Rethinking e-Agriculture Innovation Using a Human Centred Systems Lens

Historically, farmers have been some of the most innovative people in the world. However, agriculture lags behind other sectors in its uptake of new information technologies for the control and automation of farming systems. In spite of decades of research into innovation, generally we still do not have a good understanding as to why this is the case. This paper reviews two theories of innovation and offers a new approach to thinking about agricultural ICT (e-Agriculture). It firstly explores the problem of ICT adoption in agriculture. It also proposes new dimensions of a theory of e-Agriculture adoption and innovation. The paper thereby opens up an avenue of research for control and automation systems theory and practice, which informs policy in respect of e-readiness of farmers and the wider rural community both at a national level and an international level.