While there is a lot of literature from a natural or technical sciences perspective on different forms of digitalization in agriculture (big data, internet of things, augmented reality, robotics, sensors, 3D printing, system integration, ubiquitous connectivity, artificial intelligence, digital twins, and blockchain among others), social science researchers have recently started investigating different aspects of digital agriculture in relation to farm production systems, value chains and food systems. This has led to a burgeoning but scattered social science body of literature. There is hence lack of overview of how this field of study is developing, and what are established, emerging, and new themes and topics. This is where this article aims to make a contribution, beyond introducing this special issue which presents seventeen articles dealing with social, economic and institutional dynamics of precision farming, digital agriculture, smart farming or agriculture 4.0. An exploratory literature review shows that five thematic clusters of extant social science literature on digitalization in agriculture can be identified: 1) Adoption, uses and adaptation of digital technologies on farm; 2) Effects of digitalization on farmer identity, farmer skills, and farm work; 3) Power, ownership, privacy and ethics in digitalizing agricultural production systems and value chains; 4) Digitalization and agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS); and 5) Economics and management of digitalized agricultural production systems and value chains. The main contributions of the special issue articles are mapped against these thematic clusters, revealing new insights on the link between digital agriculture and farm diversity, new economic, business and institutional arrangements both on-farm, in the value chain and food system, and in the innovation system, and emerging ways to ethically govern digital agriculture. Emerging lines of social science enquiry within these thematic clusters are identified and new lines are suggested to create a future research agenda on digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0. Also, four potential new thematic social science clusters are also identified, which so far seem weakly developed: 1) Digital agriculture socio-cyber-physical-ecological systems conceptualizations; 2) Digital agriculture policy processes; 3) Digitally enabled agricultural transition pathways; and 4) Global geography of digital agriculture development. This future research agenda provides ample scope for future interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary science on precision farming, digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0.

尽管从自然科学或技术科学的角度来看，有很多文献涉及农业的不同形式的数字化（大数据，物联网，增强现实，机器人技术，传感器，3D打印，系统集成，普遍存在的连接性，人工智能，数字孪生） ，以及区块链等），社会科学研究者最近开始研究与农业生产系统，价值链和食品系统有关的数字农业的各个方面。这导致了新兴但分散的社会科学文学体系。因此，对于该研究领域的发展方式，已建立的，正在出现的以及新的主题和主题，缺乏概述。这是本文旨在做出贡献的地方，除了介绍本期特刊之外，本期还提供了十七篇文章，涉及精准农业，数字农业，智能农业或农业4.0的社会，经济和制度动态。一项探索性文献综述表明，可以确定有关农业数字化的现有社会科学文献的五个主题群：1）在农场上采用，使用和适应数字技术；2）数字化对农民身份，农民技能和农场工作的影响；3）在数字化农业生产系统和价值链中的权力，所有权，隐私和道德；4）数字化和农业知识与创新系统（AKIS）；5）数字化农业生产系统和价值链的经济和管理。特刊文章的主要贡献针对这些主题领域，揭示了关于数字农业与农场多样性，农场，价值链和粮食系统以及农业，农业和农业领域新经济，商业和体制安排之间联系的新见解。创新体系，以及新兴的以道德方式治理数字农业的方式。在这些主题群中确定了新兴的社会科学探究路线，并提出了新的思路来创建有关数字农业，智能农业和农业4.0的未来研究议程。此外，还确定了四个潜在的新主题社会科学集群，到目前为止这些集群似乎发展较弱：1）数字农业社会-网络-物理-生态系统的概念化；2）数字农业政策流程；3）数字化农业转型路径；4）全球数字农业发展地理。未来的研究议程为未来的跨学科和跨学科科学提供了广阔的空间，这些学科涉及精准农业，数字农业，智能农业和农业4.0。