FAO harnesses the power of digital technologies to pilot, accelerate and scale innovative ideas with high potential for impact in food and agriculture, transforming digital solutions and services into global public goods. It aims to explore the responsible application and adoption of existing and frontier technologies, design and scale new services, tools and approaches to empower rural households and inspire youth entrepreneurship in food and agriculture.

Why is digital agriculture important?

The ubiquity, portability and mobility of digital technologies are transforming agriculture and food production. Specifically, in the agriculture and food sector, the spread of mobile technologies, remote-sensing services and distributed computing are already improving smallholders’ access to information, inputs and markets, increasing production and productivity, streamlining supply chains and reducing operational costs. However, the ‘digitalization’ of agriculture and the food value chain has certain challenges to overcome. Issues such as cybersecurity and data protection, labour replacement and re-education and the risk of creating a digital divide between economies, sectors or individuals with differing abilities to adopt new technologies. Despite these points, there is no doubt that digital transformation in agriculture is here to stay. FAO is committed to assisting governments and partners in bridging such multidisciplinary digital divides to ensure that everyone benefits from the emerging digital society.

See http://www.fao.org/digital-agriculture/en/