, Tamru, and Reardon, 2020). A part of the
waste in agriculture is related to the incidence of bad weather (Haile
et al., 2019), increased tolerance of pests, pathogens, and weeds to
agricultural pesticides (Leeuwen et al., 2020), and misuse of technolo­
gies (Baributsa and Njoroge, 2020; Bendinelli et al., 2020) in the agri­
cultural production chain (Ting et al., 2011). According to Vågsholm,
Arzoomand, and Boqvist (2020), to attain maximum agricultural pro­
ductivity, it is necessary to develop disruptive strategies in the produc­
tion systems, which seek to mitigate losses and waste throughout the
value chain (Leia et al., 2020). The process-guided conventional

* Corresponding author at: Department of Industrial Engineering, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Osvaldo Aranha, 99, 5th Floor, 90035-190 Porto
Alegre, RS, Brazil.
E-mail address: franco.da.silveira@hotmail.com (F. da Silveira).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2021.106405
Received 8 January 2021; Received in revised form 24 July 2021; Accepted 16 August 2021
Available online 24 August 2021
0168-1699/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
F. da Silveira et al.
agricultural systems must be transformed into more intelligent systems
based on data made available using a range of emerging technologies
(Lioutas et al., 2019).
A commonly adopted alternative to maximize productivity in agri­
culture is emerging technologies (Boursianis et al., 2020), such as Arti­
ficial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT), drones, and
gene editing (Rose et al., 2021). Intelligent technologies in agriculture
increase revenues and reduce the inputs needed in agricultural processes
(Rose et al., 2021). However, the advantages of developing the new
technological revolution in agriculture will not be shared out uniformly
and must be carefully discussed (Rose and Chilvers, 2018; Whitfield,
Challinor, and Rees, 2018; Rose et al., 2021).
To make agricultural development easier in transforming the
traditional food systems based on concepts and transformative visions
such as agriculture 4.0 (Klerkx and Begemann, 2020; Liu et al., 2020),
it is essential to understand the limitations and risks that must be dealt
with so that all countries will benefit from the potential of the new
agriculture (Hinson, Lensink, and Mueller, 2019). The fourth agricul­
tural revolution, which is currently under construction (Rose et al.,
2021), comprises a set of problems and solutions from the technolog­
ical, socio-economic, and management standpoint that require taking
precautions (Jakku et al., 2019; Zambon et al., 2019; Klerkx and Rose,
2020).
Some studies indicate trends in the development of agriculture 4.0
(Klerkx, Jakku, and Labarthe, 2019; Liu et al., 2020), reflections on its
role in transforming agricultural development (Klerkx and Begemann,
2020), and succinct information about its benefits for people, produc­
tion, and the planet (Rose et al., 2021). Nevertheless, the research
involving agriculture 4.0 is generally limited to the technological as­
pects (Klerkx, Jakku, and Labarthe, 2019). It provides a plethora of
technologies without presenting metrics that define how these tech­
nologies impact the agricultural production chain (Klerx and Rose,
2020). There is also a lack of a clear definition of what technologies are
included in the concept of agriculture 4.0 in the literature, as this has
largely been tacitly (Klerkx and Rose, 2020). In addition, there is a lack
of studies that seek to explore the development of the theory of agri­
culture 4.0. It is necessary to analyze the different terms that are being
related to agriculture 4.0 in the literature as farming 4.0, smart farm,
digital agriculture, industry 4.0 in the agriculture, fourth agricultural
revolution, and the evolution of precision agriculture, to stimulate dis­
cussion in the area (Braun et al., 2018; Rose and Chilvers, 2018; Klerkx
et al., 2019; Zambon et al., 2019). This study aims to contribute to the
development of agriculture 4.0 by identifying descriptions, technolo­
gies, barriers, advantages, and disadvantages. The research broadens
discussions on the characteristics of agriculture 4.0 and its inhibiting
factors. Furthermore, the study supports academics and practitioners to
develop new agriculture for the world. The main research question
should be answered to guide the article’s objective: which aspects
contribute to the development of agriculture 4.0?
The main theoretical contribution of the article is to identify de­
scriptions, technologies, barriers, advantages, and disadvantages at a
qualitative and exploratory level for analysis and dissemination of
information regarding the development of agriculture 4.0 in the in­
ternational context. The propositions and reflections raised in the
article also contribute as subsidies for future academic research about
agriculture 4.0, which may continue the present study. This article is
structured into five different sections, besides this initial introduction.
Section 2 presents the methodological approach adopted in the
research. Section 3 offers a bibliometric analysis and answers research
questions related to the development of agriculture 4.0. Section 4
outlines a discussion about the research questions and presents trends
and a research agenda for agriculture 4.0. Finally, Section 5 contains
the conclusions of the article, the limitations, and proposals for future
studies.
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Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405
2. Research methodology
2.1. Systematic literature review
To contribute to the development of agriculture 4.0 in the literature
concerning descriptions, technologies, barriers, advantages, and disad­
vantages, there is a lack of selecting, extracting, qualifying, and quan­
tifying data from a sample of studies published in scientific journals. The
Systematic Literature Review (SLR) is a tool used to manage the di­
versity of knowledge available to be consulted, allowing the researchers
to evaluate the state-of-the-art and specify research questions (Koutsos
et al., 2019). In this study, the SLR methodology was chosen due to the
complexity of the available data in the literature, which would not be
possible for analysis by qualitative (such as semi-structured interviews)
or quantitative (such survey) methods concerning studies in specific
locations. An SLR’s development increases the results’ legitimacy and
reliability (Tranfield et al., 2003), supplying the researchers with a
reliable base to formulate future research opinions and considerations.
The SLR must be transparent and responsible for promoting guidelines
to help identify essential contributions to a specific research area
(Denyer and Tranfield, 2009).
Through a peer review, SLR helps identify gaps that have not yet
been researched. Therefore, it plays a critical role in advancing knowl­
edge, highlighting marks of progress along the investigation lines
(Hallinger, 2013). There has been an increase in the number of SLR
published in recent years on the agricultural sector topics. It is currently
utilized on a large scale in agriculture research (Koutsos et al., 2019).
The protocol supported the present SLR research developed in agricul­
ture 4.0 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-
Analyses (PRISMA). The PRISMA protocol was utilized to ensure a
more complete and transparent review of previously published docu­
ments (Sargeant et al., 2006; Moher et al., 2010) to broaden and
contribute to the debate on agriculture 4.0.
2.2. Research questions, databases, and keywords
To identify the aspects involving the adoption of agriculture 4.0, four
Research Questions (RQ) were formulated, which seek to help select the
most essential articles to compose the research: RQ1. What is the defi­
nition of agriculture 4.0?; RQ2. What are technologies currently utilized
in agriculture 4.0?; RQ3. What barriers render it difficult to develop
agriculture 4.0?; and RQ4. What are the main advantages and disad­
vantages of developing agriculture 4.0?.
The searches were performed in the Science Direct, Web of Science,
and Scopus databases. These databases cover periodicals with an impact
in different areas. Since this research focuses on identifying studies in
the context of agriculture 4.0, it was chosen to follow the steps of Denyer
and Tranfield (2009). The research strategy utilized a set of keywords
with quotation marks (“”) for a compound word and applied the Boolean
operators AND and OR. The research strategy adopted was a single string:
((Agriculture OR Agricultural) AND (“agriculture 4.0” OR “smart farm*” OR
“industry 4.0” OR “farming 4.0” OR “digital agriculture” OR “fourth
agricultural revolution” OR “precision agriculture”)). The string was
applied to the title, abstract, and keywords fields during the database’s
searching process. The string ought to consider all the terms present at
the origin of agriculture 4.0, aiming to ensure the scientific articles
coverage and representativity. The search strategy terms were selected
after analyzing five articles related to the research topic by two inde­
pendent readers (Wolfert et al., 2017; Colezea et al., 2018; Elijah et al.,
2018; Rose and Chilvers, 2018; Muangprathub et al., 2019), as they are
studies that carried out reviews on the theme of agriculture 4.0. It was
chosen to exclude the terms (“barriers” OR “implementation difficulty” OR
“limitation”) from the search strategy because they reduced the number
of articles and presented an absence of significant studies to make up the
final sample of the SLR.
Four criteria were considered to exclude articles resulting from
F. da Silveira et al. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405

Table 1 were not related to the objective proposed. Forty-eight (48) articles were
SLR protocol. eligible. Using the Snowball method (Biernacki and Waldorf, 1981), the
SLR stages Information Collected references of the 48 articles screened previously were analyzed. Thus,
another ten articles were identified to compose the final sample, and
Year
Research in the Authors these also belonged to the databases adopted initially. The 58 articles
Database and Title chosen in the research followed the criteria (i, ii, iii, and iv) established
Preliminary Selection Abstract in Section 2.2. Table 1 is an example of the analysis protocol of the SLR
Keywords articles.
Title Group 1 (all yes answers): For the protocol eligibility stage, two groups of questions were uti­
Keywords – re the article objectives clear? lized to analyze the content of the 58 articles. Firstly, a partial reading of
Abstract –Do the goals of the article involve
the articles was performed, seeking to provide a positive answer to all
Objective agriculture 4.0 or correlated
Methodology descriptions? Group 1 questions. In the group, we encourage the sample articles to be
Country –Does the study empirical or empirical, which seeks to evaluate the functioning of a specific phe­
Conclusion review? nomenon in an applied manner (Powell and Butterfield, 1994; Del Val
Periodical in –Does the study show its and Clara, 2003). Secondly, to select the article and compose the final
which published contribution?
–Are the main conclusions of the
sample of the research, at least one of the answers to Group 2 had to be
study clear? affirmative. After utilizing the two groups of questions, 50 articles were
included in this SLR, and their results were described in Section 3. Fig. 1
Analysis of the Content Research Group 2 (at least one yes
Questions (RQ) answer): shows the methodological flow adopted in the SLR based on the use of
RQ1 – Does the study present the the PRISMA protocol (Moher et al., 2010) and makes it easier to un­
description of agriculture 4.0? derstand the steps adopted in the study.
RQ2 – Does the study indicate
which technologies are adopted in
agriculture 4.0?
2.4. Considerations on the quality of the articles
RQ3 – Does the present study
barriers that make it difficult to The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) was adopted to evaluate the quality
develop agriculture 4.0? of the scientific journals of the 50 articles selected in the SLR, made
RQ4 – What are the main
available by the InCites Journal Citations Reports (Ranjan, 2017). Their
advantages and disadvantages of
developing agriculture 4.0? metrics considered the data collected on December 21, 2020. Scopus’s
complete database (compiled on December 21, 2020) was utilized to
Descriptions
Technologies
measure the citations of the scientific production selected. It was used
Barriers because of its multidisciplinary, normative and significant scientific
Data Extraction Advantages research power (Franceschini et al., 2016). Appendix A shows the in­
Disadvantages formation breadth of the JIF and citations of the articles. Based on this
Trends
data, a network of relations between SLR terms and documents was built
Research Agenda
by the circular interface software Mandala Browser (Gainor et al., 2009;
Ruecker et al., 2015). The Mandala Browser (Brown et al., 2010) is a tool
that allows analyzing scientific research interactively by visualizing the
database searches: (i) articles published before December 21, 2020; (ii) text, providing issues differently from other devices concerning content
books and book chapters, articles from congresses and or conferences, analysis. The manuscripts text of the sample studied in the SLR was
since they are independent and do not include a blind peer review (Paez, extracted to an XML file, and the Boolean consultation adopted in the
2017); (iii) duplicate articles that appear in more than one database; and software was: (i) Agriculture OR Agricultural, (ii) Agriculture 4.0, (iii)
(iv) articles written in languages other than English since it is the lan­ Smart Farm, (iv) Industry 4.0, and (v) Internet of Things OR IoT. Each
guage used in most of the scientific journals with a high impact factor research term extracts documents in its direction as per its definition.
(Morrison et al., 2012). The latter are indexed in large databases Based on the word’s relative frequency, it became possible to develop a
(Henshall, 2018). In addition, it is noteworthy that the term Internet of conceptual visualization of the entire SLR.
Things in this study was called Agricultural Internet of Things (AIoT)
due to the complexity of the term used in several studies in Industry 4.0 3. Results
(Liu et al., 2020; Mukherjee et al., 2020; Symeonaki et al., 2020;
Almadani and Mostafa, 2021). This section presents the content analysis results of the articles
selected in the SLR. Section 3.1 corresponds to the bibliometric data of
the study. Next are inserted the subsections whose objective is to answer
2.3. Sample analysis and selection the RQ1, RQ2, RQ3 and RQ4 of the SLR.

