future of agriculture essay

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• Published: 27 April 2017

Technology: The Future of Agriculture

• Anthony King  

Nature volume  544 ,  pages S21–S23 ( 2017 ) Cite this article

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A technological revolution in farming led by advances in robotics and sensing technologies looks set to disrupt modern practice.

Over the centuries, as farmers have adopted more technology in their pursuit of greater yields, the belief that 'bigger is better' has come to dominate farming, rendering small-scale operations impractical. But advances in robotics and sensing technologies are threatening to disrupt today's agribusiness model. “There is the potential for intelligent robots to change the economic model of farming so that it becomes feasible to be a small producer again,” says robotics engineer George Kantor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Twenty-first century robotics and sensing technologies have the potential to solve problems as old as farming itself. “I believe, by moving to a robotic agricultural system, we can make crop production significantly more efficient and more sustainable,” says Simon Blackmore, an engineer at Harper Adams University in Newport, UK. In greenhouses devoted to fruit and vegetable production, engineers are exploring automation as a way to reduce costs and boost quality (see ‘ Ripe for the picking ’). Devices to monitor vegetable growth, as well as robotic pickers, are currently being tested. For livestock farmers, sensing technologies can help to manage the health and welfare of their animals (‘ Animal trackers ’). And work is underway to improve monitoring and maintenance of soil quality (‘ Silicon soil saviours ’), and to eliminate pests and disease without resorting to indiscriminate use of agrichemicals (‘ Eliminating enemies ’).

Although some of these technologies are already available, most are at the research stage in labs and spin-off companies. “Big-machinery manufacturers are not putting their money into manufacturing agricultural robots because it goes against their current business models,” says Blackmore. Researchers such as Blackmore and Kantor are part of a growing body of scientists with plans to revolutionize agricultural practice. If they succeed, they'll change how we produce food forever. “We can use technology to double food production,” says Richard Green, agricultural engineer at Harper Adams.

Ripe for the picking

The Netherlands is famed for the efficiency of its fruit- and vegetable-growing greenhouses, but these operations rely on people to pick the produce. “Humans are still better than robots, but there is a lot of effort going into automatic harvesting,” says Eldert van Henten, an agricultural engineer at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, who is working on a sweet-pepper harvester. The challenge is to quickly and precisely identify the pepper and avoid cutting the main stem of the plant. The key lies in fast, precise software. “We are performing deep learning with the machine so it can interpret all the data from a colour camera fast,” says van Henten. “We even feed data from regular street scenes into the neural network to better train it.”

In the United Kingdom, Green has developed a strawberry harvester that he says can pick the fruit faster than humans. It relies on stereoscopic vision with RGB cameras to capture depth, but it is its powerful algorithms that allow it to pick a strawberry every two seconds. People can pick 15 to 20 a minute, Green estimates. “Our partners at the National Physical Laboratory worked on the problem for two years, but had a brainstorm one day and finally cracked it,” says Green, adding that the solution is too commercially sensitive to share. He thinks that supervised groups of robots can step into the shoes of strawberry pickers in around five years. Harper Adams University is considering setting up a spin-off company to commercialize the technology. The big hurdle to commercialization, however, is that food producers demand robots that can pick all kinds of vegetables, says van Henten. The variety of shapes, sizes and colours of tomatoes, for instance, makes picking them a tough challenge, although there is already a robot available to remove unwanted leaves from the plants.

Another key place to look for efficiencies is timing. Picking too early is wasteful because you miss out on growth, but picking too late slashes weeks off the storage time. Precision-farming engineer Manuela Zude-Sasse at the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy in Potsdam, Germany, is attaching sensors to apples to detect their size, and levels of the pigments chlorophyll and anthocyanin. The data are fed into an algorithm to calculate developmental stage, and, when the time is ripe for picking, growers are alerted by smartphone.

So far, Zude-Sasse has put sensors on pears, citrus fruits, peaches, bananas and apples ( pictured ). She is set to start field trials later this year in a commercial tomato greenhouse and an apple orchard. She is also developing a smartphone app for cherry growers. The app will use photographs of cherries taken by growers to calculate growth rate and a quality score.

Growing fresh fruit and vegetables is all about keeping the quality high while minimizing costs. “If you can schedule harvest to optimum fruit development, then you can reap an economic benefit and a quality one,” says Zude-Sasse.

