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Societal Impact Statement Maize is the world's second most important agricultural crop. The cereal was unknown to Europeans before the end of the 15th century, but since its arrival in Europe, it has changed agriculture, food and landscapes. Terraces where maize was cultivated in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula contributed to the formation of local cultures and identities. The history of maize and maize landscape are mementos that help to recover traditional practices, fostering identities, and are crucial for the successful implementation of sustainable policies to provide prosperous futures. Summary Maize (Zea mays L.) in the Iberian Peninsula embodies a history of landscape changes where the concepts of ‘exotic’, ‘traditional’ and ‘hybrid’ help to understand the engagements between landscape, farmers, agronomists (since the 19th and 20th centuries) and seeds. Today, landscapes reveal biophysical and ecological changes that reflect a panoply of intentions. A multitude of agents, and their interactions, acted upon those territories over time. Using historical sources from the leading institutions dedicated to agricultural research in the Iberian Peninsula, this paper aims to (1) contribute to a better understanding of the maize landscape and culture in the Iberian Peninsula and (2) interrogate how landscape changes (and the landscape history of maize) can frame local or regional heritage and identities reflecting customs or ways of life. The analysis unveils networks of knowledge, agricultural technologies and seed exchange. Politicians, economists, engineers, agronomists, farmers, governmental officials and agricultural industries planned and transformed traditional rural practices into modern and industrialised ones. Experts and politicians, willing to improve agricultural practices and seeds, using hybrid seeds or building new irrigation systems, led to deep social and landscape changes, allowing maize to cover territories far away from its traditional domains. Moreover, despite farmers' resistance, hybrid maize substituted landraces, eroding agrobiodiversity. Nowadays, the south and east regions of the Iberian Peninsula are the main producers of maize (hybrid), whereas in the Northwest maize is an occasional crop, being replaced by vineyards for economic reasons.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly used within plant science, yet it is far from being routinely and effectively implemented in this domain. Particularly relevant to the development of novel food and agricultural technologies is the development of validated, meaningful and usable ways to integrate, compare and visualise large, multi-dimensional datasets from different sources and scientific approaches. After a brief summary of the reasons for the interest in data science and AI within plant science, the paper identifies and discusses eight key challenges in data management that must be addressed to further unlock the potential of AI in crop and agronomic research, and particularly the application of Machine Learning (AI) which holds much promise for this domain.

This paper reviews recent developments in crop science that can be the basis of a revolution in the global food system but it is also emphasized that such a revolution requires more than changes in food production and supply. We must more effectively feed a growing global population with a healthy diet while also defining and delivering the kinds of sustainable food systems that will minimise damage to our planet. There are exciting new developments in crop production biology but much existing crop science can be exploited to increase yields with the aid of a knowledge exchange (KE) framework requiring the use of new technology now available to most people across the globe. We discuss novel approaches at both the plant and the crop level that will enhance nutrient and water productivity and we also outline ways in which energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be reduced and labor shortages combatted. Exploitation of new biology and new engineering opportunities will require development of public-private partnerships and collaborations across the disciplines to allow us to move effectively from discovery science to practical application. It is also important that consumers contribute to the debate over proposed changes to food and farming and so effective KE mechanisms are required between all relevant communities.