The articles were downloaded and then inserted into the Mendeley©
reference manager software. The database searches resulted in a
plethora of 351 documents by adding together the Science Direct (240),
Scopus (74), and Web of Science (37). Fifty-two duplicate articles were
removed using the software. In the screening stage, the evaluation was
performed by peers and independently. If there were doubts about the
inclusion or not of a given article, a third reader analyzed the final
decision-making discordances. Thus, 100 articles were excluded that
belonged in criterion (ii), and the files were identified as book chapters
(28), congresses and or conferences (58), magazines (2), and appendix
or list of abbreviations (12). After the titles, abstracts and keywords
were read, another 151 articles were discarded that did not present the
terms defined in the research protocol (Denyer and Tranfield, 2009) and
3.1. Bibliometric analysis
Fig. 2 shows the year of publication and the distribution of the topics
discussed in the 50 articles selected. The first article presenting relations
between IoT and agriculture 4.0/smart farm research fields was identified
in 2016. There was a full increase in the publications in 2019 (24)
compared to 2018 (12) and an increasing mix between the topics of the
article.
The agriculture 4.0/smart farm topics were identified in 47 articles.
The articles of the agriculture 4.0/smart farm set, which do not interact
with other issues, were a total of 7 cases. In the other 40 articles of the
agriculture 4.0/smart farm set, the following mixed topic interactions
were identified: agriculture 4.0/smart farm and IoT (26), agriculture 4.0/

3
F. da Silveira et al.
Fig. 1. Methodological flow adopted in the SLR according to the PRISMA protocol.
smart farm, IoT and Industry 4.0 (11), and agriculture 4.0/smart farm and
industry 4.0 (3). Industry 4.0 was the subject of study in 2 articles and IoT
in 1 research in agriculture.
Table 2 exhibits the research method adopted in the articles of the
sample. Three categories were defined: 40% (review), 40% (qualitative)
and 20% (quantitative). Each category was divided into subcategories to
examine their approaches concerning the methodologies employed.
Each study could apply more than one method described, being char­
acterized as a mixed-method, which occurred in more than 35 articles. A
mixed-method approach is considered a sequential junction or grouping
of review, qualitative, or quantitative approaches (Venkatesh et al.,
2013). Among the articles classified as a review, 100% developed a
systematic literature review or literature review (i.e., O’Grady and O’Hare,
2017; Lee et al., 2019; Ponraj and Vigneswaran, 2019) as A, which was
the only method utilized in the studies and mixed-method applications
(Venkatesh et al., 2013). There was an advance in the use of mixed-
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Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405
methods in the articles in 2018 and 2019. The indicators of the sub­
category methods in the qualitative cases were 58.82% case studies
(Braun et al., 2018; Gan and Lee, 2018; Nawandar and Satpute, 2019) as
B, 14.71% frameworks (i.e., Ferrández-Pastor et al., 2016; Corallo et al.,
2018; Colezea et al., 2018) as C, 8.82% interviews (i.e., Raungpaka and
Savetpanuvong, 2017; Pivoto et al., 2018; Khatri-Chhetri et al., 2019) as
D, and 17.65% descriptive statistics (i.e., Pivoto et al., 2018; Janc et al.,
2019; Ponraj and Vigneswaran, 2019) as E. Among the empirical
studies, Brazil was the outstanding country to develop research with
different methodologies (i.e., Pivoto et al., 2018; Haberli Junior et al.,
2019; Junior et al., 2019; Pivoto et al., 2019; Righi et al., 2020). Ac­
cording to the authors Souza et al. (2020), Brazil may be the main world
supplier of food, especially concerning the demands of Asian needs.
Therefore, it is suggested to evaluate and understand Brazilian agricul­
tural evolution (Souza et al., 2020). For the articles that are character­
ized as quantitative, 47.07% Machine Learning (i.e., Balducci et al., 2018;
F. da Silveira et al. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405

Fig. 2. Distribution of the year of publication and the topics researched in the SLR articles.

Table 2
Research method adopted in the SLR articles.

Note: *n = Sample of studies. A = Systematic Literature Review or Literature Review; B = Case Study; C = Framework; D = Interviews; E = Descriptive Statistics; F =
Machine Learning; G = Survey; H = Structural Equation Modelling, Life Cycle Assessment, Forecasting, Artificial Neural Networks, Regression or Decision Tree.

Quiroz and Alférez, 2020; Ramli et al., 2020) as F, 17.65% survey (i.e.,
Janc et al., 2019; Junior et al., 2019; Pivoto et al., 2019) as G, and
35.29% Structural Equation Modelling (Haberli Junior et al., 2019; Junior
et al., 2019), Life Cycle Assessment (Belaud et al., 2019), Forecasting (Huh
and Kim, 2018), Regression (Moon et al., 2018), and Decision Tree (Bal­
ducci et al., 2018; Moon et al., 2018) as H were identified.
The color saturation in Table 2 highlights the review method since it
was utilized in 16 articles in 2019. In 2020 the review method was
adopted in the eight articles selected in the SLR. The review research
tool used in 40% of the sample articles is a research method that seeks to
reduce the gaps and restrictions in agriculture 4.0 employing evidence
identified in scientific studies that provide a general, reliable vision of
the topic under discussion. The results shown in Table 2 may indicate
the wide use of mixed-method approaches, which will consider review,
quantitative, and qualitative aspects in the investigations related to
agriculture 4.0.
Fig. 3 presents a graph of the publications of agriculture 4.0
worldwide. The resulting map considered the country of the authors or
co-authors who developed the articles in the SLR sample. These data
help understand the collaborative relations among the researchers from
the different countries that are promoting the development of scientific
research in agriculture 4.0 (Fan, Li, and Law, 2020). The publication’s
geographic distribution was concentrated mainly in the countries of
Europe (30) and Asia (22).
No scientific publications on agriculture 4.0 were identified in the
countries of Africa. The absence of research on the African continent
that considers agriculture 4.0 in its scope is an essential finding since
governments must allocate at least 1% of their GDP to agricultural
research, according to the requirements established in the aim for the
follow-up of the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Devel­
opment (Gaffney et al., 2019). The country that presented the most
significant number of publications was South Korea (6), which provides
considerable financial resources to improve the agricultural sector’s
development and implement more advanced technologies (Jha et al.,

5
F. da Silveira et al.
Fig. 3. Graph of scientific publications on agriculture 4.0 worldwide.
2019). Although South Korea has a small number of agricultural lands, it
is outstanding for its primary technological research and development
centers. It has great players from the electronic and computer industry
that favor an innovative environment (Pivoto et al., 2018) to develop
agriculture 4.0 technologies.
Fig. 4 presents a conceptual visualization of relations between the
terms and documents selected in the SLR. The exhibition that results
from the Mandala Browser tool use shows different sets and subsets of
points regarding the terms pre-established in advance (Section 2.4). The
group responsible for the most significant number of unique corre­
spondences was Agriculture “OR” Agricultural (243). The most extensive
relations developed in the subsets were between Agriculture “OR”
Agricultural and Agriculture 4.0 (248); Agriculture “OR” Agricultural,
Agriculture 4.0 and Smart Farm (149); and Agriculture “OR” Agricultural
and Smart Farm (102). These findings can be analyzed on the labels of
the magnets. There was less coverage of the sample article unique cor­
respondences for Agriculture 4.0 (27) than Smart Farm (150). However,
the total correspondences are more extensive in Agriculture 4.0 (545)
than Smart Farm (519). Besides, the connecting lines that indicate the
relations between the magnets, through the subsets, are segmented into
13 cases in Agriculture 4.0 and into 11 cases in Smart Farm. Therefore, the
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Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405
term Smart Farm appears with a more considerable breadth if the other
subsets relations are ignored. This is the contrary of Agriculture 4.0,
which has a more significant impact if the subsets are considered.
The interactions between the pre-established terms led to the
development of 18 subsets with specific particularities. The subset
formed by the terms (Agriculture “OR” Agricultural, Agriculture 4.0, In­
dustry 4.0, Smart Farm, and IoT) presented several total correspondences
(17). Nevertheless, it was smaller than the total correspondence (37) in
terms such as (IoT, Smart Farm, Agriculture 4.0, and Agriculture “OR”
Agricultural). In the case of the subset (IoT, Agriculture 4.0, and Agricul­
ture “OR” Agricultural), the number of total correspondence (28) was
more significant than the subset (IoT, Smart Farm, and Agriculture “OR”
Agricultural) with several total correspondences (22). The smaller sub­
sets are those involving the term Industry 4.0: (Industry 4.0 and Agri­
culture “OR” Agricultural) with several total correspondences (2),
(Industry 4.0 and Agriculture 4.0) with several total correspondences (1)
and (Industry 4.0 and Smart Farm) with several total correspondences
(1).
The actors involved in the development of agriculture 4.0 were
identified since they influenced the dissemination of the new techno­
logical system (Maria et al., 2021) of the agricultural production chain.
F. da Silveira et al.
Fig. 4. Conceptual visualization developed by the Mandala Browser software of the interactions between the terms pre-established in the SLR articles.
Table 3 presents the authors of the sample studied. Nine different types
of actors were identified, classified according to their frequency in the
primary studies. The names of the actor’s categories were developed
based on the content analysis following the steps suggested by Elo and
Kyngäs (2008), such as open coding, categorization, and abstraction in
the articles selected in the SLR.
The highest incidence was found in the research sample by actors
concerned with the farmer (45). Next are the following actors: govern­
ment (11), universities and extension services (10), and supply chain man­
agement in agriculture (6). A study was outstanding because it covered six
types of actors (A1, A2, A3, A4, A6, and A7). Concerning the main
author, the focus was to analyze the key questions of intelligent agri­
cultural systems (Lioutas et al., 2019). Three other articles involved four
different types of actors. One of the research studies sought to identify
the socio-economic challenges faced by big data and smart farming apps
(A1, A3, A5, and A9) (Wolfert et al., 2017). Another study conceived a
framework to manage data based on analyzing the business model and
procedures related to business in the agricultural and food supply chain
(A1, A2, A5, and A7) (Corallo, Latino, and Menegoli, 2018). The third
study reviewed architectures of communication, underlying detection
technologies, and communications mechanisms for IoT on farms (A1,
A2, A8, and A9) (Vuran et al., 2018). The other articles in Table 3 have at
most three actors, which indicates that there is space for the develop­
ment of agriculture 4.0 (Maria, Maria, and Andrea, 2021) in the agri­
cultural production chain.
3.2. RQ1 – Description of agriculture 4.0
After analyzing the content of the articles selected in the SLR, 29
studies were identified presenting approaches correlated with the
concept of agriculture 4.0 and seven articles that deal exclusively with
their description. Klerkx et al. (2019) maintain that the approaches of
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Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405
the smart farm, precision agriculture, and agriculture 4.0 type have the
same meaning. A few authors defined smart farm as the adoption of
digital or information and communication technologies for farm man­
agement (e.g., O’Grady and O’Hare, 2017; Pivoto et al., 2019; Fielke
et al., 2020) to monitor different parameters (Balducci et al., 2018;
Balducci et al., 2018) based on the collection of a set of data (Colezea
et al., 2018; Lioutas et al., 2019; Van der Burg et al., 2019). The data
used can make it possible to cultivate crops (Lee et al., 2019; Nawandar
and Satpute, 2019), with potentials in the crop yields – operational ef­
ficiency (Elijah et al., 2018), lowering production costs, eliminating the
use of agricultural pesticides and non-essential fertilizers (Wolfert et al.,
2017; Moon et al., 2018; Quiroz and Alférez, 2020).
Other terms are used in agriculture 4.0 literature: precision agricul­
ture, digital agriculture, smart agriculture, autonomous agricultural robots,
smart factories, Agri Artificial Intelligence, and agri-food 4.0. Some au­
thors defined precision agriculture as an agricultural management strat­
egy that utilizes sensors, data, and communication networks in the
cultivation systems (Ferrández-Pastor et al., 2016; Jawad et al., 2017;
Hang et al., 2020) to increase their yield and reduce their losses (Ponraj
and Vigneswaran, 2019). The digital agriculture approach was defined by
Phillips et al. (2019) as the implementation of a range of new hardware,
software, mobile apps, technologies that involve sensors and big data
apps in the farm. Fielke et al. (2019) added the importance of devel­
oping, adopting, and iteration between digital technologies seeking the
farms’ ideal management. The authors Ozdogan et al. (2017) add that it
is necessary to adopt new digital technologies to be profitable in digital
agriculture and foster a sustainable agricultural production chain.
Smart agriculture is a term defined as the implementation of modern
information and communication technologies (IoT, GPS, big data) on
farms by farmers who seek to improve quality and increase the pro­
ductivity of the agricultural products (Janc et al., 2019; Mistry et al.,
2020). According to Mistry et al. (2020), the description includes data
F. da Silveira et al. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405

