Agriculture 4.0 adoption challenges in the emerging economies: Implications for smart farming and sustainability

To ensure food security in this age of production and supply disruption, the agricultural sectors of emerging economies are gradually adopting more smart technologies to achieve sustainability. However, literature on the challenges of adopting Agriculture 4.0-based smart farming technologies is still very limited. This research, therefore, explores the contextual interrelation among the challenges to adopting Agriculture 4.0-based smart technologies in the agricultural production system from a developing country's perspective and prioritizes the identified challenges. A case study was conducted in Bangladesh, an emerging economy, where data was collected through interviews and focus group discussion sessions. A total of 21 challenges were finalized as relevant to the country's context. The Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) technique was deployed to develop a hierarchical structure depicting the challenges' interrelations. The challenges were later ranked based on their relevant weight using the Best-Worst Method (BWM). This study finds technological complexity, lack of collaboration among different stakeholders, inadequate support from the government, and lack of action plans to have very high driving power. Challenges such as high initial investment and operational costs, lack of skilled workforce, and farmers' resistance were found to be dependent challenges. This study is expected to contribute by providing a deeper insight into the challenges of adopting Agriculture 4.0 in emerging economies so that practitioners can take effective mitigating measures to streamline the plant-based agricultural production systems to promote food security and sustainability. • The study explores the barriers to adopting Agriculture 4.0 in emerging economies like Bangladesh. • Interpretive Structural Modeling and the Best-Worst Method were used for the analysis. • This study finds technological complexity and lack of collaboration among different stakeholders to have very high driving power. • High initial investment and operational costs and lack of skilled workforce were found to be dependent challenges. • The study outcomes are expected to promote Agriculture 4.0 by providing a deeper insight into the challenges.