Digital agriculture (DA) is essential to enhancing the productivity, quality, sustainability, and resilience of agrifood systems through the integration of sensing, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI)-based analytics. In the past five years, new DA tools (e.g., crop load estimation systems) have been extensively developed and demonstrated, but the technology adoption is slow. This limits potential environmental and socioeconomic benefits of DA and becomes a major bottleneck for further DA development (e.g., digital asset values to agrifood supply chain). Three barriers have recognized: 1) the lack of objective product evaluation and local performance validation; 2) less strategic planning for technology and business co-evolvement; and 3) limited educational materials and events for DA literacy establishment. A recent notice is our pilot growers are overwhelmed and frustrated by premature technologies and their providers. This jeopardizes the entire DA ecosystem from technology innovation, to translation, to adoption, and ultimately hurts the long-term support of DA from growers and stakeholders. This session aims to invite both leading researchers and entrepreneurs to present their ongoing efforts on technology development and deployment for pressing challenges in New York State and to form a panel discussion to share their experiences and vision on DA. We expect this session to inspire discussions and strategic planning among growers for technology adoption and inform key strategies on infrastructure investment and policymaking. This will support a sustainable innovation ecosystem from DA research and development to technology translation and adoption, maximizing the benefits to NYS agriculture and food sectors.