Impact of ICT on the Agricultural Sector's Sustainability: Evidence Based on Practices

Despite being an emerging phenomenon, the literature on how ICT impact the adoption of sustainable agriculture has aroused growing interest on the part of farmers, scientific and business communities and policy makers. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to investigate the state-of-the-art of ICT use in agriculture with an impact on the sustainability of the sector. In order to achieve this objective, a computer-assisted bibliographic search was performed in February, 2023. This search included all publications available in the Scopus database and was based on the words “Impact” OR “Contributions” AND “information” AND “Communication” AND “Technologies” AND “Sustainability” AND “Agriculture”. Subsequently, publications were selected taking into account the following criterion: empirical studies that demonstrate evidence of the impact or contribution of ICT to sustainable agriculture. For each publication, it was collected information about authorship and publication date, place where the study was developed, type of study, methods, objectives and findings. All studies show positive contributions as a result of the use of ICT and artificial intelligence for the adoption of a sustainable agriculture with lower resources’ consumption, namely, improvement of soil quality, greater efficiency in the use of water and energy with the use of solar energy, greater efficiency in the application of nitrogen, minimization of the use of inorganic fertilizers, reduction of food waste and improvement of food security, greater involvement of farmers with sustainability concerns and promotion of more sustainable consumption.