Eliminating enemies

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that 20–40% of global crop yields are lost each year to pests and diseases, despite the application of around two-million tonnes of pesticide. Intelligent devices, such as robots and drones, could allow farmers to slash agrichemical use by spotting crop enemies earlier to allow precise chemical application or pest removal, for example. “The market is demanding foods with less herbicide and pesticide, and with greater quality,” says Red Whittaker, a robotics engineer at Carnegie Mellon who designed and patented an automated guidance system for tractors in 1997. “That challenge can be met by robots.”

“We predict drones, mounted with RGB or multispectral cameras, will take off every morning before the farmer gets up, and identify where within the field there is a pest or a problem,” says Green. As well as visible light, these cameras would be able to collect data from the invisible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that could allow farmers to pinpoint a fungal disease, for example, before it becomes established. Scientists from Carnegie Mellon have begun to test the theory in sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor ), a staple in many parts of Africa and a potential biofuel crop in the United States.

Agribotix, an agriculture data-analysis company in Boulder, Colorado, supplies drones and software that use near-infrared images to map patches of unhealthy vegetation in large fields. Images can also reveal potential causes, such as pests or problems with irrigation. The company processes drone data from crop fields in more than 50 countries. It is now using machine learning to train its systems to differentiate between crops and weeds, and hopes to have this capability ready for the 2017 growing season. “We will be able to ping growers with an alert saying you have weeds growing in your field, here and here,” says crop scientist Jason Barton, an executive at Agribotix.

Modern technology that can autonomously eliminate pests and target agrichemicals better will reduce collateral damage to wildlife, lower resistance and cut costs. “We are working with a pesticide company keen to apply from the air using a drone,” says Green. Rather than spraying a whole field, the pesticide could be delivered to the right spot in the quantity needed, he says. The potential reductions in pesticide use are impressive. According to researchers at the University of Sydney's Australian Centre for Field Robotics, targeted spraying of vegetables used 0.1% of the volume of herbicide used in conventional blanket spraying. Their prototype robot is called RIPPA (Robot for Intelligent Perception and Precision Application) and shoots weeds with a directed micro-dose of liquid. Scientists at Harper Adams are going even further, testing a robot that does away with chemicals altogether by blasting weeds close to crops with a laser. “Cameras identify the growing point of the weed and our laser, which is no more than a concentrated heat source, heats it up to 95 °C, so the weed either dies or goes dormant,” says Blackmore.

Animal trackers

Smart collars — a bit like the wearable devices designed to track human health and fitness — have been used to monitor cows in Scotland since 2010. Developed by Glasgow start-up Silent Herdsman, the collar monitors fertility by tracking activity — cows move around more when they are fertile — and uses this to alert farmers to when a cow is ready to mate, sending a message to his or her laptop or smartphone. The collars ( pictured ), which are now being developed by Israeli dairy-farm-technology company Afimilk after they acquired Silent Herdsman last year, also detect early signs of illness by monitoring the average time each cow spends eating and ruminating, and warning the farmer via a smartphone if either declines.

“We are now looking at more subtle behavioural changes and how they might be related to animal health, such as lameness or acidosis,” says Richard Dewhurst, an animal nutritionist at Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) in Edinburgh, who is involved in research to expand the capabilities of the collar. Scientists are developing algorithms to interrogate data collected by the collars.

In a separate project, Dewhurst is analysing levels of exhaled ketones and sulfides in cow breath to reveal underfeeding and tissue breakdown or excess protein in their diet. “We have used selected-ionflow-tube mass spectrometry, but there are commercial sensors available,” says Dewhurst.

Cameras are also improving the detection of threats to cow health. The inflammatory condition mastitis — often the result of a bacterial infection — is one of the biggest costs to the dairy industry, causing declines in milk production or even death. Thermal-imaging cameras installed in cow sheds can spot hot, inflamed udders, allowing animals to be treated early.

Carol-Anne Duthie, an animal scientist at SRUC, is using 3D cameras to film cattle at water troughs to estimate the carcass grade (an assessment of the quality of a culled cow) and animal weight. These criteria determine the price producers are paid. Knowing the optimum time to sell would maximize profit and provide abattoirs with more-consistent animals. “This has knock on effects in terms of overall efficiency of the entire supply chain, reducing the animals which are out of specification reaching the abattoir,” Duthie explains.

