EDITORIAL article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

Sec. Land, Livelihoods and Food Security

Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1616512

This article is part of the Research TopicOn-Farm Implementation of Transformative Technologies and Practices for Sustainability Transitions in AgricultureView all 10 articles

Editorial: On-Farm Implementation of Transformative Technologies and Practices for Sustainability Transitions in Agriculture - International insights and a research agenda

Provisionally accepted
Callum EastwoodCallum Eastwood1*Paul EdwardsPaul Edwards1Julie IngramJulie Ingram2Margaret AyreMargaret Ayre3Simon FielkeSimon Fielke4Alan RenwickAlan Renwick5,6
  • 1DairyNZ, Hamilton, New Zealand
  • 2Countryside and Community Research Institute, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, United Kingdom
  • 3The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
  • 4Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
  • 5Department of Global Value Chains and Trade, Faculty of Agribusiness and Commerce, Lincoln University, Lincoln, Canterbury, New Zealand
  • 6Centre of Excellence in Transformative Agribusiness, Lincoln University, Lincoln, New Zealand

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There is increased pressure on agri-food sectors globally to transition to more sustainable food systems (Klerkx and Begemann, 2020). Transformative technology and practices advocated by scholars and policy makers include digitalisation and automation (Ingram et al., 2022, Kukk et al., 2022), agroecological systems (Wezel et al., 2020), diversification (Roesch-McNally et al., 2018), de-intensification, local food systems, circularity (Velasco-Muñoz et al., 2022, Bracke et al., 2023), transformative value chains (Mechri et al., 2023) and land-use change for net zero. These practice changes ultimately need to be implemented at a farm scale, but the implications will impact regional and global food systems.Theories of transformative agricultural technologies and practices are widely researched and modelled. However, greater scholarly focus is required on the farm system level implications, including the positive and negative effects on the livelihoods of those being urged to change 37 (Vermeulen et al., 2018). Transformation can be a process that intersects land, 38 livelihoods, and of the food supply system. Moving from theoretical concepts to 39 reality in farming systems can be difficult to implement for farmers due to unforeseen 40 implications (Romera et al., 2020)

Keywords: sustainability, Digitalisation, agroecology, Diversification, uncertainty

Received: 23 Apr 2025; Accepted: 24 Apr 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Eastwood, Edwards, Ingram, Ayre, Fielke and Renwick. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Callum Eastwood, DairyNZ, Hamilton, New Zealand

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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