Table 3
Actors in the development of agriculture 4.0, according to the SLR.
Actors’ Categories
ID Author (s) Year
A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9

1 Ferrández-Pastor et al. 2016 X

2 Jawad et al. 2017 X X
3 O’Grady and O’Hare 2017 X
4 Ozdogan, Gacar and Aktas 2017 X X
5 Raungpaka and Savetpanuvong 2017 X X
6 Wolfert et al. 2017 X X X X
7 Balducci, Impedovo, and Pirlo 2018 X X
8 Braun, Colangelo, and Steckel 2018 X X
9 Colezea et al. 2018 X X
10 Corallo, Latino, and Menegoli 2018 X X X X
11 Elijah et al. 2018 X X
12 Gan and Lee 2018 X
13 Huh and Kim 2018 X
14 Moon et al. 2018 X
15 Musat et al. 2018 X
16 Pivoto et al. 2018 X
17 Rose and Chilvers 2018 X X X
18 Vuran et al. 2018 X X X X
19 Belaud et al. 2019 X X X
20 Fielke et al. 2019 X
21 Grieve et al. 2019 X
22 Haberli Junior et al. 2019 X X
23 Hradecká 2019 X X X
24 Janc, Czapiewski, and Wójcik 2019 X
25 Junior, Oliveira, and Yanaze 2019 X
26 Khatri-Chhetri et al. 2019 X X X
27 Klerkx, Jakku, and Labarthe 2019 X X X
28 Kodan, Parmar, and Pathania 2019 X X X
29 Kong et al. 2019 X
30 Lee et al. 2019 X
31 Lioutas et al. 2019 X X X X X X
32 Miranda et al. 2019 X X
33 Muangprathub et al. 2019 X
34 Nawandar and Satpute 2019 X
35 Phillips et al. 2019 X X
36 Pivoto et al. 2019 X
37 Ponraj and Vigneswaran 2019 X
38 Schmidt and Cheein 2019 X
39 Sittón-Candanedo et al. 2019 X X
40 Van der Burg, Bogaardt, and Wolfert 2019 X X X
41 Zambon et al. 2019 X X
42 Zhao et al. 2019 X
43 Fielke, Taylor, and Jakku 2020 X X
44 Hang et al. 2020 X
45 Klerkx and Rose 2020 X X X
46 Mistry et al. 2020 X X
47 Quiroz et al. 2020 X
48 Ramli et al. 2020 X
49 Righi et al. 2020 X
50 Zhai et al. 2020 X

n* 45 11 10 6 5 5 4 3 3
Total
% 90 22 20 12 10 10 8 6 6

Note: *n = Sample of studies. A1 - Farmer; A2 - Government; A3 - Universities and Extension Services; A4 - Supply Chain Management in Agriculture; A5 - Manu­
facturers of Agricultural Equipment and Machines; A6 - Customer; A7 - Wholesalers and Retailers; A8 - Manufacturers of Food Products; A9 - Farm Credit.

regarding temperature, light, and soil moisture in a central control
system on the farm that applies Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms to
help the farmers manage the production system. Another approach
defined by the SLR authors was smart factories, which deals with the
interaction between products and services connected to the internet
(Corallo et al., 2018).
Authors Gan and Lee (2018) defined autonomous agricultural robots as
autonomous navigation by robots without human intervention,
providing precise information to help develop agricultural operations.
Incrementing autonomous robots in agriculture is essential for devel­
oping future smart farms (Gan and Lee, 2018). On the other hand, agri­
cultural robotization was defined as introducing robots in the agriculture
and food industry because it is entirely automated, efficient, and
economically beneficial (Hradecká, 2019). Moreover, the description of
agricultural robotization is related to analyses of the production system
results by robots that can perform internal audits of the operational cash
flow, aiming to eliminate stealing and corruption in sales and purchases
by the industry (Hradecká, 2019).
The Agri Artificial Intelligence approach was defined as intelligent
agricultural systems that incorporate AI to process data from sources
with variability, such as nature pests, pathogens, and weeds due to
climate change (Grieve et al., 2019). Climate-smart agriculture is defined
as using digital technologies to reduce Greenhouse Gases (GHG) in
agricultural activities (Khatri-Chhetri et al., 2019). For Miranda et al.
(2019), agri-food 4.0 can be defined as the new era of agri-food pro­
duction that utilizes automation, connectivity, digitalization, renewable

8
F. da Silveira et al. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405

Table 4 Table 4 (continued )

Summary of the descriptions of agriculture 4.0. ID Authors Year Descriptions of Terms adopted in
ID Authors Year Descriptions of Terms adopted in ( agriculture 4.0 descriptions
( agriculture 4.0 descriptions Table 3)
Table 3)
already operational or Agriculture 4.0,
13 Huh and (2018, “Supported by future Environmental developing emerging
Kim p.5) technologies and concerns, technologies such as technologies
environmental agriculture 4.0, robotics,
concerns, agriculture efficient, value nanotechnology,
4.0 pursues eco- chain synthetic protein,
friendly but more cellular agriculture,
efficient farming gene-editing
methods, which technology, artificial
satisfy the intelligence,
requirements of the blockchain, and
value chain as well as machine learning.”
the demands of
50 Zhai et al. (2020, “Nowadays, the Agriculture 4.0,
society, and especially
p.1) evolution of employment of
those of consumers.”
agriculture steps into current
17 Rose and (2018, “Agriculture 4.0 is the Agriculture 4.0, Agriculture 4.0, technologies,
Chilvers p.2) adoption of emerging emerging thanks to the efficiency
technologies, such as technologies employment of
IoT, based on cloud, current technologies
robotics, and artificial like the Internet of
intelligence.” Things, Big Data,
Artificial Intelligence,
27 Klerkx, (2019, “Agriculture 4.0 Agriculture 4.0, Cloud Computing,
Jakku and p.2) implies that management tasks Remote Sensing, etc.
Labarthe management tasks on- on-farm and off- The applications of
farm and off-farm (in farm these technologies can
the broader value improve the efficiency
chain and food of agricultural
system) focus on activities
different sorts of data significantly.”
(on location, weather,
behavior,
phytosanitary status,
consumption, energy
use, prices, and energies, and the appropriate use of resources. Despite all descriptions
economic mentioned above, a recent term that is being researched is agriculture
information, etc.), 4.0, in which a description of the term was previously neglected by other
using sensors,
authors (Kodan et al., 2019; Phillips et al., 2019; Zhao et al., 2019) and
machines, drones, and
satellites to monitor suggested by Sponchioni et al. (2019) the development of new de­
animals, soil, water, scriptions of the term. Table 4 presents a summary of the descriptions of
plants, and humans.“ agriculture 4.0 that were identified in the SLR.
29 Kong (2019, “Based on digital Agriculture 4.0, Kong et al. (2019) say that agriculture 4.0 can improve the
et al. p.2) technologies and data accurate decision description of precision agriculture in response to the operational un­
advances (IoT, sensor making, operational certainties and data updates in real-time. On the other hand, Huh and
data, and remote uncertainties, real-
Kim (2018) show that agriculture 4.0 uses emerging technologies to
sensing technologies), time data updates
agriculture 4.0 has the manage and operate crops and a new culture that is being developed to
potential to enhance encourage farmers to update their production methods strategies for an
precision agriculture. optimized value chain. Besides, the definition of agriculture 4.0 is also
Besides, it can also
related to four essential requirements: the growth of productivity, cor­
improve the
agricultural system’s
rect allocation of resources, reduction of food waste, and adaptation to
responsive climate changes (Zhai et al., 2020). Authors Rose and Chilvers (2018)
performance with stresses that agriculture 4.0 can also provide potential environmental,
accurate decision ethical, and social costs in the agricultural chain.
making in response to
Besides changes in traditional agriculture (Huh and Kim, 2018), a
operational
uncertainties and real- few articles describe agriculture 4.0 through the adoption and interac­
time data updates.“ tion of digital technologies in the agricultural sector (Fielke et al., 2019;
41 Zambon (2019, “Agriculture 4.0, like Agriculture 4.0,
Phillips et al., 2019). The definition of the fourth agricultural revolution
et al. p.5) industry 4.0, stands digital information is also accordingly to the principles of industry 4.0, which aim to increase
for the combined the amount of data that are collected and used, to improve the
internal and external connection between devices, and to develop appropriate environments
interacting of farming
to process data on the farms (Braun et al., 2018; Belaud et al., 2019). The
operations, offering
digital information at relationship between the terms agriculture 4.0 and industry 4.0 was
all farm sectors and raised by Liu et al. (2020), who reviewed the current status of agricul­
processes.” ture and the lessons learned from industrial revolutions. Authors Zam­
45 Klerkx (2020, “Agriculture 4.0 bon et al. (2019) complement that agriculture 4 represents an excellent
and Rose p.1) comprises different opportunity to consider the variability and uncertainties present in the
agricultural and food chain. Another conceptual characteristic of agri­
culture 4.0 is the capacity to identify and mitigate the unpredictable

9
F. da Silveira et al. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405

Table 5
Wide view technologies of agriculture 4.0 in the agricultural production chain.

