# Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture: Benefits, Challenges, and Trends
## 3 Descriptive Analysis (RQ1)  
This section quantitatively describes the 176 selected studies considering the publications and citations volume; the method of the studies identified; and the most influential countries, journals, and institutions. Figure 3 shows the distribution of papers and citations per year. The publications number and citations in the area have tripled over the last three years; the data collected in December 2022, reached a peak of 2440, referring to the 2020 publications. That is, the 2021 and 2022, publications were already citing the 2020 publications, showing the dynamism of feedback from this line of research. Studies were classified as \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**References** & **AI Technology** & **Application Domain** & **Impact Factor** & **Citescore** & **Citations** & **Scores** \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{[19]} & Robotics and automation; & \multirow{3}{*}{Crop management} & \multirow{3}{*}{5.002} & \multirow{3}{*}{8.7} & \multirow{3}{*}{135} & \multirow{3}{*}{5.5} \\  & Computer vision; Convolutional & & & & & \\  & neural network & & & & & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{[20]} & Genetic algorithm; Internet of & \multirow{3}{*}{Fergation management} & \multirow{3}{*}{11.072} & \multirow{3}{*}{15.8} & \multirow{3}{*}{25} & \multirow{3}{*}{5.5} \\  & things (IoT) & & & & & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{[21]} & Machine learning & Water management & 6.757 & 11.8 & 40 & 5.5 \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{[22]} & Digital twins & Crop management & 6.757 & 11.8 & 63 & 5.5 \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{[23]} & Machine learning & Crop prediction & 8.171 & 12 & 12 & 5.5 \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{[24]} & Machine Learning (ML); Internet & \multirow{3}{*}{Crop management} & \multirow{3}{*}{3.476} & \multirow{3}{*}{7} & \multirow{3}{*}{12} & \multirow{3}{*}{5.0} \\  & of Things (IoT) & & & & & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{[8]} & Big data; Robotics & Crop management & 6.765 & 9.7 & 1195 & 5.0 \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{[25]} & Machine learning; & \multirow{3}{*}{Crop management} & \multirow{3}{*}{6.757} & \multirow{3}{*}{11.8} & \multirow{3}{*}{70} & \multirow{3}{*}{5.0} \\  & Computer vision & & & & & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{[26]} & Deep learning; Computer vision & Crop classification & 3.889 & 5.0 & 19 & 4.5 \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{[6]} & Deep learning; computer vision & \multirow{3}{*}{
\begin{tabular}{} \end{tabular} } & Disease and pest & \multirow{3}{*}{6.409} & \multirow{3}{*}{12} & \multirow{3}{*}{11} & \multirow{3}{*}{4.5} \\  & management & & & & & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 7: _Cont._  
Figure 3: Distribution of papers and citations per year. either theoretical or empirical (Table 8). Theoretical studies were classified as reviews or SLRs. Additionally, empirical studies were classified as modeling and simulation, surveys, or case studies. The number of studies was balanced, with 43% classified as theoretical and 57% as empirical. Theoretical studies had an emphasis on reviews of the literature, with 59 papers representing 34%, and in between empirical studies, these stood out in modeling and simulation, with 68 papers representing 39%. The most representative articles in quality appraisal steps reflect this distribution, such as [13; 15] which developed, respectively, robot strawberry-picky and smart irrigation systems. When studying a research paper's relevance, bibliometric analysis can consider several indicators. This research shows the volume and impact of the publications concerning citation numbers. The Netherlands is the most influential country in this research scope, with 5 publications and 1629 citations, closely followed by India, with 37 publications and 1499 citations. Greece had only 3 publications and 1002 citations, and China had 23 publications with 899 citations. Table 9 shows the countries with more than 100 citations. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture led the ranking with 4206 citations and 55 publications, followed by Agricultural Systems (1195), Sensors (1012), and Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture (592).