**4. Challenges of digital agriculture in Iran**

This section addresses the major challenges facing digital agriculture in Iran. The great majority of Iran's agriculture sector is in the agricultural 2.0 (combustion engine power) stage and requires extensive investment and training to transition to digital agriculture (agriculture 4.0). However, the study of Iran's budget bills indicates that despite the great emphasis on the importance of the ICT sector, from 2015 to 2018, the share of this sector to the total public budget declined, in a way that it reached from 3.6% to 2.4% and in the budget bill of 2019, it was similar to the previous year [45]. The Network Readiness Index (NRI) is another criterion for assessing the status of ICT use in countries. According to the global information technology report in 2016, Iran ranks 92nd among the 139 countries surveyed in this index and has acquired scores 3.7 out of 7 (the best status). Iran has the worst ranking in NRI in the pillar of

the use of information and communication technology by companies (business usage), while one of the requirements for the realization of the digital economy is the increase in the use of digital technologies by businesses. Iran is in an unfavorable position compared with other countries, and its distance from the top countries in the MENAP region (Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan) is very significant [46].

In Iran, 38 different documents related to information and communication technology and the digital economy have been compiled. Examination of these documents shows that the prevailing view of these documents is the field of ICT as public infrastructure, and less attention has been paid to it as a tool to create value in various industries and create new businesses that can hinder the development of the digital economy [45]. The similarities and overlaps of numerous and different institutions in the ICT and digital economy functions and tasks with parallelism, the overlap of activities, and lack of integration in policy making are other challenges in the development of the digital economy in the country. Other important issues are closing the legal gaps related to the ICT sector and adapting the laws and regulations of the country to the digital economy, especially in the discussion of privacy and information protection [45].

Small farmers suffer from lack of infrastructure and resources in rural areas and face challenges that limit their productivity and income. The low information knowledge of farmers is one of the most important reasons for preventing technology development in the agricultural sector. The smart and commercial systems on the market have complex instructions and farmers cannot get acquainted with how these systems work. Non-specialized policies in the development of smart agricultural, high initial cost and maintenance costs, and lack of appropriate support services have made smart systems less popular among subsistence farmers. The skilled and capable workforce is one of the main pillars of the formation of the digital economy so that the lack of human capital in Iran has become one of the obstacles to the creation and development of the digital economy.

### **5. Conclusions**

The development of the digital economy is one of the most important development programs of the Iranian government. The digital economy share of GDP in Iran was 6.5% in 2019, and the goal is to reach 10% by 2025. Digital agriculture with 117 products (8.6%) of all manufactured products is in the seventh place of the digital economy. Most digital agriculture products are related to the marketplace (61.5%) and agricultural intelligence (21.4%), respectively, which include 82.9% of the total products. To study digital agriculture in Iran, we survey smart greenhouse, smart irrigation, and robotics. Approaches and their problems in greenhouses and smart irrigation were investigated. Studies on the use of robots in agriculture, often in the greenhouse sector, were also reviewed. Finally, the challenges facing digital agriculture such that most farmers are not familiar with information knowledge, the lack of necessary infrastructure in rural areas, the declining trend of investment in the budget sector in the food sector, and the need to reform laws and integrated management of the digital economy.