And researchers in Belgium have developed a camera system to monitor broiler chickens in sheds. Three cameras continually track the movements of thousands of individual birds to spot problems quickly. “Analysing the behaviour of broilers can give an early warning for over 90% of problems,” says bioengineer Daniel Berckmans at the University of Leuven. The behaviour-monitoring system is being sold by Fancom, a livestock-husbandry firm in Panningen, the Netherlands. The Leuven researchers have also launched a cough monitor to flag respiratory problems in pigs, through a spin-off company called SoundTalks. This can give a warning 12 days earlier than farmers or vets would normally be able to detect a problem, says Berckmans. The microphone, which is positioned above animals in their pen, identifies sick individuals so that treatment can be targeted. “The idea was to reduce the use of antibiotics,” says Berckmans.

Berckmans is now working on downsizing a stress monitor designed for people so that it will attach to a cow's ear tag. “The more you stress an animal, the less energy is available from food for growth,” he says. The monitor takes 200 physiological measurements a second, alerting farmers through a smartphone when there is a problem.

Silicon soil saviours

The richest resource for arable farmers is soil. But large harvesters damage and compact soil, and overuse of agrichemicals such as nitrogen fertilizer are bad for both the environment and a farmer's bottom line. Robotics and autonomous machines could help.

Data from drones are being used for smarter application of nitrogen fertilizer. “Healthy vegetation reflects more near-infrared light than unhealthy vegetation,” explains Barton. The ratio of red to near-infrared bands on a multispectral image can be used to estimate chlorophyll concentration and, therefore, to map biomass and see where interventions such as fertilization are needed after weather or pest damage, for example. When French agricultural technology company Airinov, which offers this type of drone survey, partnered with a French farming cooperative, they found that over a period of 3 years, in 627 fields of oilseed rape ( Brassica napus ), farmers used on average 34 kilograms less nitrogen fertilizer per hectare than they would without the survey data. This saved on average €107 (US$115) per hectare per year.

Bonirob ( pictured ) — a car-sized robot originally developed by a team of scientists including those at Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences in Germany — can measure other indicators of soil quality using various sensors and modules, including a moisture sensor and a penetrometer, which is used to assess soil compaction. According to Arno Ruckelshausen, an agricultural technologist at Osnabrück, Bonirob can take a sample of soil, liquidize it and analyse it to precisely map in real time characteristics such as pH and phosphorous levels. The University of Sydney's smaller RIPPA robot can also detect soil characteristics that affect crop production, by measuring soil conductivity.

Soil mapping opens the door to sowing different crop varieties in one field to better match shifting soil properties such as water availability. “You could differentially seed a field, for example, planting deep-rooting barley or wheat varieties in more sandy parts,” says Maurice Moloney, chief executive of the Global Institute for Food Security in Saskatoon, Canada. Growing multiple crops together could also lead to smarter use of agrichemicals. “Nature is strongly against monoculture, which is one reason we have to use massive amounts of herbicide and pesticides,” says van Henten. “It is about making the best use of resources.”

Mixed sowing would challenge an accepted pillar of agricultural wisdom: that economies of scale and the bulkiness of farm machinery mean vast fields of a single crop is the most-efficient way to farm, and the bigger the machine, the more-efficient the process. Some of the heaviest harvesters weigh 60 tonnes, cost more than a top-end sports car and leave a trail of soil compaction in their wake that can last for years.

But if there is no need for the farmer to drive the machine, then one large vehicle that covers as much area as possible is no longer needed. “As soon as you remove the human component, size is irrelevant,” says van Henten. Small, autonomous robots make mixed planting feasible and would not crush the soil.

In April, researchers at Harpers Adams began a proof-of-concept experiment with a hectare of barley. “We plan to grow and harvest the entire crop from start to finish with no humans entering the field,” says Green. The experiment will use existing machinery, such as tractors, that have been made autonomous, rather than new robots, but their goal is to use the software developed during this trial as the brains of purpose-built robots in the future. “Robots can facilitate a new way of doing agriculture,” says van Henten. Many of these disruptive technologies may not be ready for the prime time just yet, but the revolution is coming.

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King, A. Technology: The Future of Agriculture. Nature 544 , S21–S23 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/544S21a

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Agriculture’s connected future: How technology can yield new growth

The agriculture industry has radically transformed over the past 50 years. Advances in machinery have expanded the scale, speed, and productivity of farm equipment, leading to more efficient cultivation of more land. Seed, irrigation, and fertilizers also have vastly improved, helping farmers increase yields. Now, agriculture is in the early days of yet another revolution, at the heart of which lie data and connectivity. Artificial intelligence, analytics, connected sensors, and other emerging technologies could further increase yields, improve the efficiency of water and other inputs, and build sustainability and resilience across crop cultivation and animal husbandry.

