Opportunities from ICT for agro-food supply chains

Nowadays the situation of agro-food and rural sector in terms of markets, development and competitiveness and the specific impact that rural activities have in the society, added to the potential positive impact of new ICT technologies, has arisen new challenges. Support the European Agro-food industry to be a world wide leader in the supply of high quality and safe food products. The relevance of agro-food industry is not only related to its importance in European economy but also it is consequence of an increase awareness concerning to the necessity of producing high quality and safe products. The implementation of the new technologies in agro-food domain, enabling adequate combination of traditional products and modern management processes will definitively contribute to produce high quality and safe products. Increase the level of involvement of consumers in the agro-food value chain by means of the wide adoption of relevant IC Technologies and applications. The agro-food sector is very much a consumer driven sector. However, in order to realise the full participation of citizens in the whole agro-food supply chain, further developments in ICTs are required. The incorporation of ICT tools will greatly contribute to achieving a deeper integration, communication and information flow between the different stakeholders in the supply chain, from "fork to farm", from farmers to consumers. Therefore, in first place the objective of the work is to analyze the opportunities offered by the ICT to implement the systems of traceability in the food system. In according to place the study wants to deepen the norm ISO22000, in which the ICT has a fundamental role to have a synthetic tool of guarantee and greater trust for the consumer. The purpose is to make a critical review of the existing literature on this matter in relationship to the agro-food systems.