Smart Farming is a development that emphasizes the use of information and communication technology in the cyber-physical farm management cycle. New technologies such as the Internet of Things and ...Cloud Computing are expected to leverage this development and introduce more robots and artificial intelligence in farming. This is encompassed by the phenomenon of Big Data, massive volumes of data with a wide variety that can be captured, analysed and used for decision-making. This review aims to gain insight into the state-of-the-art of Big Data applications in Smart Farming and identify the related socio-economic challenges to be addressed. Following a structured approach, a conceptual framework for analysis was developed that can also be used for future studies on this topic. The review shows that the scope of Big Data applications in Smart Farming goes beyond primary production; it is influencing the entire food supply chain. Big data are being used to provide predictive insights in farming operations, drive real-time operational decisions, and redesign business processes for game-changing business models. Several authors therefore suggest that Big Data will cause major shifts in roles and power relations among different players in current food supply chain networks. The landscape of stakeholders exhibits an interesting game between powerful tech companies, venture capitalists and often small start-ups and new entrants. At the same time there are several public institutions that publish open data, under the condition that the privacy of persons must be guaranteed. The future of Smart Farming may unravel in a continuum of two extreme scenarios: 1) closed, proprietary systems in which the farmer is part of a highly integrated food supply chain or 2) open, collaborative systems in which the farmer and every other stakeholder in the chain network is flexible in choosing business partners as well for the technology as for the food production side. The further development of data and application infrastructures (platforms and standards) and their institutional embedment will play a crucial role in the battle between these scenarios. From a socio-economic perspective, the authors propose to give research priority to organizational issues concerning governance issues and suitable business models for data sharing in different supply chain scenarios.
•Big Data is expected to have a large impact on Smart Farming and involves the whole supply chain.•Smart sensors and devices produce big amounts of data that provide unprecedented decision-making capabilities.•Big Data is expected to cause major shifts in roles and power relations among traditional and non-traditional players.•Governance (incl. data ownership, privacy, security) and business models are key issues to be addressed in future research.
•Current ethical discussion circles around three themes: (a) data ownership, accessibility, sharing and control, (b) power (re)distribution, and (c) Impacts on human life and society.•Discussions ...about these themes did not reach a satisfying conclusion yet, but primarily signal consequences that are expected to come about.•We suggest that effort should be done not only to anticipate the expected consequences, but to take a more active role in (co)shaping the future in more desirable ways.•To do this, it is important to discuss what purposes farming should serve and make sure that the choice of data and data algorithms support trustworthy data sharing communities.
Sensors, drones, weather satellites and robots are examples of technologies that make farming ‘smart’. In this article we present the results of our review of the literature that concerns the ethical challenges that smart farming raises. Our reading suggests that current ethical discussion about smart farming circles around three themes: (1) data ownership and access, (2) distribution of power and (3) impacts on human life and society. Discussions that fall under these themes have however not yet reached a satisfying conclusion, as there seem to be different ideas at work in the background regarding the purpose and function of digital farms in society. The pros and cons of these rivalling ideas are rarely foregrounded in the discussion. We suggest that future research should focus first on the content of these goals, especially on the content of societal and commercial goals and whether and how they can be combined in differing contexts. This will offer a lead to think about what data ought to be shared with whom, to set preconditions for trust between stakeholders and –eventually- develop appropriate guidelines and codes of conduct for future farming digitalization trajectories.
