Securing Agricultural Sustainability: Integrating Digital Twins and Blockchain for Smart Farming

Technological advancements are fundamentally reshaping the agricultural sector, addressing longstanding challenges while improving operational efficiency. However, the increasing digitization of agricultural systems introduces cybersecurity vulnerabilities that threaten critical food infrastructure. This paper presents an innovative framework that integrates digital twins and blockchain technologies for smart farming, leveraging Internet of Agricultural Things (IoAT) sensors and LoRaWAN communication to maintain accurate digital representations of agricultural ecosystems. This integrated approach enhances both sustainability and cybersecurity in smart agriculture by addressing key challenges in modern farming, including real-time monitoring, data integrity, resource optimization, crop yield enhancement, secure communication channels, and cyber protection for agricultural infrastructure. A case study implementing this framework in a simplified simulation demonstrates technology integration alongside robust and secure agricultural IoT systems. Our findings show the approach can lead to more sustainable and productive agricultural practices. By combining IoT, LoRaWAN, digital twins, and blockchain technologies with cybersecurity, the framework provides for future cyber-proofed smart farming initiatives. This contributes to the digital transformation of secure agriculture providing synergy between emerging technologies and critical agricultural infrastructure (CAI).