Study of Disruptive Technologies for Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

Nowadays, sustainable agriculture is necessary for maintaining a balance between food production and the ecosystem. It has given rise to the concept of smart farming, where food can be produced without the uncontrolled use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The use of disruptive technologies such as data analytics, the cloud, the Internet of Things, robotics, drones, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning has brought an agriculture revolution, which has been termed Agriculture 4.0. Crop yield has been protected from various concerns like climate changes due to environmental hazards, food security, population growth, employment issues, and so on by these technologies. The main objective of this chapter is to explore the various application areas of disruptive technologies in agriculture, such as for spraying, weeding, irrigation using sensors, drones, and robots. To maintain the fertility of the soil, these technologies protect farmland from excess use of pesticides, herbicides, and water. Proper use of technology can improve quality and raise productivity in agriculture by efficiently utilizing manpower. This chapter focuses on the study of recent innovations in the agriculture sector using disruptive technologies. The agricultural system has been shifted towards a new paradigm to meet various challenges such as farmland shrinking, unpredictable changes in climate, diminishing natural resources, rapid population growth, and changing market demands. Sustainable agriculture can be more resilient to climate change, efficient in operation, and productive in output. Disruptive technologies promise to provide new paradigms of sustainable agriculture for future generations.