Though still associated with bucolic imagery, farmers confront a steep challenge: produce 60% more food for an additional 2.3 billion people by 2050 while using scarce natural resources more efficiently and adapting to climate change. Luckily  ICT is here to help: sensor-based, data-intensive ‘smart’ farming will potentially add $10b per year to the value of field crop farming globally as the ‘precision farmers’ of the future tailor inputs, fine-tune application rates and cultivation activities down to the square meter.

Yet, unleashing the potential of ICT to transform modern agriculture is no picnic. Infrastructure investment in rural areas, research and innovation, training and the need for a sustainable and smart food supply chain are only parts of this complex equation. Occasional scepticism about the real cost/benefit ratio of modernizing, combined with regulations in need of adjustment all too often act as additional hurdles.