# Agriculture 4.0: Is Sub-Saharan Africa Ready?
## 1 Introduction  
Agricultural systems across the globe have evolved over the years. The literature identifies a \"first agricultural revolution\" or \"Agriculture 1.0\" [1, 2, 3, 4], that involved hunting, gathering and settled farming; and a \"second agricultural revolution\", or the British agricultural revolution [5], in the 18 th century, which saw an increase in agricultural production due to improved land productivity from mechanised agriculture [3]. Agricultural systems then evolved as a \"third\" Asian Green Revolution was introduced with a technology package of hybrid seeds, irrigation, modern pest control and synthetic fertilisers [6] in the 1960s; and more recently to what is termed agriculture 4.0 [7, 8], the \"fourth agricultural revolution\". Agriculture 4.0, a recent and potentially game-changing transition lacks a universally accepted definition. However, it encompasses the adoption of high technology (High-Tech) solutions such as the internet of things (IoT), biotechnology innovations, cloud computing, precision agriculture, smart farming, drones, sensors, and robotics [9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. It is also underpinned by the idea of sustainable intensification, covering concepts that are in line with sustainable food production and better agricultural systems [14, 15].  
The Asian Green Revolution, which ended in 1990, has been credited with resolving food crises, reducing poverty and offering potentially important lessons for sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries [16]. Yet, the Asian Green Revolution has also proven to be controversial. Criticisms include the inability of smallholder farmers to compete with larger farms, which led to increased inequality amongst farmers; and an increase in fertiliser use that led to eutrophication of streams and lakes [17, 18, 19].  
Taking a cue from the Asian Green Revolution, African agriculture policymakers, with the support of donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, UK Aid, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Mastercard Foundation, proposed an African Green Revolution where improved seeds and fertilisers were to drive this process [20,21]. This led to the creation of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) in 2006 [22]. The broad goals of AGRA were to provide African smallholder farmers with high-yielding agricultural practices that would allow them to double their yields [18]. Yet to date the evidence suggests that this, albeit ambitious, target has not been achieved. Critics variously suggest that AGRA did not achieve its goals due to the lack of consultations with farmers; the imposition of Western-type technologies not appropriate for SSA's farming systems; high input costs that were not offset by sufficiently high yields; and a focus on chemical-intensive monoculture cropping that leads to loss of crop and diet diversity [22].  
This article assesses the challenges and prospects for agriculture 4.0 adoption in SSA. Most of the literature addressing agriculture 4.0 takes a higher-income country (HIC) viewpoint. To the best of our knowledge, few works exist on this topic from an SSA perspective, and only some of the technologies associated with agriculture 4.0 that have been introduced in higher-income countries appear to be being implemented in SSA [12]. In Section 2 we consider the potential of agriculture 4.0 technologies in SSA, by focusing on characteristics of the region, and of the technologies. We explore SSA's readiness for, and ability to embrace, agriculture 4.0, focusing on the challenges and opportunities for SSA's farmers to tap into the agriculture 4.0 revolution. In Section 3, we explore how SSA can leverage the opportunities for adopting agriculture 4.0. Finally, Section 4 concludes, by reflecting on the implication of SSA losing out in the new wave of an agricultural revolution.