Context of Agri-Food Short Chains through Agriculture 4.0: An Approach to Food Security

Agro-industrial production has seen improvements in agricultural practices, supported by Industry 4.0, with a focus on intensifying agricultural production and post-harvest processes. However, despite the high level of scientific and technological development, the family agri-food system, as a mechanism of self-sufficiency and a driver of socio-economic development, remains stagnant. These unbalanced systems make it difficult to guarantee food security from the agricultural society itself, which is why the Short Agri-Food Chains (SAFCs) are presented as a strategy that contributes to food security and is, at the same time, an enhancer of socioeconomic development from the family nucleus, especially of the most vulnerable rural families. Based on the above, this article identifies technological/smart tools, which have the ability to be adaptable and assimilable in Family Farming, because they are low-cost and have the potential to improve the yield and quality of agro-products. A documented review based on hermeneutics was carried out under a bibliometric analysis, where the I4.0 technologies implemented in the agribusiness sector during the period 2010-2022 reported in SpringerLink, Elsevier's Scopus, and Web of Science, and in the World Intellectual Property Organization were reviewed; the main features of the studies were analyzed and processed, finding that the Internet of Things, Deep Learning, and Digital Twins can be adopted by the SAFCs as a mechanism in the intensification of sustainable food production to ensure food security. These findings lay the groundwork for the development of schemes based on emerging technologies, which can improve the self-sufficiency production system.