The global food system must become more sustainable. Digital agriculture — digital and geospatial technologies to monitor, assess and manage soil, climatic and genetic resources — illustrates how to meet this challenge so as to balance the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainable food production.
Access options
Subscribe to Journal
Get full journal access for 1 year
$99.00
only $8.25 per issue
All prices are NET prices.
VAT will be added later in the checkout.
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.
Rent or Buy article
Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.
from$8.99
All prices are NET prices.

References
- 1.
Double Burden of Malnutrition (World Health Organization, 2020); https://go.nature.com/3cODjJX
- 2.
Springmann, M. et al. Nature 562, 519–525 (2018).
- 3.
Schramski, J. R., Woodson, C. B. & Brown, J. H. Nat. Sustain. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0503-z (2020).
- 4.
Sachs, J. D. The Age of Sustainable Development (Columbia Univ. Press, 2015).
- 5.
Pretty, J. et al. Nat. Sustain. 1, 441–446 (2018).
- 6.
Gebbers, R. & Adamchuk, V. I. Science 327, 828–831 (2010).
- 7.
Walter, A., Finger, R., Huber, R. & Buchmann, N. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 6148–6150 (2017).
- 8.
Schimmelpfennig, D. Farm Profits and Adoption of Precision Agriculture ERR-217 (US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, 2016); https://go.nature.com/2TSNF2s
- 9.
Cox, C. & Rundquist, S. Polluted Runoff: A Broken Promise Threatens Drinking Water in the Heartland (Environmental Working Group, 2018); https://go.nature.com/2IDDr0H
- 10.
Basso, B., Shuai, G., Zhang, J. & Robertson, G. P. Sci. Rep. 9, 5774 (2019).
- 11.
Schulte, L. A. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 11247–11252 (2017).
- 12.
Barron-Gafford, G. A. et al. Nat. Sustain. 2, 848–855 (2019).
- 13.
Robertson, G. P. et al. Science 356, eaal2324 (2017).
- 14.
Capalbo, S. M., Antle, J. M. & Seavert, C. Agric. Syst. 155, 191–199 (2017).
- 15.
Transforming Agriculture with Artificial Intelligence (CTA SPORE, 2019); https://spore.cta.int/en
- 16.
Smith, P. et al. Glob. Change Biol. 19, 2285–2302 (2013).
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the US Department of Agriculture/National Institute for Food and Agriculture (awards 2015-68007-23133 and 2018-67003-27406), US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research (awards DESC0018409 and DE-FC02-07ER64494) and Michigan State University AgBioResearch. We thank G. P. Robertson, P. Grace, S. Swinton, J. Hatfield, R. Martinez-Feria, S. Archontoulis, J. Jones and J. Ritchie for their comments on previous versions of this manuscript.
Author information
Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Basso, B., Antle, J. Digital agriculture to design sustainable agricultural systems. Nat Sustain 3, 254–256 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0510-0
Published:
Issue Date:
Further reading
-
Introducing reticular chemistry into agrochemistry
Chemical Society Reviews (2021)
-
Integrated wheat-maize straw and tillage management strategies influence economic profit and carbon footprint in the Guanzhong Plain of China
Science of The Total Environment (2021)
-
Introducing digital twins to agriculture
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture (2021)
-
Emerging strategies for precision microbiome management in diverse agroecosystems
Nature Plants (2021)
-
Modeling spatial and temporal optimal N fertilizer rates to reduce nitrate leaching while improving grain yield and quality in malting barley
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture (2021)