Information and Communication Technologies for Agriculture--Theme III: Decision

This volume is the third (III) of four under the main themes of Digitizing Agriculture and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The four volumes cover rapidly developing processes including Sensors (I), Data (II), Decision (III), and Actions (IV). Volumes are related to ’digital transformation＂ within agricultural production and provision systems, and in the context of Smart Farming Technology and Knowledge-based Agriculture. Content spans broadly from data mining and visualization to big data analytics and decision making, alongside with the sustainability aspects stemming from the digital transformation of farming. The four volumes comprise the outcome of the 12th EFITA Congress, also incorporating chapters that originated from select presentations of the Congress.

The focus of this book (III) is on the transformation of collected information into valuable decisions and aims to shed light on how best to use digital technologies to reduce cost, inputs, and time, toward becoming more efficient and transparent. Fourteen chapters are grouped into 3 Sections. The first section of is dedicated to decisions in the value chain of agricultural products. The next section, titled Primary Production, elaborates on decision making for the improvement of processes taking place with the farm under the implementation of ICT. The last section is devoted to the development of innovative decision applications that also consider the protection of the environment, recognizing its importance in the preservation and considerate use of resources, as well as the mitigation of adverse impacts that are related to agricultural production.

Planning and modeling the assessment of agricultural practices can provide farmers with valuable information prior to the execution of any task. This book provides a valuable reference for them as well as for those directly involved with decision making in planning and assessment of agricultural production.

Specific advances covered in the volume:

• Modelling and Simulation of ICT-based agricultural systems
• Farm Management Information Systems (FMIS)
• Planning for unmanned aerial systems
• Agri-robotics awareness and planning
• Smart livestock farming
• Sustainable strategic planning in agri-production
• Food business information systems

Dionysis Bochtis works on the field of engineering for agricultural production under enhanced ICT, automation, and robotics technologies. His Research/Academic track-record includes positions such as: Director of the Institute for Bio-economy and Agri-technology (IBO / CERTH); Professor (Agri-Robotics) University of Lincoln, UK, and Senior Scientist (Operations Management), Aarhus University, Denmark. He is the founder of the agri-tech private company: farmB Digital Agriculture.
Claus Grøn Sørensen is a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Aarhus, Head of Operations Management Research Unit and of Centre on Smart Farming. He has extensive experience in production and operations management, decision analysis, information modeling, system analysis, and simulation and modeling of technology application in agriculture, development of management information systems and smart applications. Multiple international positions held in international organizations, including past President of EurAgEng 2016-2018 (the European Society of Agricultural Engineers (EugAgEng)), and past Chairman for CIGR (International Commission of Agricultural Engineering) Section V on System Management.
Spyros Fountas is Associate Professor at Agricultural University of Athens. He holds an MSc from Cranfield University UK in Information Technology, and PhD from Copenhagen University, Denmark in Systems Analysis on Precision Agriculture. He was also Visiting Scholar at Purdue University, USA. He is Editor-in-Chief in the Elsevier journals of ＂Computers and Electronics in Agriculture＂ since 2014 and ＂Smart Agricultural Technology＂, since 2021. His field of expertise are precision agriculture and farm management information systems.
Vasileios Moysiadis is an Automation Engineer specialized in software development Machine Learning and Big Data Analysis. His research interests also focus on high level control aspects of robotic technologies and unmanned aerial vehicles. Currently he is a Research assistant at the Agri-robotics Lab of the Institute for Bio-economy and Agri-technology (iBO), Centre for Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH).
Panos M. Pardalos serves as distinguished professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Florida. Additionally, he is the Paul and Heidi Brown Preeminent Professor of industrial and systems engineering. Professor Pardalos is also an affiliated faculty member of the computer and information science department, the Hellenic Studies Center, and the biomedical engineering program. Additionally, he serves as the director of the Center for Applied Optimization. Professor Pardalos is a world leading expert in global and combinatorial optimization. His recent research interests include network design problems, optimization in telecommunications, ecommerce, data mining, biomedical applications, and massive computing. Panos Pardalos is a prolific author who lectures all over the world. He is the recipient of a multitude of fellowships and awards, the most recent of which is the Humboldt Research Award (2018).