Smart Farming Could Pay Off In Far More Regions By 2035

Farm Robots Favor Rich Nations While Poorer Regions Lag

Robotic weeders, GPS-steered tractors, and sprinklers that water only thirsty plants are pitched as the farming of the future. Whether they make money may hinge on something unexpected: how well a country protects its environment. A new global study finds smart farming could turn a profit on 71% of the world’s cropland (land used to grow crops) by 2035 if every country matched the best environmental performance among countries at its income level. If every country matched the weakest, that share drops to 27%.

Published in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), the research maps where five farm technologies can pay their way: digital maps that guide fertilizer and pesticide use, machines that apply those inputs automatically, robotic weeders, GPS-assisted tractor steering, and irrigation that waters crops only when needed.

Of 18 factors the team tested, one stood out: a country’s score on Yale’s Environmental Performance Index, a scorecard on how well nations protect health, ecosystems, and the climate. That score was most closely tied to where smart farming turns a profit, so the authors used it to build best-case and worst-case futures. Those are scenarios, not forecasts of what governments will do. Sub-Saharan Africa, meanwhile, shows little gain in any of them.

Data From 67 Countries Shows Where Smart Farming Pays Off

Between November 2023 and August 2024, researchers from the University of Bonn, the University of California, Berkeley, and ETH Zürich sent a survey to more than 8,000 people: farmers who use the tools, company leaders who sell them, and university researchers who study them. Respondents clicked spots on a world map where a technology was in use and profitable. Those responses produced 2,677 data points, and another 1,745 came from earlier studies. That totaled 4,422 locations across 67 countries, led by the United States, France, Canada, and Australia.

Responses skewed toward academics. Researchers supplied about 46% of the data points, while farmers supplied 177, roughly 4%.

Eighteen factors, including income, education, and health, along with soil, rainfall, and environmental performance, went into five computer models. The models learned which local conditions go with profitable smart farming, then estimated the odds that a technology already makes money for at least some farmers in each square of land about 3 miles wide. High odds in a square do not mean every farm there would profit, and the odds describe profitability, not how many farmers will adopt the tools.

Smart Farming Already Pays Off Most in Wealthy Nations

Smart farming looks most promising in Western Europe, North America, and other high-income countries, including Australia, Israel, South Korea, and Japan. The authors link that pattern to higher labor costs, higher incomes and education, better infrastructure, and a political push for sustainable farming.

Robotic weeders show promise mostly in Western Europe, especially for sugar beets, while American farmers fighting herbicide-resistant weeds are turning to camera-guided sprayers built for larger U.S. farms.

In China, Western Europe, and North America, areas where automated fertilizer machines look profitable also have heavy fertilizer pollution, so they could help farm budgets and the environment at once.

Smart Farming’s Payoff Ranges From 27% to 71% of Cropland

Researchers projected 2035 under a “Middle of the Road” future, in which economic and social trends continue as they have. On that path alone, the share of cropland where smart farming could turn a profit grows from 42% in 2025 to 46% in 2035.

They changed one thing: each country’s environmental performance score. In the best case, every country gets the highest score seen among nations at its income level. In the worst case, each gets the lowest score in its income group. That single swing separates the 71% and 27% outcomes, a gap of more than 500 million hectares, or over 1.2 billion acres. The worst case lands well below today’s 42%.

Eastern Europe, South America, China, India, and Thailand do better under the best-case 2035 scenario than on that middle path in 2045.

Environmental performance and smart farming profits are linked statistically in the models. That does not prove stricter laws alone would produce the gains, since the score measures overall performance rather than any single policy.

Sub-Saharan Africa Stays Behind in Every Scenario Tested

Parts of South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East also lag. The authors point to a mismatch: smart farming tools were built mostly for large, well-funded farms in North America and Western Europe, an example of what the paper calls “inappropriate technology.”

Higher incomes and better environmental scores may not be enough, so the authors call for investment in infrastructure and training, plus research aimed at tools designed for small farms. They caution that sub-Saharan Africa’s future is hard to predict, since it depends on policy and how well the tools are adapted.

Smart farming may be the future of agriculture, but the models show that future arriving unevenly. How far it spreads across wealthier and middle-income regions could ride on environmental performance, while the poorest regions will need machines built for their own farms.

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Disclaimer: This article is based on peer-reviewed research published in PNAS. The results come from computer models of profitability under hypothetical scenarios, not from observed adoption or tests of actual government policies, so real-world outcomes may differ. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as financial, agricultural, or policy advice.

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