Field Chain Processes Technologies of Agriculture 4.0

ID (Table 3)
State Consolidated Technologies Emerging Technologies

Genetics ERP, chemistry, genetics, AIoT, next-generation genomics, responsive effector systems, and novel [6, 13, 17, 21, 25, 35, 45]
Development nanotechnology materials, AI, synthetic protein, cellular agriculture, gene-editing
Pre-
technology, biometric sensing, genotype information
Field
Seed ERP AIoT, FMIS, ISV, sensing technologies, 3D food printing, IoUT, digital [1, 13, 18, 21, 25–28, 41, 45, 47]
Development twins, USN, CNN

Planting geoinformatics, new hardware, AIoT, cloud computing, mobile and autonomous robot, UAV, 5G, electrical [1–4, 6–9, 11–14, 16–18, 20, 21,
software, ERP, HDFS, LoRa agricultural machinery, RTK, AI, big data, blockchain, mobile apps, sensor 24, 28, 30–32, 34–38, 41, 43, 45,
technologies, sensing technologies, models for the individual farm, WoT, 46, 48, 50]
data mining, virtual reality, augmented reality, cybersecurity, intruder
detection system, smart irrigation, smartphone in field crops, short message
service, real-time monitoring, machine learning, cloud robotics, neural
In-
network, intelligent greenhouse, sun tracker trajectory, energy generation,
Field
decision ontologies, WSNs, IoUT, mobile sinks, USN, WCT
Harvesting geoinformatics, ERP, HDFS, new AIoT, cloud computing, mobile and autonomous robot, UAV, 5G, electrical [2–4, 6–9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 21,
hardware and software, WSNs agricultural machinery, big data, RTK, AI, cybersecurity, mobile apps, 22, 24, 29, 31, 35–38, 40, 41, 43,
sensor technologies, sensing technologies, models for the individual farm, 46, 50]
intelligent software algorithms and robots, WoT, data mining, machine
learning

Distribution ICT, RFID, NFC, geoinformatics, AIoT, blockchain, cloud computing, big data, AI, IS, DLT, robotization of [10, 11, 19, 22, 23, 28, 33, 41, 42,
WSNs internal audit, traceability 46]
Processing ICT, RFID, modeling, edge AIoT, blockchain, cloud computing, big data, AI, IS, DLT, mobile and [3, 8, 10, 11, 19, 39–42, 44, 46,
Post- computing, NFC, WSNs autonomous robot, cybersecurity, feed intake, data analytics algorithms, 47, 49, 50]
Field machine learning, intelligent software algorithms, and robots, mooCare,
forecasting engine, hyper ledger fabric
Consumer ICT, RFID, NFC AIoT, blockchain, cloud computing, big data, AI, IS, cybersecurity, 3D food [6, 10, 13, 19, 27, 28, 40–42, 45,
printing 50]

Note: AIoT- Agricultural Internet of Things. AI - Artificial Intelligence. CNN - Convolutional Neural Network. DLT - Distributed Ledger Technologies. ERP - Enterprise
Resource Planning. FMIS - Farm Management Information System. Geoinformatics - RS, GIS, and GPS. HDFS - Hadoop Distributed File System. ICT - Information and
Communication Technology. IoUT - Internet of Underground Things. IS - Internet of Services. ISV - Improved Seed Varieties. LoRa - Long Range radio. NFC - Near Field
Communication. RFID - Radio Frequency Identification. RTK - Real Time Kinematics. UAV - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (drone). USN - Ubiquitous Sensor Networks.
WCT - Wireless Communication Technology. WoT - Web of Things. WSNs - Wireless Sensor Networks.

effects of climate variations over the short term, based on an integrated
package of interventions that must consider the previously listed agri­
cultural scenarios. Based on the different climatic situations docu­
mented, the farmers benefit from the accumulated wisdom to monitor
and optimize farm management (Grieve et al., 2019).
The definition of agriculture 4.0 has been referred to as agriculture
numérique in France (Klerkx et al., 2019), digital agriculture in Australia
and New Zealand smart farming in many countries of the European Union
(Fielke et al., 2019). Nevertheless, for Zambon et al. (2019), agriculture
4.0 must follow the examples of the evolution in European industries,
and the next step should be agriculture 5.0. Agriculture 5.0 can be seen
as serving autonomous systems in a rural environment using robotics
and AI (Zambon et al., 2019). However, the term agriculture 4.0 is not
enlightening (Klerkx et al., 2019; Klerkx and Rose, 2020; Zhai et al.,
2020) since it has a limited practical application and its theoretical
lenses are under development (Zambon et al., 2019).
3.3. RQ2 – Technologies of agriculture 4.0
For agriculture to achieve the desired impact on the quantity and
quality of food production, it is necessary to know how to use the
emerging technologies (Boursianis et al., 2020; Singh and Singh, 2020;
Rose et al., 2021) for each moment in the agricultural production chain.
SLR enabled identifying the leading technologies currently incorporated
in agriculture 4.0 to detect problems in planting, identifying areas
affected by pests, indicating appropriate treatments, among other ben­
efits. Table 5 presents the technologies of agriculture 4.0 in the agri­
cultural production chain. The stages and processes proposed by Ting
et al. (2011) were adopted, which divided the agricultural system into
related subprocesses. Table 5 presents a broad view of the technologies
that support the spread of agriculture 4.0 and can revolutionize and
impact the way commodities are produced, processed, traded, and
consumed (Klerkx and Rose, 2020). Authors Klerkx et al. (2019) main­
tain the importance of investigating the emerging technologies con­
cerning the agricultural production chain. Rose and Chilvers (2018) add
a current lack of development of a structure for responsible innovation
in agriculture 4.0 for the emerging technologies to provide benefits in
agriculture since there is a risk that they will not correspond to society’s
expectations regarding sustainable production of foods.
To help understand the structure proposed in Table 5, which seeks to
render the emerging technologies appropriate to the specific contexts of
agriculture, the Field States will be discussed. The information on each
stage of the agricultural production chain helps broaden the inclusive
debate and shape the introduction of agriculture 4.0 (Rose and Chilvers,
2018).
Pre-Field: This is the stage that corresponds to the processes per­
formed before planting in the field (Ting et al., 2011). The first process in
the chain refers to genetic development, which utilizes a set of tech­
nologies to improve specific characteristics of the seed, for instance,
gene edition (Klerkx and Rose, 2020), which may increase the resistance
to certain weeds and tolerance to herbicides (Leeuwen et al., 2020). Next
is the process of seed development, which is the performance of the
genetic potential of an agricultural crop for the farmer (Sivasankar et al.,
2020). One of the technologies of agriculture 4.0 (Table 5) which is
being adopted to manage soil data for the development of seeds is IoUT,
since it supplies monitoring resources (soil moisture, salinity, and tem­
perature) and information outside the fields for the farmers and decision
mechanisms (Vuran et al., 2018). Nanotechnology is another solution
with the potential to promote plant growth and protection in agriculture
4.0. Based on a set of disruptive technologies including intelligent
nanotransporters for fertilizers, genetic engineering of plants (with
greater photosynthetic capacity), and sensors in real-time for

10
 Table 6

F. da Silveira et al.
Barriers identified in SLR which make the development of agriculture 4.0 difficult and limit its progress.
Dimensions
ID
Technological Economic Political Social Environmental
(Table 3)
B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B11 B12 B13 B14 B15 B16 B17 B18 B19 B20 B21 B22 B23 B24 B25

1 X X X X X
2 X X X X X X
3 X X X X X
4 X X
5 X X X X
6 X X X X X X X X X X X X X
7 X X
8 X X X X X X X X X X X X
9 X X X X
10 X X X X
11 X X X X X X X X X
12 X
13 X X
14 X X X
15 X X X
16 X X X X X X X
17 X X X X X X
18 X X X X X X X
19 X X X
20 X X X X X
21 X X X X X X X X X
22 X X X X X
23 X X
11

24 X X X X X
25 X X
26 X X X X X X
27 X X X X X X X
28 X X X
29 X
30 X
31 X X X X X
32 X X
33 X X X
34 X X X
35 X X X X

Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405

36 X X X X X X X X X X X
37 X X
38 X X
39 X X X X
40 X X X X
41 X X X X X
42 X X X X X X
43 X X X X X X
44 X X X X X
45 X X X X X X X X
46 X X X X
47 X X
48 X X X
49 X X X X X
50 X X X X
TB (%) 40 54 14 26 42 10 14 18 18 8 18 18 12 14 26 22 6 26 26 8 12 10 8 12 2
TD (%) 38 15 19 19 9

Note: *n = Sample of studies. TB = Total Barrier. TD = Total Dimension.