The future of connectivity

As the world experiences a quantum leap in the speed and scope of digital connections, industries are gaining new and enhanced tools to boost productivity and spur innovation. Over the next decade, existing technologies like fiber, low-power wide-area networks (LPWAN), Wi-Fi 6, low- to mid-band 5G, and short-range connections like radio-frequency identification (RFID) will expand their reach as networks are built out and adoption grows. At the same time, new generations of these technologies will appear, with upgraded standards. In addition, new types of more revolutionary—and more capital-intensive—frontier connectivity, like high-band 5G and low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites, will begin to come online.

Together, these technological developments will unlock powerful new capabilities across industries. Near-global coverage will allow the expansion of use cases even to remote areas and will enable constant connectivity universally. Massive use of Internet of Things (IoT) applications and use cases will be enabled as new technologies allow very high device densities. And mission-critical services will take advantage of ultralow-latency, high-reliability, and high-security connections.

Without a solid connectivity infrastructure, however, none of this is possible. If connectivity is implemented successfully in agriculture, the industry could tack on $500 billion in additional value to the global gross domestic product by 2030, according to our research. This would amount to a 7 to 9 percent improvement from its expected total and would alleviate much of the present pressure on farmers. It is one of just seven sectors that, fueled by advanced connectivity, will contribute $2 trillion to $3 trillion in additional value to global GDP over the next decade, according to research by the McKinsey Center for Advanced Connectivity  and the McKinsey Global Institute  (MGI) (see sidebar “The future of connectivity”).

Demand for food is growing at the same time the supply side faces constraints in land and farming inputs. The world’s population is on track to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, 1 The World Population Prospects: 2015 Revision, United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2015. requiring a corresponding 70 percent increase in calories available for consumption, even as the cost of the inputs needed to generate those calories is rising. 2 World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future, United Nations, World Resources Institute, and the World Bank, 2013. By 2030, the water supply will fall 40 percent short of meeting global water needs, 3 World Could Face Water Availability Shortfall by 2030 if Current Trends Continue, Secretary-General Warns at Meeting of High-Level Panel, United Nations, 2016. and rising energy, labor, and nutrient costs are already pressuring profit margins. About one-quarter of arable land is degraded and needs significant restoration before it can again sustain crops at scale. 4 The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture: Managing systems at risk, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Earthscan, 2011. And then there are increasing environmental pressures, such as climate change and the economic impact of catastrophic weather events, and social pressures, including the push for more ethical and sustainable farm practices, such as higher standards for farm-animal welfare and reduced use of chemicals and water.

To address these forces poised to further roil the industry, agriculture must embrace a digital transformation enabled by connectivity. Yet agriculture remains less digitized compared with many other industries globally. Past advances were mostly mechanical, in the form of more powerful and efficient machinery, and genetic, in the form of more productive seed and fertilizers. Now much more sophisticated, digital tools are needed to deliver the next productivity leap. Some already exist to help farmers more efficiently and sustainably use resources, while more advanced ones are in development. These new technologies can upgrade decision making, allowing better risk and variability management to optimize yields and improve economics. Deployed in animal husbandry, they can enhance the well-being of livestock, addressing the growing concerns over animal welfare.

Demand for food is growing at the same time the supply side faces constraints in land and farming inputs.

But the industry confronts two significant obstacles. Some regions lack the necessary connectivity infrastructure, making development of it paramount. In regions that already have a connectivity infrastructure, farms have been slow to deploy digital tools because their impact has not been sufficiently proven.

The COVID-19 crisis has further intensified other challenges agriculture faces in five areas: efficiency, resilience, digitization, agility, and sustainability. Lower sales volumes have pressured margins, exacerbating the need for farmers to contain costs further. Gridlocked global supply chains have highlighted the importance of having more local providers, which could increase the resilience of smaller farms. In this global pandemic, heavy reliance on manual labor has further affected farms whose workforces face mobility restrictions. Additionally, significant environmental benefits from decreased travel and consumption during the crisis are likely to drive a desire for more local, sustainable sourcing, requiring producers to adjust long-standing practices. In short, the crisis has accentuated the necessity of more widespread digitization and automation, while suddenly shifting demand and sales channels have underscored the value of agile adaptation.

