Abstract

Precision agriculture is enabled by data science that is currently transforming the lives of more than 180 million hectares and producing 4.1 zettabytes a year by 2025, and its potential can only be fulfilled when powerful regulatory frameworks are established regarding ethical and legal issues. In this chapter, the author critically looks into international laws such as EU GDPR (95% to comply in 2024) and U.S CCPA (80% to comply), data ownership, data privacy, interoperability, and more than two out of three farmers expressed their fear of misusing their data. Legal risks (lawsuits over poor AI choices go up to $50 million in the U.S. in 2024) overlap with ethical issues, such as algorithmic bias (65% of models), equitable access (only 40% of smallholders have decent access), and more. The creation of best practices, such as eschewing governance and deployment of standard forms, such as ISO 11783, dropped the number of violations by 20%. New dynamics, such as AI development, blockchain (25% penetration), and live tracking, also require flexible policies. Standardization, subsidizing ethical agricultural methods, and promoting the public-private partnership (50% of OECD) may expand precision agriculture to meet 50% more food demand by 2050, providing 10–20% more production. The stakeholders should work together to strike the right balance of innovation, ethics, and compliance, which promotes equitable and sustainable agricultural change.