Agricultural sciences and the environment: Reviewing recent technologies and innovations to combat the challenges of climate change, environmental protection, and food security

Abstract

Agricultural production systems currently face multiple challenges: Climate change, natural resource depletion, and supply chain disruption, together with global population growth. As sustainable agriculture must simultaneously deliver myriad services (e.g. provide food security, maintain natural resources, retain and improve framers' profitability, and sustain biodiversity), a systemic and multidisciplinary approach is thus needed. In this context, new technologies based on sensors, automatic machines, robots, and digital applications show much potential. The special section of the Agronomy Journal, entitled, "Agricultural and Biological Sciences: Plant, Soil, Animal and Environment Nutrient Management," brings together a coherent set of research studies. All papers published in this special section address current, relevant topics for agriculture, biology and environmental sciences with a multidisciplinary approach aimed at generating new scientific information on digital technologies, bioinformatics, plant science, soil resources, agricultural waste, and environmentally conscious approaches. A total of 58 papers were submitted, each of which was evaluated by expert reviewers using a double-blind reviewing process and 25 full text papers were accepted for publication in the special section. The present paper highlights the findings of the published papers, with the aim of bringing cuttingedge innovation to applied research in agriculture and biology. The published papers here provide new knowledge and viable solutions for better performance in agricultural and biological sciences. New technologies will change the concept of farming and agribusiness making it more profitable, efficient, safer, attractive, simple, smart, and finally sustainable. Rural development and food security policies must support and finance the easiest possible access to new technologies for agricultural producers.

Introduction: Sustainability as an agroecological strategy toward resilience in agricultural systems

“…Environmental parameters, climatic regions, phenological periods, and facilities or equipment to apply efficient technologies impact the level of agricultural production. Agricultural technology must adapt to overcome the possible environmental issue and climate change (Popescu et al., 2022).…”

“…Environmental stress, such as warming and drought stress and others, has a significant impact on agricultural productivity (Popescu et al., 2022; Popescu & Popescu, 2022). Mohammadpur et al.…”

“…The future of agricultural production systems will be significantly influenced by climate change and environment preservation, population growth, and ensuring food security. Also, sustainability of agricultural systems will be influenced by the need to increase income in agriculture, as well as changes in human knowledge and agricultural and non‐agricultural infrastructure (Khondker et al., 2021; Popescu et al., 2022). Farmers need to adapt their practices to achieve the so‐called sustainable intensification, referring to processes where, “agricultural yields are increased without adverse environmental impact and without the conversion of additional non‐agricultural land” (Pretty & Barucha, 2014).…”

“…Environmental threats, such as climate change prompting intense drought, waterlogging, and flooding, threaten to reduce food security. Therefore, practical methods that can be easily implemented to improve resilience of agricultural systems are needed (Popescu et al., 2022).…”

Integrating APSIM model with machine learning to predict wheat yield spatial distribution

“…New technology will transform farming and agribusiness, making it more profitable (Popescu et al., 2022). Crop models have been widely used in cropping system simulations for a variety of purposes, including agricultural water management (Kheir et al., 2021), food security and nutrition, and genotype × environment × management (G × E × M) interactions (Cooper et al., 2021), and narrowing yield gaps (Asseng et al., 2018; Getnet et al., 2022).…”