Current connectivity in agriculture

In recent years, many farmers have begun to consult data about essential variables like soil, crops, livestock, and weather. Yet few if any have had access to advanced digital tools that would help to turn these data into valuable, actionable insights. In less-developed regions, almost all farmwork is manual, involving little or no advanced connectivity or equipment.

Even in the United States, a pioneer country in connectivity, only about one-quarter of farms currently use any connected equipment or devices to access data, and that technology isn’t exactly state-of-the-art, running on 2G or 3G networks that telcos plan to dismantle or on very low-band IoT networks that are complicated and expensive to set up. In either case, those networks can support only a limited number of devices and lack the performance for real-time data transfer, which is essential to unlock the value of more advanced and complex use cases.

Nonetheless, current IoT technologies running on 3G and 4G cellular networks are in many cases sufficient to enable simpler use cases, such as advanced monitoring of crops and livestock. In the past, however, the cost of hardware was high, so the business case for implementing IoT in farming did not hold up. Today, device and hardware costs are dropping rapidly, and several providers now offer solutions at a price we believe will deliver a return in the first year of investment.

These simpler tools are not enough, though, to unlock all the potential value that connectivity holds for agriculture. To attain that, the industry must make full use of digital applications and analytics, which will require low latency, high bandwidth, high resiliency, and support for a density of devices offered by advanced and frontier connectivity technologies like LPWAN, 5G, and LEO satellites (Exhibit 1).

The challenge the industry is facing is thus twofold: infrastructure must be developed to enable the use of connectivity in farming, and where connectivity already exists, strong business cases must be made in order for solutions to be adopted. The good news is that connectivity coverage is increasing almost everywhere. By 2030, we expect advanced connectivity infrastructure of some type to cover roughly 80 percent of the world’s rural areas; the notable exception is Africa, where only a quarter of its area will be covered. The key, then, is to develop more—and more effective—digital tools for the industry and to foster widespread adoption of them.

As connectivity increasingly takes hold, these tools will enable new capabilities in agriculture:

• Massive Internet of Things. Low-power networks and cheaper sensors will set the stage for the IoT to scale up, enabling such use cases as precision irrigation of field crops, monitoring of large herds of livestock, and tracking of the use and performance of remote buildings and large fleets of machinery.
• Mission-critical services. Ultralow latency and improved stability of connections will foster confidence to run applications that demand absolute reliability and responsiveness, such as operating autonomous machinery and drones.
• Near-global coverage. If LEO satellites attain their potential, they will enable even the most remote rural areas of the world to use extensive digitization, which will enhance global farming productivity.

Connectivity’s potential for value creation

By the end of the decade, enhanced connectivity in agriculture could add more than $500 billion to global gross domestic product, a critical productivity improvement of 7 to 9 percent for the industry. 5 This represents our estimate of the total potential for value added in agricultural production; it is not an estimate of the agritech and precision-agriculture market size. Much of that value, however, will require investments in connectivity that today are largely absent from agriculture. Other industries already use technologies like LPWAN, cloud computing, and cheaper, better sensors requiring minimal hardware, which can significantly reduce the necessary investment. We have analyzed five use cases—crop monitoring, livestock monitoring, building and equipment management, drone farming, and autonomous farming machinery—where enhanced connectivity is already in the early stages of being used and is most likely to deliver the higher yields, lower costs, and greater resilience and sustainability that the industry needs to thrive in the 21st century (Exhibit 2).

It’s important to note that use cases do not apply equally across regions. For example, in North America, where yields are already fairly optimized, monitoring solutions do not have the same potential for value creation as in Asia or Africa, where there is much more room to improve productivity. Drones and autonomous machinery will deliver more impact to advanced markets, as technology will likely be more readily available there (Exhibit 3).

About the use-case research

The value of our agriculture-connectivity use cases resides primarily in labor efficiencies, input optimization, yield increases, reduced overhead, and improvements in operation and maintenance of machinery. Each use case enables a series of improvement levers in those areas that promise to enhance the productivity of farming (exhibit).

We applied those levers to the profitability drivers of agricultural production to derive an economic potential for the industry as a whole. For example, a use case might enable a 5 to 10 percent reduction in fertilizer usage, saving costs for the farmer, or enable 3 percent higher yields, leading to greater revenues for the farmer. In fact, higher yields represent the largest opportunity, with advanced connectivity potentially adding some $350 billion of value to global food production without additional inputs or labor costs.

