Agriculture 4.0 and the Challenges of Sustainable Development: A Bibliometric Analysis

The objective of the study was to identify the relationship between Agriculture 4.0 (A4.0) and sustainable development. The bibliometric study allowed the treatment of quantitative data. The bibliometric analyses and mapping were performed with R software bibliometrix-biblioshiny. This paper contributes to the literature by providing a synthesis of the contributions of A4.0 to sustainable development. There is a lack of literature on A4.0 and its empirical impacts on sustainable development. The existing studies focus on the contributions to the economic and environmental pillars, leaving a gap in the social pillar. The results showed that high implementation costs make it difficult to opt for the integrated adoption of Agriculture 4.0. Thus, this study provides a picture of Agriculture 4.0 and its impacts, which may provide support for future decisions by public and private policymakers, as well as for managers who will make investment decisions to improve competitiveness. We conclude that investments in 4.0 technologies reduce production costs and environmental impacts, contributing to sustainable development. However, due to the high acquisition costs of these technologies and the lack of basic infrastructure for the operation of these 4.0 technologies, the rural technological conversion still has difficulties in advancing rapidly. Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG) is not successfully met because it does not prove is-sues that reflect on decent work, only on economic growth. Therefore, the integrative proposal to achieve sustainable development requires attention.