Anticipating the ethical impact of emerging technologies is an essential part of responsible innovation. One such emergent technology is the
digital twin
which we define here as a living replica of a ...physical system (human or non-human). A digital twin combines various emerging technologies such as AI, Internet of Things, big data and robotics, each component bringing its own socio-ethical issues to the resulting artefacts. The question thus arises which of these socio-ethical themes surface in the process and how they are perceived by stakeholders in the field. In this report we present the results of a qualitative study into the socio-ethical benefits and socio-ethical risks of using digital twins in healthcare. Employing insights from ethics of technology and the Quadruple Helix theory of innovation, we conducted desk research of white literature and 23 interviews with representatives from the four helixes: industry, research, policy and civil society. The ethical scan revealed several important areas where the digital twin can produce socio-ethical value (e.g., prevention and treatment of disease, cost reduction, patient autonomy and freedom, equal treatment) but also several important areas of socio-ethical risks (e.g., privacy and property of data, disruption of existing societal structures, inequality and injustice). We conclude with a reflection on the employed analytical tool and suggestions for further research.
These last years, the development of AI robots for agriculture, livestock farming and food processing industries is rapidly increasing. These robots are expected to help produce and deliver food more ...efficiently for a growing human population, but they also raise societal and ethical questions. As the type of questions raised by these AI robots in society have been rarely empirically explored, we engaged in four case studies focussing on four types of AI robots for agri-food ‘in the making’: manure collectors, weeding robots, harvesting robots and food processing robots which select and package fruits, vegetables and meats. Based on qualitative interviews with 33 experts engaged in the development or implementation of these four types of robots, this article provides a broad and varied exploration of the values that play a role in their evaluation and the ethical questions that they raise. Compared to the recently published literature reviews mapping the ethical questions related to AI robots in agri-food, we conclude that stakeholders in our case studies primarily adopt a relational perspective to the value of AI robots and to finding a solution to the ethical questions. Building on our findings we suggest it is best to seek a distribution of tasks between human beings and robots in agri-food, which helps to realize the most acceptable, good or just collaboration between them in food production or processing that contributes to realizing societal goals and help to respond to the 21 century challenges.
Campylobacter bacteria are an important cause of foodborne infections. We estimated the potential costs and benefits of a large number of possible interventions to decrease human exposure to ...Campylobacter by consumption of chicken meat, which accounts for 20-40% of all cases of human campylobacteriosis in the Netherlands. For this purpose, a farm-to-fork risk assessment model was combined with economic analysis and epidemiological data. Reduction of contamination at broiler farms could be efficient in theory. However, it is unclear which hygienic measures need to be taken and the costs can be very high. The experimental treatment of colonized broiler flocks with bacteriophages has proven to be effective and could also be cost efficient, if confirmed in practice. Since a major decrease of infections at the broiler farm is not expected in the short term, additional measures in the processing plant were also considered. At this moment, guaranteed Campylobacter-free chicken meat at the retail level is not realistic. The most promising interventions in the processing plant are limiting fecal leakage during processing and separation of contaminated and noncontaminated flocks (scheduling), followed by decontamination of the contaminated flock. New (faster and more sensitive) test methods to detect Campylobacter colonization in broilers flocks are a prerequisite for successful scheduling scenarios. Other methods to decrease the contamination of meat of colonized flocks such as freezing and heat treatment are more expensive and/or less effective than chemical decontamination.
Research infrastructures (RIs) are essential to advance research on the relationship between food, nutrition, and health. RIs will facilitate innovation and allow insights at the systems level which ...are required to design (public health) strategies that will address societal challenges more effectively.
In the EuroDISH project we mapped existing RIs in the food and health area in Europe, identified outstanding needs, and synthesised this into a conceptual design of a pan-European DISH-RI. The DISH model was used to describe and structure the research area: Determinants of food choice, Intake of foods and nutrients, Status and functional markers of nutritional health, and Health and disease risk.
The need to develop RIs in the food and health domain clearly emerged from the EuroDISH project. It showed the necessity for a unique interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder RI that overarches the research domains. A DISH-RI should bring services to the research community that facilitate network and community building and provide access to standardised, interoperable, and innovative data and tools. It should fulfil the scientific needs to connect within and between research domains and make use of current initiatives. Added value can also be created by providing services to policy makers and industry, unlocking data and enabling valorisation of research insights in practice through public-private partnerships. The governance of these services (e.g. ownership) and the centralised and distributed activities of the RI itself (e.g. flexibility, innovation) needs to be organised and aligned with the different interests of public and private partners.
