Agriculture 4.0 and climate change in Brazil

Abstract

This article introduces the debate on low-carbon socio-technical transitions in Brazilian agribusiness, based on the premise that a growing portion of the industry adopts digital technologies in its business models, configuring a new productive paradigm: agriculture 4.0. We use the Sustainability Transitions theory to examine the relationship between agriculture 4.0 and climate change in Brazil, classifying Brazilian agribusiness into three subsectors: family farming, conservative agribusiness, and sustainable agribusiness. The article demonstrates technical, institutional, and political-economic challenges for each of these subsectors to support Brazil’s journey towards a low-carbon economy, observing that sustainable agribusiness has performed the best so far.