Towards a methodology to consider the environmental impacts of digital agriculture

TL;DR

The paper addresses how to evaluate the environmental impacts of ICT used in digital agriculture, highlighting potential rebound effects that could offset benefits. It proposes a methodology that extends environmental footprint assessment to ICT infrastructures in agriculture through a functional, multi-ICT, parametric modeling framework and scenario analysis. The approach defines a 2025 baseline and projects to a 2035 horizon, incorporating inventories, field data, and a broader set of indicators beyond emissions and energy. Early results include a synthesis of digital agriculture components and a cattle RFID/IoT use case, with plans to expand to AI/vision systems and spraying scenarios, aiming to inform policy and societal debates with decision-support models for sustainable digital farming.

Abstract

Agriculture affects global warming, while its yields are threatened by it. Information and communication technology (ICT) is often considered as a potential lever to mitigate this tension, through monitoring and process optimization. However, while agricultural ICT is actively promoted, its environmental impact appears to be overlooked. Possible rebound effects could put at stake its net expected benefits and hamper agriculture sustainability. By adapting environmental footprint assessment methods to digital agriculture context, this research aims at defining a methodology taking into account the environmental footprint of agricultural ICT systems and their required infrastructures. The expected contribution is to propose present and prospective models based on possible digitalization scenarios, in order to assess effects and consequences of different technological paths on agriculture sustainability, sufficiency and resilience. The final results could be useful to enlighten societal debates and political decisions.