Steering Smart Farming Technology Adoption toward a Safe and Just Operating Space

This file is a discussion paper on "Steering Smart Farming Technology Adoption toward a Safe and Just Operating Space", linked to WP 8 activities of the Brightspace project. Smart farming is transforming agricultural systems. Innovations such as precision farming, robotics, and AI-driven applications are known as agriculture’s fourth revolution which may provide socioeconomic, and environmental benefits. However, adoption rates remain below socially desirable levels due to a lack of return relative to required risks, and costs. The “Safe and Just Operating Space” (SJOS) concept extends the Planetary Boundaries with socio-economic dimensions covering most UN sustainable development goals. We propose the “Safe and Just Operating Space” concept as a normative framework to steer regional and sector-specific policy incentives toward the most impactful technologies regarding urgent socio-environmental needs. This is the first time that the SJOS concept is applied to designing regional policies to induce the most impactful smart farming. Proposing a new type of decision-making framework is highly relevant to policymakers, researchers, and industry stakeholders interested in policies to govern novel technologies. Our blueprint outlines the application, discusses the advantages and limitations, and highlights the required research needs for policy implementation. Four implementation steps are required to apply the SJOS concept to smart technology: 1) downscaling and disaggregating environmental and socio-economic conditions to define regional Safe and Just boundaries for the agricultural sector, 2) scoring the regional status quo, 3) evaluating individual smart technologies in terms of the different Safe and Just indicators, and 4) creating the Safe and Just synthesis to enable technology prioritization and target-oriented policy action. Our framework ensures that technology deployment is effective in terms of timing, location, and application, enabling the attainment of a socially desirable level of technology use. Relevant initiatives for which our framework could facilitate effective technology prioritization include the European Common Agricultural Policy, the African Union’s Digital Agricultural Strategy, the Indian government’s drone promotion policy, and the US Farm Bill. --------------- Funding acknowledgement Funded by the European Union. Grant Agreement No. 101060075. Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. UK Research and Innovation Project Code: 10047415 https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10047415 This work is further also funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy – EXC 2070 – 390732324 (PhenoRob). Citation Adenäuer, L., Finger, R., Khanna, M., Kuhn, T., Storm, H. (2025): Steering Smart Farming Technology Adoption toward a Safe and Just Operating Space. Discussion paper, 10.5281/zenodo.17607902. Legal notice This document was produced under the terms and conditions of Grant Agreement No. 101060075 for the European Commission. It does not necessary reflect the view of the European Union and in no way anticipates the Commission’s future policy in this area. The European Commission is not liable for any consequence stemming from the reuse of this publication. © BrightSpace, 2025 The reuse of this document is authorised under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CCBY 4.0) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This means that reuse is allowed provided appropriate credit is given and any changes are indicated. For any use or reproduction of elements that are not owned by the BrightSpace consortium, permission may need to be sought directly from the respective right holders. Project information BrightSpace Horizon Europe project Grant Agreement No. 101060075 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101060075 CALL: Innovative governance, environmental observations and digital solutions in support of the Green Deal WORK PROGRAMME Topic ID: HORIZON-CL6-2021-GOVERNANCE-01-12 EU agriculture within a safe and just operating space and planetary boundaries BrightSpace Project coordination: Wageningen Economic Research, The Hague, NL Contact: [email protected] | Website: www.brightspace-project.eu Project duration: 1 November 2022 – 31 October 2027