F. da Silveira et al.
phytosanitary monitoring (Hofmann et al., 2020).
In-Field: This is the second stage of the agricultural production chain,
which is performed inside the farm—in the field, and it concentrates a
range of technologies of agriculture 4.0 to develop the planting and
harvesting activities (Ting et al., 2011). For authors Grieve et al. (2019),
arable agriculture adopts the emerging technologies on a larger scale in
specialized crops, such as horticulture or fruit farming, due to the lack of
human resources to perform the functions of the vegetative cycle of
plants and the crop harvests. Schmidt and Cheein (2019) include elec­
trical agricultural machinery as solutions for collecting and utilizing
data for the decision process. Lu and Young (2020) mention that one of
the technologies currently used to perform the tasks from planting to
harvesting automatically and efficiently is the computational vision,
integrating robotics with AI. Colezea et al. (2018) report that farms in
agriculture 4.0 can be managed, monitored, and controlled at a distance,
besides supplying the information collected for online communities of
farmers who can help make the best agricultural processes decisions.
Ferrández-Pastor et al. (2016) add that smartphones or onboard devices
based on IoT should help the farmers manage crops. Wolfert et al. (2017)
add that with the implementation of machinery and intelligent sensors
on the farms, decision–making in agricultural processes should be
guided by data. This idea is supported by Lioutas et al. (2019), in which
data will provide insights to restructure conventional agriculture based
on processes, designing the course for more intelligent agriculture.
Therefore, the role of human beings in agriculture 4.0 will require a
higher intellectual level, leaving a significant part of the operational
activities to the machines (Wolfert et al., 2017). For Klerkx and Rose
(2020), although the technologies of agriculture 4.0 radicalize how
agricultural production chains are designed and operated, the transi­
tions must occur gradually.
Post-Field: This refers to the chain of processes for crops developed
outside the farm—after the harvest. It is constituted by the phases of
crop distribution, processing, and consumption (Ting et al., 2011). This
stage of the agricultural chain is characterized by the most considerable
portion of the number of grains wasted, besides being little explored in
research studies that aim to develop innovative solutions for agriculture
(Lermen et al., 2020; Miljkovic and Nelson, 2021). A set of technologies
must be adopted to identify flaws in the post-field agricultural processes
and anticipate possible problems and enable proactive actions (Table 5).
Adopting the technologies of agriculture 4.0 in the post-field phases may
provide a competitive increase and a higher level of compliance in the
market, such as transparency in the products’ traceability (Corallo et al.,
2018). Authors Zhai et al. (2020) add that the optimization of the supply
chain is widely acknowledged as one of the most effective approaches to
avoid food waste at each stage of the agricultural production chains,
including production, delivery, and trading. Zhao et al. (2019) present
blockchain technology as one of the tools of agriculture 4.0 to improve
four aspects of the agricultural and food chain of value: traceability,
information security, manufacturing, and sustainable water manage­
ment. For Hang et al. (2020), this may guarantee food production con­
formity according to the current requirements of the food,
environmental, and social security standards. Wolfert et al. (2017)
corroborate that traceability is one of the technological alternatives
(Table 5) that can be adopted in the agricultural commodities produc­
tion processes to promote food security and acceptability by society.
Among the technologies presented in Table 5, it is noteworthy that
this study shows a broad view of what exists in the literature; never­
theless, it is suggested to carry out studies of SLR and empirical studies
that evaluate the real functioning of the specific technologies. However,
many barriers may be identified during the development of agriculture
4.0 (for instance, lack of confidence and transparency around the
property of the data) (Rose and Chilvers, 2018; Jakku et al., 2019;
Zambon et al., 2019), that makes it challenging to develop new agri­
culture (Klerkx and Rose, 2020) and limits its progress (Braun et al.,
2018).
12
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405
3.4. RQ3 – Barriers in the development of agriculture 4.0
The development of agriculture 4.0 is a process with a certain degree
of heterogeneity due to the complexity of the farm ecosystem that is
transforming (Klerkx and Rose, 2020; Maria et al., 2021) and to external
factors such as the influence of climate and environment (Braun et al.,
2018). Therefore, agriculture 4.0 presents a series of interconnected
barriers that influence the adoption of any new concepts of emerging
technologies (Rose and Chilvers, 2018; Grieve et al., 2019). Few types of
research studies approach and discuss the barriers to the development of
technologies of agriculture 4.0 (Rose and Chilvers, 2018; Liu et al.,
2020), the challenges related to its inclusion and exclusion (Klerkx and
Rose, 2020), and the problems that the new agricultural system may
trigger (Pivoto et al., 2019; Zambon et al., 2019; Zhai et al., 2020).
Moreover, the scientific debate about the barriers that make it difficult
to develop agriculture 4.0 is still ongoing (Klerkx et al., 2019; Rose et al.,
2021).
Table 6 shows the barriers identified that make it difficult to develop
agriculture 4.0 in the actors (Table 3) of the agricultural production
chain. After analyzing the articles, 25 barriers were identified related
directly and indirectly to the context of agriculture 4.0. The barriers
were classified as five dimensions due to the diversity of the topic
studied: technological, economic, political, social, and environmental.
The barriers were coded as: B1 - Technological Complexity; B2 - In­
compatibility between Components; B3 - Energy Management Problems;
B4 - Lack of Infrastructure; B5 - Concerns about Reliability Issues; B6 -
High Cost of Facility Maintenance; B7 - High Cost of Skilled Labor; B8 -
High Cost of Operational Components; B9 - Lack of Solutions Accessible
to Farmers; B10 - Concerns about Environmental, Ethical and Social
Costs; B11 - Problems in Increasing Availability and Accessibility; B12 -
Lack of Farm-Centered and Farmer-Centered Approaches; B13 - Need to
develop an Action Plan to Implement; B14 - Political Challenges and/or
lack of Procedures and Agreements about the use of Data; B15 - Need to
foster R&D and innovative business models; B16 - Problems in Educa­
tion (training, qualification, training in agricultural data analysis,
transfer of data to practical knowledge); B17 - Age Group Risk; B18 -
Lack of Digital Skills and/or skilled labor; B19 - Asymmetry of Infor­
mation; B20 - Interruption of Existing Work; B21 - Challenges of the
Influence of Climate and of System Behaviors; B22 - Lack of efficacy in
the Data on the Rural Environment; B23 - Sustainable Restrictions; B24 -
Limited Techniques for Data Collection on Farms; and B25 - Concerns
about Sustainable Sources of Energy.
However, some issues must be resolved in different areas to achieve
successful development in agriculture 4.0. Based on the grouping of the
barriers in Table 6, the technological dimension (38%) stood out above
the other areas. Next come the social (19%), political (19%), economic
(15%) and environmental (9%) dimensions. As regards the barriers (TB),
the following were prominent in the sample articles: incompatibility
between technological components (54%), concerns about issues of
reliability (42%), technological complexity (40%), lack of infrastructure
(26%), lack of R&D and innovative business models (26%), lack of
digital skills or skilled labor (26%), asymmetry of information between
actors in the agricultural production chain (26%), and problems in ed­
ucation (22%). On the other hand, the least represented barriers were:
sustainable restrictions (8%), concerns about environmental, ethical,
and social costs (8%), interruption of existing work (8%), age group risks
(6%), and concerns about sustainable sources of energy (2%). Thus, the
barriers with the highest incidence in the SLR indicate the main limiting
factors in developing agriculture 4.0, requiring attention from all actors
in the agricultural production chain. The dimensions of Table 6 are
explored to contribute to the discussions on the barriers in the devel­
opment of agriculture 4.0.
3.4.1. Technology
The operational and technical problems and equipment maintenance
are dominant factors for the implementation (Ferrández-Pastor et al.,
F. da Silveira et al.
2016; Elijah et al., 2018) of the agriculture 4.0 technologies. The
complexity of the technologies and the incompatibility between their
components are barriers that prevent equipment and machinery acqui­
sition by the farmers and managers of rural businesses (Ferrández-Pastor
et al., 2016; Pivoto et al., 2019). An additional factor that may interfere
in the consent of agriculture 4.0 is the lack of usability of technological
equipment for the farmers (Jawad et al., 2017; Haberli Junior et al.,
2019). Moreover, the high energy consumption by the technologies
(Jawad et al., 2017; O’Grady and O’Hare, 2017; Schmidt and Cheein,
2019) and the low reach of communication for agricultural applications
are also issues that require attention (Jawad et al., 2017; O’Grady and
O’Hare, 2017). Another challenge is adapting the use of technologies
that were not designed for the agricultural environment (Vuran et al.,
2018; Quiroz and Alférez, 2020).
Several sources deal with the characteristics of the data that may
present risks for the implementation of agriculture 4.0, such as property,
availability (Wolfert et al., 2017; Colezea et al., 2018; Phillips et al.,
2019), quality, responsibility, interoperability (Hradecká, 2019; Junior,
Oliveira, and Yanaze, 2019), scalability, visual disorder (Kodan, Parmar,
and Pathania, 2019; Lee et al., 2019; Ponraj and Vigneswaran, 2019),
transmission (Hang et al., 2020; Ramli et al., 2020), interference, pri­
vacy and cybernetic security (Elijah et al., 2018; Fielke et al., 2019;
Klerkx et al., 2019). Other studies point to uncertainties in agriculture
4.0 concerning how to explore and manage the information raised, the
quantity of heterogeneous data produced – both structured and un­
structured (Wolfert et al., 2017; Balducci et al., 2018; Braun et al., 2018;
Colezea et al., 2018; Zhai et al., 2020), and the data mining process
(Muangprathub et al., 2019). Moon et al. (2018) mention that one of the
main problems that interfere in its development is the complexity of
integrating data from multiple different sensors. Pivoto et al. (2018) and
that the difficulty of integrating the distinct agricultural technological
systems is a limiting factor in the evolution of agriculture 4.0. Other
issues that deal with the farmers’ problem in structuring the database
(Musat et al., 2018) and understanding the functionality of apps and
software that analyze the agricultural data (Pivoto et al., 2019) also
influence its adoption. Grieve et al. (2019) emphasize that the temporal
and spatial dimensions of the biological, climatic, economic, and so­
ciological dimensions may trigger problems in interpreting data, making
it even more challenging to implement technologies of agriculture 4.0.
For agriculture 4.0 to function, it is essential to develop a modern
telecommunications infrastructure in rural areas (Braun et al., 2018;
Zambon et al., 2019). The infrastructure must mainly enable broad
connectivity at the farms (Corallo et al., 2018). Otherwise, it may be
challenging to obtain instantaneous access to the large volumes of data
generated in the field (Vuran et al., 2018). The lack of robust connec­
tivity in the area, together with flexible access and modularity, may also
impair the advances of detection technologies of agriculture 4.0. (Braun
et al., 2018; Vuran et al., 2018). Moreover, the deficiencies of the
infrastructure derived from the large number of devices connected to the
system or by integration with other systems may develop data latency
problems and provoke a lack of trust among the actors involved in the
system (Pivoto et al., 2018; Mistry et al., 2020).
3.4.2. Economic
The high investment needed to acquire the equipment and techno­
logical components discourages the process of developing agriculture
4.0 (Ferrández-Pastor et al., 2016; Jawad et al., 2017; Elijah et al., 2018;
Pivoto et al., 2019). A survey performed on Polish farms pointed out that
the limitation of investments in advanced solutions may delay the
transformation of agriculture 4.0 (Janc et al., 2019). Furthermore, the
farmers cannot invest in new agricultural technologies (Khatri-Chhetri
et al., 2019), especially in developing countries (Miranda et al., 2019;
Pivoto et al., 2019), thus influencing the rate of development of the new
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Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405
intensive agriculture. The challenge is to render the solutions accessible
for all types of rural producers so that there will not be high costs
(Wolfert et al., 2017), expressing a need for low-cost connectivity on the
farms (Corallo, Latino, and Menegoli, 2018).
To analyze the information from the data surveyed at the farms, it is
necessary to have devices with a high computational cost (e.g., mighty
graphic boards) (Sittón-Candanedo et al., 2019; Righi et al., 2020). The
solutions to farm decision-making problems may not be viable due to the
prohibitive costs of agricultural technologies 4.0 (Zhao et al., 2019;
Klerkx and Rose, 2020). Likewise, the costs of the new technological
equipment’s disposal process must also be reduced (Miranda et al.,
2019). The social, ethical, and environmental implications may also give
rise to potential costs in the large-scale introduction of agriculture 4.0
(Rose and Chilvers, 2018; Grieve et al., 2019); as well as expenditures to
commission the infrastructure needed for the rural communities (Vuran
et al., 2018) and the operational costs coming from the data interoper­
ability (Hradecká, 2019). It indicates that the technical feasibility of
agriculture 4.0 requires additional charges from the farmers for its
implementation (Khatri-Chhetri et al., 2019). Another determining
economic factor is skilled labor costs to control and keep the agricultural
technologies working (Ferrández-Pastor et al., 2016).
3.4.3. Political
The differences in the politics created by developed and developing
countries may delay the collective advance of agriculture 4.0 (Phillips
et al., 2019). New agreements, laws and, regulatory challenges (Wolfert
et al., 2017; Elijah et al., 2018; Van der Burg et al., 2019) must be
developed and should include the characteristics of the data raised by
the agricultural devices, as discussed previously in Section 3.4.1, to
avoid business model problems (such privacy and data availability) that
occur between farmers and technology suppliers (Wolfert et al., 2017;
Braun et al., 2018; Elijah et al., 2018; Zhao et al., 2019). Other sets of
rules are also missing, which refer to the relation of the actors involved
in the changing farm ecosystem (Lioutas et al., 2019). Agriculture 4.0
will establish adaptive governance between countries, with common
principles, to make it easier and encourage agricultural technology
development (Fielke et al., 2019). Another mechanism that may affect
agriculture 4.0 is the lack of invitations by policy formulators to present
proposals to promote startups aimed at farmers’ needs (Zambon et al.,
2019).
For agriculture 4.0 to be experienced fully, it is necessary to broaden
the availability and accessibility of the technologies for the farmers
(Jawad et al., 2017) through a new agricultural policy structure (Braun
et al., 2018). There is a lack of farmer-centered approaches (O’Grady
and O’Hare, 2017). Therefore, new measures must be incremented to
speed up the practices (Ozdogan et al., 2017) of agriculture 4.0. Rose
and Chilvers (2018) add that the agricultural sector may initially present
social resistance, making appropriate governance difficult to develop
agriculture 4.0. Turkey is one of the countries that are welcoming the
development of an action plan to implement new agriculture as occurred
in EU countries and the USA by integrating universities and techno­
logical incubator centers (Ozdogan et al., 2017). Moreover, countries
like China, South Korea, Germany, and Japan are also investing in R&D
to facilitate the development of technologies (Pivoto et al., 2018) in
agricultural 4.0.
3.4.4. Social
The actor’s social role (Table 3) in the agricultural production chain
requires further investigation since this directly influences traditional
agricultural transformation into agriculture 4.0 (Fielke et al., 2020). One
of the social challenges in the implementation of agriculture 4.0 tech­
nologies is the lack of skilled labor (Ferrández-Pastor et al., 2016; Pivoto
et al., 2019), technical know-how (Khatri-Chhetri et al., 2019), and
F. da Silveira et al. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405

