Attaining a Competitive Edge in the Agrifood System: Integrating Regenerative Strategies and Digital Technologies for Sustainable Development

The article addresses the contemporary challenges facing the agrifood sector in sustaining competitive advantages through the integration of regenerative strategies and digital technologies. Population growth, inadequate conditions for ensuring food security, cases of hunger and poverty in rural regions, and natural disasters underscore the need for novel development paradigms. Sustaining sustainable competitive advantage relies on the accumulation of valuable resources, with digital technologies occupying a pivotal position. Despite historically prioritizing sustainable development, agribusiness enterprises have not fully addressed urgent environmental issues such as mitigating global warming. Regenerative agribusiness seeks to restore natural resource properties and establish ecologically oriented agrifood systems by blending traditional and innovative technologies. Ambiguities in assessing the outcomes of agribusiness enterprises’ environmental initiatives stem from unclear regulations governing regenerative agribusiness technologies and the lack of relevant standards. Departing from traditional entrepreneurial paradigms, regenerative agrifood systems align with stakeholders’ long-term goals, including reducing the greenhouse effect, waste management, biodiversity conservation, soil improvement, water resource management, and promoting socio-economic development in local communities. Utilizing innovative regenerative strategies and valuable resources, particularly digital technologies, enables enterprises embracing regenerative entrepreneurship principles to reinforce their sustainable competitive advantages. Internet of Things, automation and robotization, artificial intelligence, traceability, and Big Data are identified as prominent innovative solutions with considerable impact on the agrifood value chain. Amidst the dynamic environment of global markets, reinforcing competition policy necessitates government initiatives focused on implementing information and communication technologies customized for enterprises operating on a small scale and with narrow scopes. Transitioning established business models into regenerative ones necessitates meticulous data processing, while the convergence of innovative regenerative strategies with digital technologies sets the stage for maintaining sustainable competitive advantages.