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The Food and Agriculture (FA) Sector is one of 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2022).
The Food and Agriculture (FA) is almost entirely under private ownership and comprises farms, manufacturers, storage and warehousing facilities, and food processing/preparation organizations (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2022). This sector accounts for roughly one-fifth of the nation's economic activity (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2022). The FA Sector depends on many other critical infrastructure sectors, such as water, transportation, energy, chemicals, and information technology (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2022).
The United Nations (2017) forecasts that by 2050, the world’s population will reach 9.8 billion and 11.2 billion in 2100. An ever-growing global population threatens food security, accompanied by a food shortage (McCarthy et al., 2018), and relentless cyber-attacks (FBI, 2022) are a challenge to food security. A vital pillar for the agriculture industry is to focus on guaranteeing food security. The FAO (2008) states that food security is defined as a state when “all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for a healthy and active life.” According to Gomiero, Pimentel, and Paoletti (2011), increasing concerns for the environment and natural resources such as soil fertility must be prioritized to ensure food security. Hence, the need for digitalization in agriculture can optimize the use of natural resources and inform decision-making on soil fertility to maximize crop production.
Technological determinism is an invasive phenomenon driving technology integration (Nobles, 2015), especially in the food and agriculture industry. Technological determinism is the continuous integration of technologies to enhance society and existing processes and practices with little regard to institutional and organizational cultural implications (Nobles, 2015). Technological determinism contributes to advancing technology in farming and agricultural practices (Anderson, 2014). Initiatives such as Agriculture 4.0, smart farming, and precision farming are suited to provide the technological breakthroughs to increase agricultural production (Latino & Menegoli, 2022; Raj et al., 2021); consequently, cybersecurity is now a critical element of agriculture operations.
Farmers use innovative technologies such as aerial images, robots, temperature and moisture sensors, and GPS technology to produce better yields and become more gainful, efficient, safer, and environmentally approachable (National Institute of Food Culture, n.d.). Traceability technologies augment accountability and incentivize food supply chain stakeholders to diminish inadequacies and wastefulness in their operations (van der Straten, 2018). Due to the variability in agriculture operations and non-standardized practices, farming technologies enable solutions to meet particularized farming requirements (Bayer, 2020). The Internet-enabled key technological improvements in agriculture centered on technologies supporting smart farming influence the agriculture sector worldwide. Today, smart farming plays a vital role in tackling the challenges of increasing food demand, mounting operating costs, climate change, and nutrition loss.