Table 7
Research agenda on the development of agriculture 4.0 with methodological suggestions.
Dimensions Research questions Authors used to create research Methodological suggestion
questions

What are the factors needed to foster the use of
agriculture 4.0 technologies on farms?
What are the sociological and psychological factors that
influence the adoption of any new technologies
originating in agriculture 4.0?
What are the stages and methods appropriate for
implementing agriculture 4.0 on farms?
Behavioral and managerial
factors
What are the effects of agriculture 4.0 on the farmers’
behavioral bias in implementing new technologies? Are
there methods for awareness-building and re-education?
How to measure the barriers to the implementation of
agriculture 4.0?
What strategies can be developed to overcome the
barriers identified in the implementation phase of
agriculture 4.0?
Kong et al. (2019) Mistry et al.
(2020)
Schmidt and Cheein (2019) Righi
et al. (2020) Zhai et al. (2020)
Pivoto et al. (2018) Belaud et al.
(2019) Haberli Junior et al. (2019)
Mistry et al. (2020)
Janc et al. (2019) Kodan et al.
(2019) Kong et al. (2019)
Wolfert et al. (2017) Grieve et al.
(2019) Muangprathub et al. (2019)
Rose and Chilvers (2018)
Klerkx, Jakku, and Labarthe (2019)
Fielke et al. (2020)
Semi structured interviews to identify the factors
with farmers and interpretive structural
modelling to interrelate the factors with experts.
A survey with a sample of 350 farmers of small,
medium, and large size to prioritize the factors.
A systematic literature review of stages and
methods in Agriculture 4.0 empirical studies.
Focus groups with 3 farmers by each size to
identify the effects and agricultural fairs
participation to re-educate farmers.
A survey with farmers in different countries and
different sizes.
Focus groups with six farmers and six experts to
identify strategies and use the interpretive
structural modeling to relate them.

How are methodologies of the development of products
and services in agriculture 4.0 integrated?
How are methodologies related to innovation in
agriculture 4.0 integrated?
Factors related to the
development of the How are automation and robotization implemented or
technologies adapted in technologies that exist in agriculture?
How is the difference in the implementation of
agriculture 4.0 evaluated in developed, developing, and
underdeveloped countries?
What technologies are appropriate for communication
throughout the agricultural processes chain?
O’Grady and O’Hare (2017)
Colezea et al. (2018) Corallo et al.
(2018)
Braun et al. (2018) Fielke et al.
(2019) Ponraj and Vigneswaran
(2019)
Hradecká (2019) Grieve et al.
(2019) Pivoto et al. (2019)
Phillips et al. (2019)
‘Hang et al. (2020) Zhai et al.
(2020)
Klerkx et al. (2019) Khatri-Chhetri
et al. (2019) Ramli et al. (2020)
Correlate studies of agriculture 4.0 with the areas
of Product and Service development.
Correlate studies of agriculture 4.0 with the area
of Innovation management by content analysis
and discourse analysis.
Develop a longitudinal case study to map the
implementation process in different farm sizes.
Survey with 150 farmers of developed,
developing, and underdeveloped countries to
evaluate the significant differences.
Survey with farmers in different sizes and assess
maturity levels in the evaluated field.

How can the influence of connectivity and climate in the
implementation of agriculture 4.0 be quantified?
How can the efficacy of IoT and data analytics in farms
4.0 be applied and evaluated?
What are the effects of implanting agriculture 4.0 in a
Factors related to the
new ecosystem based on the perspectives of public
implementation of
policies?
agriculture 4.0
What are the differences between the barriers of
agriculture 4.0 in developing and developed countries?
How can one measure whether a given region is prepared
to adopt agriculture 4.0 technologies?
Raungpaka and Savetpanuvong
(2017) Colezea et al. (2018) Zhai
et al. (2020)
Gan and Lee (2018) Moon et al.
(2018) Van der Burg et al. (2019)
Fielke et al. (2019) Janc et al.
(2019)
Klerkx, Jakku, and Labarthe (2019)
Phillips et al. (2019) Hang et al.
(2020) Zhai et al. (2020)
Huh and Kim (2018) Moon et al.
(2018)
Perform big data analysis with field information
for the farmer decision making process.
Assess the influence of the use of big data in
decision making concerning farm incomes.
Focus group with heads of state and government
decision-makers to suggest strategies to improve
the agriculture 4.0 implementation.
A barrier survey with 150 farmers of developed
and developing countries to identify the
significant differences.
Assess via survey whether the region’s influences
adapt through the chi-square test to evaluate
statistical significance.

digital skills (Ozdogan, Gacar, and Aktas, 2017; Janc et al., 2019; Klerkx
et al., 2019), with the competencies required in the new agricultural
system. A few studies pointed out the lack of training and qualification
(Zambon et al., 2019), long training time (Ponraj and Vigneswaran,
2019), and the limited capacity for data analysis by the farmers as ob­
stacles to agriculture 4.0 (Braunet al., 2018; Musat et al., 2018; Lioutas
et al., 2019). In this context, the transfer of data to practical knowledge
is also a challenge for the farmers (Zhai et al., 2020). Other research
mentions the farmers’ age group (Ozdogan et al., 2017), digital exclu­
sion, and information asymmetry (Raungpaka and Savetpanuvong,
2017; Wolfert et al., 2017) as ambiguities in the transformation of
agriculture 4.0. In developing countries, the lack of appropriate
knowledge among the farmers regarding the agriculture 4.0 technolo­
gies may also retard its adoption (Elijah et al., 2018; Pivoto et al., 2018;
Janc et al., 2019). Further, data literacy is delayed in developing
countries compared to developed countries (Lioutas et al., 2019),
making the evolution of agriculture 4.0 difficult.
Grieve et al. (2019) add the need to perform changes in the agri­
cultural communities’ mentality so that the technologies will have a
more significant impact on the sector. In this sphere, another critical
factor is the lack of inclusion of women in adopting the technologies of
agriculture 4.0 (Khatri-Chhetri et al., 2019). Some studies allege that the
new operations in this sector may disqualify or displace agriculture
professionals and exclude or discriminate against existing functions
generating significant social problems (Klerkx et al., 2019; Klerkx and
Rose, 2020). It is also still necessary to develop a new cohort of engi­
neering graduates who will cover the biological and agronomical con­
cepts to perform multifunctional research. The students’ range of
technical skills must be remodeled to make it easier to solve two-
directional problems of agricultural science in the context of agricul­
ture 4.0 (Grieve et al., 2019).
3.4.5. Environmental
The data collected in agriculture 4.0 may not be adequate due to the
influence of the climate and the behavior of the system (Braun et al.,
2018; Moon et al., 2018; Grieve et al., 2019; Haberli Junior et al., 2019),
causing uncertainty in the implement of significant technologies among
the farmers. Smart and sustainable solutions are lacking (Muangprathub
et al., 2019; Nawandar and Satpute, 2019; Hang et al., 2020), as well as
the development of useful techniques to collect data on farms that seek
to carry out, for instance, monitoring and control of carbon emissions in
real-time (Huh and Kim, 2018). Nevertheless, the slight increase in
agricultural productivity due to the use of equipment with sustainable
tendencies can also make it challenging to develop the technologies of

