Digital Twins for Sustainable Agriculture: Advancing Productivity, Resilience, and Equity
摘要
The application of digital twin (DT) technology has a significant impact on agriculture, offering an interactive and data-driven digital representation of agricultural cropping systems. This approach enhances productivity, optimizes the efficient use of resources, and improves climate resilience in crop production, animal production, aquaponics, and supply chain efficiency. This chapter emphasizes that DT technology has advanced precision agriculture by enabling predictive analytics, real-time monitoring in an environment, and scenario simulation. Evidence indicates significant enhancements of 10–20% in yield, more than 30% irrigation water saving, as well as improved crop disease diagnosis and greater accountability in food supply chains. Nonetheless, the current research also identifies significant challenges in the adoption of DT technology, including elevated implementation costs, connectivity issues, cybersecurity concerns, and technological disparities between advanced and limited resources in agricultural systems. The results indicate that developing the concept of integration demands policy support, enhancing capacity, and creating affordable, portable, and accessible DT depictions of various agricultural situations. The study indicates that DTs are not merely a technological advancement, but they are also a crucial facilitator of sustainable and climate-resilient agricultural cropping systems. This innovative technology promotes proactive decision-making and innovates resource distribution, ultimately enhancing food security for the expanding global population. Moreover, collaborative solutions that integrate innovations and equality are necessary to achieve this promise and make DTs available to farmers across different sizes and regions.