Tsuneo Kuwagata, Mayumi Yoshimoto, Yasushi Ishigooka, Toshihiro Hasegawa, and Motoki Nishimori
National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
E-mail: kuwa@affrc.go.jp
Rice productivity and quality in Japan is being impacted by global warming and climate...
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ABSTRACT
Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach that helps to guide actions needed to transform and reorient agricultural systems to effectively support development and ensure food security in a changing climate. CSA aims to tackle three main objectives: sustainably increasing agricultural...
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Growing food to feed the population becomes a challenge due to erratic weather and climatic patterns. Temperature increase and changes in rainfall pattern hasten the spread of pests and diseases which ultimately affect crop yields. The intensity of climate change which causes an impact on our...
Modern "smart" farm machinery is vulnerable to malicious hackers, leaving global supply chains exposed to risk, experts are warning.
It is feared hackers could exploit flaws in agricultural hardware used to plant and harvest crops.
Agricultural manufacturing giant John Deere says it is now working to fix any weak spots in its software.
A recent University of Cambridge report said automatic crop sprayers, drones and robotic harvesters could be hacked.
The UK government and the FBI have warned that the threat of cyber-attacks is growing.
John Deere said protecting customers, their machines and their data was a "top priority".
Smart technology is increasingly being used to make farms more efficient and productive - for example, until now the labour-intensive harvesting of delicate food crops such as asparagus has been beyond the reach of machines.
The latest generation of agricultural robots use artificial intelligence, minimising human involvement. They may help to plug a labour shortage or increase yield, but fear of the inherent security risk is growing, adding to concern over food-supply chains already threatened by the war in Ukraine and Covid.
Even the largest companies aren't safe from cyber gangs. Some use ransomware: malicious code that can encrypt data and lock systems.
Last year, one of the world's biggest meat processing company, JBS, paid $11m in ransom to resolve a cyber attack. This month, top US agriculture firm, AGCO, was hit by a ransomware attack that affected production.
Read more here.