14
F. da Silveira et al.
agriculture 4.0 (Pivoto et al., 2019; Righi et al., 2020). Restrictions on
the radical mode of food production, food consumption, and disposal of
food residues may be developed by the consumers (Klerkx and Rose,
2020). Moreover, concerns about the externalities of farms that work
with the environment may also impair agriculture 4.0 (Klerkx et al.,
2019).
3.5. Advantages and disadvantages
Although there are discussions in empirical studies about testing and
implementing agriculture 4.0 technologies (Gan and Lee, 2018; Quiroz
and Alférez, 2020; Ramli et al., 2020; Righi et al., 2020), few research
discusses the development and dissemination of information exploring
their advantages and disadvantages, e.g., factors economic, managerial,
technological (Klerkx and Rose, 2020; Rose et al., 2021). The present
research lists the advantages and disadvantages that may motivate
farmers and other actors mentioned in Table 3 of the agricultural pro­
duction chain to make decisions about the possibility of migrating to the
diffusion of agriculture 4.0. Among the main advantages of using the
technologies of agriculture 4.0 are increased financial returns (Huh and
Kim, 2018; Kodan et al., 2019), positive and sustainable image to the
consumers (Fielke et al., 2019; Nawandar and Satpute, 2019; Miranda
et al., 2019), efficient and safe storage, accessibility and treatment of
data (Wolfert et al., 2017; Moon et al., 2018), an ideal time for har­
vesting agricultural commodities (i.e., soy, corn, wheat), detecting dis­
eases, controlling machinery (Muangprathub et al., 2019), reducing
costs, more excellent knowledge of the cultivated areas (Pivoto et al.,
2019), and help in solving the productivity problems of the farm
(Ozdogan et al., 2017).
A plethora of studies reported the advantages of approaching the
actors in the agricultural production chain, making it possible to
calculate the positive economic impacts of the implementation of agri­
culture 4.0 (Ferrández-Pastor et al., 2016; Righi et al., 2020). On the
other hand, as to the environmental impacts, there are reports of a
reduction of waste in plantations, water, and energy (Grieve et al., 2019;
Quiroz and Alférez, 2020; Zhai et al., 2020), as well as the efficient use of
the inputs and agricultural pesticides by the on-board technologies with
machinery automation (Jawad et al., 2017; Belaud et al., 2019; Lee
et al., 2019). Advantages were also identified in the social aspects that
deal with farmers’ security (Wolfert et al., 2017) and the increase in jobs
in the agricultural sector (Miranda et al., 2019; Quiroz and Alférez,
2020).
Nevertheless, other factors such as climate monitoring, efficient use
of soil nutrients, forecasting the health of grains, quality of agricultural
products, provenance and traceability of foods and animal well-being
(Jawad et al., 2017; Klerkx et al., 2019) were listed as advantages of
agriculture 4.0. However, it is noted that there are a range of benefits
that help farmers, agricultural workers, and farm managers in the
decision-making process (Colezea et al., 2018) and in the validation of
the data obtained using sensors for analysis in terminal devices (Hang
et al., 2020). For instance, the farm management system in agriculture
4.0 should help farmers with solutions, decisive actions, and support in
the final decision making (Ponraj and Vigneswaran, 2019) for an
economically viable and environmentally correct bias (O’Grady and
O’Hare, 2017). The detailed information supplied by IoTs devices can be
visualized on web-based smartphones, tablets, computers, and apps to
manage each type of agricultural crop (Muangprathub et al., 2019).
Since it is practical to access data, it is possible to train individual
farmers who are part of the agricultural production chain to make
complex decisions (Phillips et al., 2019). Another advantage of agri­
culture 4.0 is the decision-support systems that can help the farmers
through information about farm operation planning and control,
segmented cost of operation, history of use of the resources, and
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Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405
profitability analysis (Zhai et al., 2020).
Regarding the advantages of agriculture 4.0, the importance of
inserting robots in specialized crops with productivity risks was identi­
fied. In applied cases, they successfully utilized machine learning in the
farm management system (Hradecká, 2019). Big data may also be
highlighted, and it is one of the tools used to manage agricultural pro­
duction to transform the farm gradually. This tool can make it easier to
achieve productivity, a better quality of the product, more efficient
agricultural management, and reduced environmental impacts (Lioutas
et al., 2019). The adoption of both technologies highlights the need to
map the emerging technological models systematically. One of the ad­
vantages of agriculture 4.0 is understanding the innovation ecosystem
undergoing a transition in the sector (Fielke et al., 2019).
Concerning the disadvantages of agriculture 4.0, some authors report
the propensity of farmers to adopt risks in implementing new technol­
ogies on the farm (Pivoto et al., 2019) and exclusion or discrimination
against the farmers who are not digitally literate (Klerkx et al., 2019).
Another disadvantage to be considered involves the difficulty of inte­
grating a set of technologies to reveal insights of large databases in real-
time for decision-making (Wolfert et al., 2017).
In this study, the advantages predominated, even when disadvan­
tages were identified involving the high cost of acquiring and using the
agriculture 4.0 technologies (Zhao et al., 2019). Authors Kernecker et al.
(2020) added that the advantages of agriculture 4.0 technologies among
specialists and farmers are impartial. The solutions presented,
comprising the technologies of agriculture 4.0, support the increased
productivity and quality of agricultural products and deliver alterna­
tives for the triad of sustainability. However, they should not be
considered a panacea for all problems of the agricultural system.
Klerkx and Rose (2020), examining different visions for the future of
agriculture 4.0, reported the difficulty in anticipating the environ­
mental, social, and economic impacts on the transition of the new
agricultural sector. Another issue involves the differences in the
complexity levels of agriculture 4.0 between developed and developing
countries (Zhai et al., 2020). Regarding the heterogeneity of technolo­
gies included in the description of agriculture 4.0, disadvantages were
looked at regarding public policies, difficulty in farmer re-education and
awareness-building, little development assistance from funding agencies
to support the farmers, and other sector factors (Elijah et al., 2018;
Khatri-Chhetri et al., 2019; Van der Burg et al., 2019). Indeed, it is a set
of challenges that must be studied, analyzed, and overcome to increase
the scale of countries in enabling and implementing agriculture 4.0
(Hinson et al., 2019; Zambon et al., 2019; Klerx and Rose, 2020). Thus,
many trade-offs must be considered in the development of agriculture
4.0.
The difficulty in forecasting the main consequences of implementing
new technologies in agriculture should be highlighted. The fourth
agricultural revolution will cause significant changes in the scope and
organization of traditional world agriculture, requiring new strategies to
solve the barriers presented in Table 6. To support the paths of trans­
formation of agriculture 4.0, the actors of Table 3 involved in the agri­
cultural production chain should broaden their behavioral approaches.
Agriculture 4.0 in developed and developing countries requires ad­
vances at all levels, ranging from the implementation on a small scale
(for specialized crops) to the implementation on a large scale (for
traditional crops). However, it is a challenge to bet on developing the
high technology of agriculture 4.0 since the tangible yields at the farm
may result from the implementation of simple ideas (Klerkx and Rose,
2020).
Another critical issue raised by the authors of this SLR is the chal­
lenge of the complexity in the environment of disruptive technologies
and their algorithms (Fielke et al., 2020; Righi et al., 2020; Zhai et al.,
2020). On the other hand, the lack of connectivity in the field was also
F. da Silveira et al.
indicated as a challenge for access to agriculture 4.0 technologies
(Grieve et al., 2019; Janc et al., 2019; Sittón-Candanedo et al., 2019).
These challenges are often seen as disadvantages, as they are points that
can hamper the development of agriculture 4.0 in many countries.
4. Discussion
This section is divided into six topics that contribute to the devel­
opment of scientific literature on agriculture 4.0. The main conclusions
of RQ1, RQ2, RQ3, and RQ4 are discussed. In addition, trends in SLR
sample articles and a research agenda are presented.
4.1. RQ1
The debate in the scientific literature on the definition of agriculture
4.0 has increased in recent years. However, there are still few studies
that help to develop his theory. To evaluating the descriptions about the
agriculture 4.0 identified in this SLR, it is was evidenced that there
ambiguity about the definition of the term, as well as is not provided a
systemic view of the theory. For example, the articles in Table 4 do not
include tactical and operational decisions in the description of agricul­
ture 4.0. Besides, the research questions of the studies analyzed in the
SLR do not investigate what is the definition of agriculture 4.0, or what
is necessary to consider in the literature to have a more comprehensive
definition. More, the term agriculture 4.0 is not uniform, being confused
and related to other terms in the literature (i.e., smart farm, precision
agriculture, digital agriculture, and smart agriculture). Following this
observation, it is necessary to build and propose a scientific definition of
the concept of agriculture 4.0, to make the findings and evidence in the
literature more understandable and accessible to farmers, academics,
and professionals in the field. Therefore, a comprehensive definition of
agriculture 4.0 was created based on the terms conceptual adopted in
the descriptions presented in Table 4, such as: “agriculture 4.0 is the
implementation of emerging technologies and innovative services on the
agriculture, that require a cultural and behavioral change in all actors
involved in the agricultural production chain, to increase their productivity
and efficiency, and support a more sustainable agriculture, using precise and
momentary of information that will help make strategic decisions”.
4.2. RQ2
It is important to articulate the technological trends being imple­
mented in agriculture 4.0 to anticipate future trajectories in the agri­
cultural production chain. The articles of SLR cover specific and
empirical evidence, without providing an overview of the technological
applications of agriculture 4.0. The present study tried to address this
question systematically, extracting and offering theoretical insights into
the stages and processes proposed by Ting et al. (2011). By noting
Table 5, it is seen that in the pre-field (seed development), and in the
post-field (distribution and consumer), are the lowest concentrations of
technologies of agriculture 4.0. Therefore, the development of emerging
technologies in these areas of the agricultural production chain should
increase in the coming years. According to the results of the SLR, tech­
nologies of agriculture 4.0 are concentrated in the in-field (planting).
This is due to the many technological applications of agriculture 4.0,
which may be related to the dependence on water and soil factors, that
increasingly need to be used efficiently (Cisternas et al., 2020), as well as
by the set of operations (prepare, sow and irrigate the land, among other
activities) that are part of this agricultural cycle. The research findings
also evidenced the AIoT as the only technology of agriculture 4.0 present
in all field state (pre-field, in-field, and post-field). This finding is sup­
ported by the broad functionality of AIoT, such as in the monitoring,
tracking and tracing, agriculture machinery, and precision agriculture
(Elijah et al., 2018). It should also include the benefits that can be
provided by its implementation in agriculture, such as increased pro­
ductivity, cost optimization, and encouragement of sustainable
16
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405
development (Almadani and Mostafa, 2021). To can also be explained
by the fact that AIoT is one of the main research objectives within the
agriculture 4.0 approaches (Symeonaki et al., 2020).
4.3. RQ3
The development of agriculture 4.0 is a complex process, for faces a
series of barriers that cause to impact on your openness in the world.
Therefore, agriculture 4.0 barriers need to be identified to enable the
development of strategies that can overcome them. This SLR is one of the
preliminary studies that try to explore what these barriers are. In this
sense, were identified and analyzed 25 potentials barriers, which were
categorized into five dimensions (technological, economic, political,