•EuroDISH showed the need for a unique, overarching RI in the food & health domain.•The RI should connect countries and research disciplines, and build on existing RIs.•It should provide services that facilitate research network and community building.•It should provide access to standardised, interoperable, innovative data and tools.•And, it should serve researchers, policy makers, industry, and societal stakeholders.
Agribusinesses are investing in different forms of AI robots, as there is a lot of hope that these machines will help meet the challenges within the agricultural industry, which is to efficiently ...produce more food for a growing world population. AI robots are expected to enhance production, while compensating for lack of manpower, reducing production costs, taking over unattractive (risky, heavy, and dirty) jobs and reducing the burden of food production on the environment. In spite of these promises, however, AI robots for agri-food also give rise to ethical questions and concerns, which have been little researched and discussed until now. To fill this gap, we developed a research agenda for future research in this area. To do this, we opened our analysis to focus on ethics AI robots generally to specifically identify which of these issues are most relevant to agro-robots. The question we want to find an answer to is: what are the most relevant ethical questions raised about AI robots for robots developed for the agri-food sector? And which questions are not mentioned in the literature, which are particularly relevant for agro-robots? Our paper will provide an overview over the key issues and areas which deserve further elaboration to come to a more mature ethics of AI agro-robots.
Digital twins in the green life sciences Knibbe, Willem Jan; Afman, Lydia; Boersma, Sjoerd ...
NJAS impact in agricultural and life sciences,
12/31/2022, Letnik:
94, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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Digital twins provide a new paradigm for the integrated use of sensor data, process-based and data-driven modelling, and user interaction, to explore the behaviour of individual objects and ...processes. Digital twins originate from an engineering context and were developed for machines and mainly physical and chemical processes. In this paper, we further develop an understanding of digital twins for the green life sciences, which also include biological and social processes. We report on three use cases, in precision farming, greenhouse control and personalized dietary advice, focusing on practical benefits and challenges of digital twins compared with other research methods. This research extends earlier more conceptual research on digital twins in this domain. We find benefits in increased accuracy and impact because of the real-time data connection of digital twins to their real-life counterparts. Specification, availability and accuracy of relevant data sources are still major challenges. Specifically, when using digital twins for personalized advice, further research is needed on nontechnical aspects so that users will comply with the advice from the digital twins. We have outlined four directions of future research and expect that further research will include data-driven modelling to simulate the complex character of living objects and processes and at the same time develop approaches to limit the amount of required input data.
The current article describes the economic evaluation of interventions to control Campylobacter on chicken meat by means of a cost-utility analysis. Apart from the methodology used, the main focus of ...this article is on data gaps and assumptions made, and their impact on results and conclusions. The direct intervention costs, the relative risk, the disease burden (expressed in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)), and the costs of illness for the various interventions are necessary inputs for the cost-utility analysis. The cost-utility ratio (CUR)--the measure for efficiency--is expressed in net costs per avoided DALY. Most data gaps were of a biological order, but for some interventions, information on costs was also scarce. As a consequence, assumptions had to be made, which had some impact on the estimated CUR. A higher (lower) incidence of Campylobacter infections associated with chicken meat, higher (lower) effectiveness, and lower (higher) intervention costs, respectively, would result in absolute better (worse) CUR estimates. By taking the perspective of all consumers eating Dutch chicken meat, rather than only the Dutch society, absolute better CUR estimates could be obtained. Indirect costs or a shift toward non-Dutch chicken meat would both result in higher CUR estimates. Despite the assumptions made, three interventions showed for most of the applied sensitivity analyses relatively favorable CUR estimates: limiting fecal leakage during processing, carcass decontamination by dipping in a chemical solution, and the phage therapy. However, all three do have some clauses.
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