Potential value initially will accrue to large farms that have more investing power and better incentives to digitize. Connectivity promises easier surveying of large tracts, and the fixed costs of developing IoT solutions are more easily offset in large production facilities than on small family farms. Crops like cereals, grains, fruits, and vegetables will generate most of the value we identified, for similar reasons. Connectivity enables more use cases in these sectors than in meat and dairy, because of the large average size of farms, relatively higher player consolidation, and better applicability of connected technologies, as IoT networks are especially adapted to static monitoring of many variables. It’s also interesting to note that Asia should garner about 60 percent of the total value simply because it produces the biggest volume of crops (see sidebar “About the use-case research”).

Use case 1: Crop monitoring

Connectivity offers a variety of ways to improve the observation and care of crops. Integrating weather data, irrigation, nutrient, and other systems could improve resource use and boost yields by more accurately identifying and predicting deficiencies. For instance, sensors deployed to monitor soil conditions could communicate via LPWAN, directing sprinklers to adjust water and nutrient application. Sensors could also deliver imagery from remote corners of fields to assist farmers in making more informed and timely decisions and getting early warnings of problems like disease or pests.

Smart monitoring could also help farmers optimize the harvesting window. Monitoring crops for quality characteristics—say, sugar content and fruit color—could help farmers maximize the revenue from their crops.

Most IoT networks today cannot support imagery transfer between devices, let alone autonomous imagery analysis, nor can they support high enough device numbers and density to monitor large fields accurately. Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) and 5G promise to solve these bandwidth and connection-density issues. The use of more and smoother connections between soil, farm equipment, and farm managers could unlock $130 billion to $175 billion in value by 2030.

Use case 2: Livestock monitoring

Preventing disease outbreaks and spotting animals in distress are critical in large-scale livestock management, where most animals are raised in close quarters on a regimen that ensures they move easily through a highly automated processing system. Chips and body sensors that measure temperature, pulse, and blood pressure, among other indicators, could detect illnesses early, preventing herd infection and improving food quality. Farmers are already using ear-tag technology from providers such as Smartbow (part of Zoetis) to monitor cows’ heat, health, and location, or technology from companies such as Allflex to implement comprehensive electronic tracing in case of disease outbreaks.

Similarly, environmental sensors could trigger automatic adjustments in ventilation or heating in barns, lessening distress and improving living conditions that increasingly concern consumers. Better monitoring of animal health and growth conditions could produce $70 billion to $90 billion in value by 2030.

Would you like to learn more about the McKinsey Center for Advanced Connectivity ?

Use case 3: building and equipment management.

Chips and sensors to monitor and measure levels of silos and warehouses could trigger automated reordering, reducing inventory costs for farmers, many of whom are already using such systems from companies like Blue Level Technologies. Similar tools could also improve shelf life of inputs and reduce post-harvest losses by monitoring and automatically optimizing storage conditions. Monitoring conditions and usage of buildings and equipment also has the potential to reduce energy consumption. Computer vision and sensors attached to equipment and connected to predictive-maintenance systems could decrease repair costs and extend machinery and equipment life.

Such solutions could achieve $40 billion to $60 billion in cost savings by 2030.

Use case 4: Farming by drone

Agriculture has been using drones for some two decades, with farmers around the world relying on pioneers like Yamaha’s RMAX remote-controlled helicopter to help with crop spraying. Now the next generation of drones is starting to impact the sector, with the ability to survey crops and herds over vast areas quickly and efficiently or as a relay system for ferrying real-time data to other connected equipment and installations. Drones also could use computer vision to analyze field conditions and deliver precise interventions like fertilizers, nutrients, and pesticides where crops most need them. Or they could plant seed in remote locations, lowering equipment and workforce costs. By reducing costs and improving yields, the use of drones could generate between $85 billion and $115 billion in value.

Use case 5: Autonomous farming machinery

More precise GPS controls paired with computer vision and sensors could advance the deployment of smart and autonomous farm machinery. Farmers could operate a variety of equipment on their field simultaneously and without human intervention, freeing up time and other resources. Autonomous machines are also more efficient and precise at working a field than human-operated ones, which could generate fuel savings and higher yields. Increasing the autonomy of machinery through better connectivity could create $50 billion to $60 billion of additional value by 2030.