social, and environmental) due to the diversity of the theme studied. The
barriers are presented in Table 6, which shows what needs to be
addressed to allow for a broad development of agriculture 4.0. However,
the SLR indicates that the following barriers need more attention: in­
compatibility between components (B2), concerns about reliability is­
sues (B5), lack of infrastructure (B4), need to foster R&D and innovative
business models (B15), lack of digital skills and/or skilled labor (B18),
asymmetry of information (B19), and problems in education (B16).
Moreover, it is still unclear, at least from an empirical perspective, to
what extent the different barriers affect the development of agriculture
4.0. So despite the benefits and advantages that agriculture 4.0 can
provide, there is substantial progress that needs to be made.
4.4. RQ4
The SLR reveals that studies are optimistic about the development of
4.0 agriculture in the world. However, no were identified articles
dedicated to the possible advantages and disadvantages of agriculture
4.0. The information pointed out in this SLR, relate a set of benefits (i.e.,
in the detection of diseases in agricultural crops, efficient control of
machines, cost reduction, greater knowledge of cultivated areas, and in
the efficient use of inputs and pesticides), which are boost the devel­
opment of agriculture 4.0 in different crops (specialized and traditional).
Already, the disadvantages found in the SLR (i.e., lack of public policies,
difficulty in farmer re-education and awareness-building, little devel­
opment assistance from funding agencies to support the farmers), have
little influence on the development of agriculture 4.0. Besides, some
authors (Elijah et al., 2018; Khatri-Chhetri et al., 2019; Van der Burg
et al., 2019) have treated these previously exemplified disadvantages as
challenges. In this context, the resolution of these challenges can reduce
the difference in the level of complexity of agriculture 4.0 in developed
and developing countries. This corroborates to advance in the con­
struction of the new world agricultural scenario, which will be based on
the benefits of agriculture 4.0.
4.5. Trends
The trends of the SLR articles that help develop agriculture 4.0 were
analyzed. Some studies mention the need to raise the attributes and
requirements that farmers have to acquire the technologies that are part
of the fourth agricultural revolution (Musat et al., 2018; Kong et al.,
2019; Mistry et al., 2020). Other studies described the need to evaluate
behavioral and cultural aspects of the aversion and awareness-building
of farmers to developing the new technologies (Ozdogan et al., 2017;
Huh and Kim, 2018; Pivoto et al., 2019). Moreover, a longitudinal
evaluation (Ployhart and Vandenberg, 2010) with small, medium, and
large farmers regarding the implementation and sustainability of the
agriculture 4.0 technologies was a trend pointed out in scientific studies
(Raungpaka and Savetpanuvong, 2017; Lioutas et al., 2019; Phillips
et al., 2019).
To develop the trends mentioned above, a structured survey-type
interview can be performed to collect data and information based on
farmers’ characteristics and opinions about the aspects that potentiate
F. da Silveira et al.
agriculture 4.0.
Other proposals are related to the transport and logistics issue con­
cerning the suppliers of the technologies that make up agriculture 4.0
(Klerkx et al., 2019; Schmidt and Cheein, 2019; Zhai et al., 2020).
Research studies that approach the way agriculture 4.0 should be
implemented in developed and developing countries can also be fol­
lowed (O’Grady and O’Hare, 2017; Khatri-Chhetri et al., 2019; Zambon
et al., 2019). For matters related to the technologies implementation in
agriculture 4.0, some authors reported the need to evaluate farms of
different sizes (Vuran et al., 2018; Muangprathub et al., 2019; Nawandar
and Satpute, 2019) and other sectors of the agricultural production
chain—Field States (Ting et al., 2011; Hradecká, 2019; Klerkx and Rose,
2020; Hang et al., 2020).
For the questions that seek to evaluate how agriculture 4.0 is
implemented and its functions, longitudinal case studies can be adopted.
The researchers go into the field and assess all changes in the farm
ecosystem that is being modified.
A survey was performed of trends regarding methodologies that
could be adopted in researching with the scope of implementing agri­
culture 4.0. Some authors suggested applying tools such as life cycle
costing (Belaud et al., 2019), risk management (Fielke et al., 2019), big
data analysis (Gan and Lee, 2018), innovation models (Wolfert et al.,
2017; Rose and Chilvers, 2018), and product development models (Janc
et al., 2019; Lee et al., 2019). On the other hand, studies suggested
developing environments favorable for partnerships among private
businesses and the public sector—seeking to construct robust ecosys­
tems—during the implementation process of agriculture 4.0 (Haberli
Junior et al., 2019; Junior et al., 2019; Zhao et al., 2019). Research
studies also presented the need to create versatile and managed archi­
tectures, programs, and modelings related to agriculture 4.0 (Sittón-
Candanedo et al., 2019; Hang et al., 2020; Quiroz and Alférez, 2020;
Righi et al., 2020), to consolidate improvements in the farmers’ decision
making (Ponraj and Vigneswaran, 2019; Kodan et al., 2019).
Researchers can develop these trends, technology professionals, agri-
technology startups, and lawgivers, based on interdisciplinary projects
employing mixed-methods focused on agricultural improvement (Grieve
et al., 2019), supplying different visions of the characteristics of agri­
culture 4.0.
4.6. Research agenda
Table 7 presents information related to matters of future research
studies that will contribute to disseminating agriculture 4.0. This agenda
comprises questions related to the development of agriculture 4.0, au­
thors that support the creation of these research questions, and presents
methodological suggestions to support academics and professionals in
the field. The research agenda and research methodological options
were grouped into three dimensions (behavioral and managerial factors,
factors associated with the development of technologies, and factors
related to the implementation of 4.0 agriculture), based on RQ1, RQ2,
RQ3, RQ4 and the results of the SLR.
The research questions in Table 7 help the agricultural production
chain actors broaden the development of agriculture 4.0. The actors of
Table 3 need to be part of the action plan that seeks to implement
emerging technologies on the farm (e.g., government project Agri 4.0) to
enhance the vertical integration of agriculture 4.0. In addition, further
studies are needed to reach a consensus on the topic. However, several
interconnected barriers (Table 6) must be solved for an extensive change
in traditional agriculture. A balance between technological progress
(digital competence) and the social context of such innovations (social
competencies) must also be considered (Janc et al., 2019). The transfer
of knowledge and information about agriculture 4.0 will have a more
excellent opportunity to be shared among the actors who may develop
new ideas, values, and perspectives. It makes it easier to understand how
agriculture 4.0 technologies are used and identify in practice who,
when, and why they are being adopted to transform traditional
17
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405
agriculture.
5. Conclusion
This study aims to contribute to the development of agriculture 4.0
by identifying descriptions, technologies, barriers, advantages, and
disadvantages. The sample content analysis in this Systematic Literature
Review (SLR) identified an exponential growth of scientific research on
the topic of agriculture 4.0. However, it is a relatively new term and
underdeveloped. The study shows that the researchers describe agri­
culture 4.0 differently, considering adopting emerging technologies as
its pillar. To overcome this gap, this article proposes a definition of
agriculture 4.0 based on the results of the SLR. Besides, it was presented
a comprehensive view of agriculture 4.0 technologies in the agricultural
production chain responsible for revolutionizing the way commodities
are produced, processed, traded, and consumed.
The gap in information about the 25 barriers that hinder the progress
of agriculture 4.0 was filled by discussions about the five dimensions:
technological, economic, political, social, and environmental. These
dimensions concern a set of challenges that must be studied, analyzed,
and overcome to increase the scale of countries in the implementation of
agriculture 4.0. The advantages, disadvantages, and research agenda
that academics and professionals in the field must support for devel­
oping agricultural theory 4.0 were also presented.
In this way, the discoveries made in this study help the agricultural
production chain actors open the way for the successful development of
agriculture 4.0. The research also corroborates to broaden the inclusive
debate that can socially shape the introduction of agriculture 4.0.
However, this SLR does not support the identification of which actors
are responsible for each of the barriers presented in Table 6. It is
necessary to develop more articles on the theory of this concept to
stimulate discussion in the area. Future studies may be aligned with: (i)
list strategies to overcome the barriers identified in this SLR; (ii) identify
for which actors the barriers arise in adoption agriculture 4.0; and (iii)
answer the questions raised in the research agenda to disseminate this
topic.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Franco Silveira: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis,
Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administra­
tion, Software, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing,
Project administration. Fernando Henrique Lermen: Conceptualiza­
tion, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology,
Software, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Fernando
Gonçalves Amaral: Funding acquisition, Supervision, Project admin­
istration, Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of Co­
ordination of Improvement of Higher Level Personnel (CAPES) and the
Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Develop­
ment (CNPq), Brazil.
Appendix A
See Table A1.
F. da Silveira et al.
Table A1
Journal impact factor, journal publications, and citations of the sample.
JIF* Journal Publications
3.858 Computers and Electronics
in Agriculture
1.608 NJAS - Wageningen Journal
of Life Sciences
4.212 Agricultural Systems
3.954 Computers in Industry
6.034 Global Food Security-
Agriculture Policy
Economics and
Environment
3.275 Sensors
2.753 Processes
– Information Processing in
Agriculture
9.936 IEEE Internet of Things
Journal
6.471 Mechanical Systems and
Signal Processing
6.125 Future Generation
Computer Systems
4.113 Food Reviews International
4.000 Computers and Chemical
Engineering
3.643 Ad Hoc Networks
2.269 Journal of Parallel and
Distributed Computing
1.145 International Food and
Agribusiness Management
Review
– Heliyon
– International Journal of
Recent Technology and
Engineering
– International Journal of
Innovative Technology and
Exploring Engineering
– Agris On-line Papers in
Economics and Informatics
– Frontiers ins Sustainable
Food Systems
– Machines
– Procedia CIRP
– IFAC-PapersOnLine
– International Scholarly and
Scientific Research &
Innovation
– Kasetsart Journal of Social
Sciences
– Journal of Economics,
Finance, and Accounting
Total
Note: * JIF: Journal Impact Factor [In Cites Journal Citations Reports − 2019];
**n: Sample of studies.
n** Authors [Citations]
11 Colezea et al. (2018) [10]; Moon
et al. (2018) [9]; Junior et al.
(2019) [7]; Muangprathub et al.
(2019) [109]; Nawandar and
Satpute (2019) [25]; Schmidt
and Cheein (2019) [1]; Hang
et al. (2020) [4]; Quiroz and
Alférez (2020) [4]; Ramli et al.
(2020) [1]; Righi et al. (2020)
[5]; Zhai et al. (2020) [18]
6 Fielke et al. (2019) [11]; Janc
et al. (2019) [2]; Klerkx et al.
(2019) [10]; Lioutas et al. (2019)
[14]; Phillips et al. (2019) [9];
Van der Burg et al. (2019) [15]
3 Wolfert et al. (2017) [504];
Khatri-Chhetri et al. (2019) [10];
Fielke et al. (2020) [8]
3 Belaud et al. (2019) [11];
Miranda et al. (2019) [30]; Zhao
et al. (2019) [50]
2 Grieve et al. (2019) [10]; Klerkx
and Rose (2020) [17]
2 Ferrández-Pastor et al. (2016)
[70]; Jawad et al. (2017) [140]
2 Huh and Kim (2018) [10];
Zambon et al. (2019) [48]
2 O’Grady and O’Hare (2017) [59];
Pivoto et al. (2018) [63]
1 Elijah et al. (2018) [166]
1 Mistry et al. (2020) [56]
1 Sittón-Candanedo et al. (2019)
[30]
1 Kodan et al. (2019) [2]
1 Kong et al. (2019) [2]
1 Vuran et al. (2018) [64]
1 Musat et al. (2018) [16]
1 Pivoto et al. (2019) [4]
1 Haberli Junior et al. (2019) [5]
1 Ponraj and Vigneswaran (2019)
[3]
1 Lee et al. (2019) [1]
1 Hradecká (2019) [0]
1 Rose and Chilvers (2018) [41]
1 Balducci et al. (2018) [25]
1 Braun et al. (2018) [15]
1 Gan and Lee (2018) [3]
1 Corallo et al. (2018) [0]
1 Raungpaka and Savetpanuvong
(2017) [3]
1 Ozdogan et al. (2017) [0]
50
18
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 189 (2021) 106405
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