Smart Farming - Introduction to the Special Theme

"Smart Anything, Everywhere" is the new hype around IoT, internet of things, combined with intelligence, autonomy and connectivity. Smart systems are today's drivers of innovation; in all areas of industry and society, highly automated, intelligent systems are taking over tasks, services - and maybe one day, control of our lives. One of the most diverse, and for many ICT and technology professionals, unfamiliar, areas of application is farming: here the whole life-cycle from soil to fork, from livestock and the field to end-customer, is covered. With the global population predicted to exceed nine billion by 2040, food production is a major challenge, which will be further exacerbated by climate change, reduced water supplies in many regions, and the environmental impacts of intensive plant and livestock production. The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN (FAO) advises that digital technologies be adopted to help increase productivity, to address the food security risk faced in some regions of the world [2]. Studies indicate that if each region of the world can maximise its efficiency of agricultural land management practices, (depending on local climate and environmental conditions) there should be adequate food supplies to support the population. In Europe, digital technologies could help farmers face other more specific challenges, such as profitability, environmental footprint and sustainability of their businesses. ICT and agricultural technology advances of recent decades are converging into smart farming, which encompasses precision farming, which covers site-specific crop management responding to inter and intra-field variability in crops. This will impact all areas of agriculture, including efficiency of crop and livestock management; increased production at less cost; conservation of resources such as water and energy; reducing the amount and environmental impacts of fertiliser and pesticides whilst maximising their effectiveness by optimising the timing, location and quantity of application ("minimum environmental footprint"); and preserving and guaranteeing food quality and safety throughout the life cycle and the food value chain in a workflow-like manner. Smart farming is a playground that hosts various stakeholders and technologies: natural science disciplines, including biology, agronomy, meteorology and soil science devoted to crop management and resource preservation, breeding and genetics aiming to develop plants that are more resistant to stressors and require less input; different specialists of livestock and plant health management; a huge variety of sensors from IoT in situ to measure (micro) environmental variables, crop status and animal welfare, and remote sensors such as drones and satellite data to monitor farm and territorial scale conditions; data science to interconnect and exploit existing OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) data and weather forecast from modelling; ICT solutions for big data handling and interpretation, and mathematical algorithms to pass from measure to decision; actuator technologies and automated machinery or robots to transform decision into action as well as cloud-based data and information systems on a local and more regional basis, for co-operatives to support each other and for large agricultural enterprises to provide a range of services. From "real-time" to long-term optimisation, all methods and technologies are relevant in this context to achieve the common goal of sustainable and productive farming at high standards of food safety, quality and traceability. Smart farming solutions can also contribute where labour is the bottleneck of the system. This occurs in developed countries where there is a shortage of labour resources in the agricultural sector couple