Additional sources of value

Connected technologies offer an additional, indirect benefit, the value of which is not included in the estimates given in these use cases. The global farming industry is highly fragmented, with most labor done by individual farm owners. Particularly in Asia and Africa, few farms employ outside workers. On such farms, the adoption of connectivity solutions should free significant time for farmers, which they can use to farm additional land for pay or to pursue work outside the industry.

We find the value of deploying advanced connectivity on these farms to achieve such labor efficiencies represents almost $120 billion, bringing the total value of enhanced connectivity from direct and indirect outcomes to more than $620 billion by 2030. The extent to which this value will be captured, however, relies largely on advanced connectivity coverage, which is expected to be fairly low, around 25 percent, in Africa and poorer parts of Asia and Latin America. Achieving the critical mass of adopters needed to make a business case for deploying advanced connectivity also will be more difficult in those regions, where farming is more fragmented than in North America and Europe.

Connected world: An evolution in connectivity beyond the 5G revolution

Implications for the agricultural ecosystem.

As the agriculture industry digitizes, new pockets of value will likely be unlocked. To date, input providers selling seed, nutrients, pesticides, and equipment have played a critical role in the data ecosystem because of their close ties with farmers, their own knowledge of agronomy, and their track record of innovation. For example, one of the world’s largest fertilizer distributors now offers both fertilizing agents and software that analyzes field data to help farmers determine where to apply their fertilizers and in what quantity. Similarly, a large-equipment manufacturer is developing precision controls that make use of satellite imagery and vehicle-to-vehicle connections to improve the efficiency of field equipment.

Advanced connectivity does, however, give new players an opportunity to enter the space. For one thing, telcos and LPWAN providers have an essential role to play in installing the connectivity infrastructure needed to enable digital applications on farms. They could partner with public authorities and other agriculture players to develop public or private rural networks, capturing some of the new value in the process.

Agritech companies are another example of the new players coming into the agriculture sphere. They specialize in offering farmers innovative products that make use of technology and data to improve decision making and thereby increase yields and profits. Such agritech enterprises could proffer solutions and pricing models that reduce perceived risk for farmers—with, for example, subscription models that remove the initial investment burden and allow farmers to opt out at any time—likely leading to faster adoption of their products. An Italian agritech is doing this by offering to monitor irrigation and crop protection for wineries at a seasonal, per-acre fee inclusive of hardware installation, data collection and analysis, and decision support. Agritech also could partner with agribusinesses to develop solutions.

Still, much of this cannot happen until many rural areas get access to a high-speed broadband network. We envision three principal ways the necessary investment could take place to make this a reality:

• Telco-driven deployment. Though the economics of high-bandwidth rural networks have generally been poor, telcos could benefit from a sharp increase in rural demand for their bandwidth as farmers embrace advanced applications and integrated solutions.
• Provider-driven deployment. Input providers, with their existing industry knowledge and relationships, are probably best positioned to take the lead in connectivity-related investment. They could partner with telcos or LPWAN businesses to develop rural connectivity networks and then offer farmers business models integrating connected technology and product and decision support.
• Farmer-driven deployment. Farm owners, alone or in tandem with LPWAN groups or telcos, could also drive investment. This would require farmers to develop the knowledge and skills to gather and analyze data locally, rather than through third parties, which is no small hurdle. But farmers would retain more control over data.

How to do it

Regardless of which group drives the necessary investment for connectivity in agriculture, no single entity will be able to go it alone. All of these advances will require the industry’s main actors to embrace collaboration as an essential aspect of doing business. Going forward, winners in delivering connectivity to agriculture will need deep capabilities across various domains, ranging from knowledge of farm operations to advanced data analytics and the ability to offer solutions that integrate easily and smoothly with other platforms and adjacent industries. For example, data gathered by autonomous tractors should seamlessly flow to the computer controlling irrigation devices, which in turn should be able to use weather-station data to optimize irrigation plans.

Connectivity pioneers in the industry, however, have already started developing these new capabilities internally. Organizations prefer keeping proprietary data on operations internal for confidentiality and competitive reasons. This level of control also makes the data easier to analyze and helps the organization be more responsive to evolving client needs.

But developing new capabilities is not the end game. Agriculture players able to develop partnerships with telcos or LPWAN players will gain significant leverage in the new connected-agriculture ecosystem. