Socio-Technical Evolution toward Sustainable Agriculture 5.0: A Systemic Framework for Global Food Digital Twins and Supply Chain Viability

Abstract

The global agri-food system faces critical viability challenges. With population approaching 9.7 billion by 2050, current supply chains exhibit systemic inefficiencies. Digital Twins, virtual replicas enabling real-time optimization, remain fragmented and inaccessible to smallholder farmers in the Global South, where mobile data costs consume 4.5% of monthly income, double the UN threshold. The search of mitigations requires the application of systems approach principles, as agri-food systems are complex, adaptive, and autopoietic self-regenerating living systems requiring integration of ecological feedback, technological capacity, and human agency. Traditional engineering approaches fail by treating supply chains as mechanistic rather than viability-critical socio-technical wholes. This paper synthesizes peer-reviewed literature (2021–2026) from Scopus-indexed journals on Digital Twins, Agriculture 5.0, technological drivers, and adoption barriers. The synthesis was triangulated with public datasets from FAO, World Bank, Eurostat, and Horizon Europe projects. Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety, the Viable System Model, and autopoiesis were applied to design a four-layer Global Food Digital Twin architecture with continuous Digital Thread integration. The framework demonstrates how hybrid physics-based and data-driven models match environmental complexity while remaining locally adaptable. Evidence shows Digital Twins achieve 25% water efficiency gains, 22% productivity increases, and 12–30% cost reductions. The approach operationalizes classical cybernetics into agri-food governance, centering data sovereignty, digital justice, and stakeholder participation as core design principles. Five policy recommendations translate findings into actionable SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) pathways for implementation.