Regarding the crop production only, the present complexity, multitude and variety of user requirements for land and crop management and the complexity, multitude and variety of evaluation methods to respond to these requirements impose use of an appropriate type of computer application systems – the decision support systems. This type of systems have come out to solve poor-structured problems, that is those characterized by complexity, incompleteness, uncertainty and fuzzy values. Generally, the procedures (algorithms) for solving such problems cannot clearly and a priori be defined. The solutions are based on complex databases and processing models, the solving procedures depend on intermediate results and there are many and conflicting decision criteria. To solve such problems, the experience, intuition, judgements and preferences of decision-maker are essential. A decision support system does not automatically reach solutions. It helps (collaborates with) the decision-maker for yielding the solution. For this it is necessary an advanced interactivity between the decision support system and decision-maker.
Within the ERA-Net project ICT-Agri a Strategic Research Agenda has recently been coordinated/elaborated: http://db-ictagri.eu/ict-agri/content/SRA.php . This Agenda shows important fields with research needs in the ICT in agriculture (including robotics) research area. It was elaborated with the participation of an expert panel covering a range of disciplines.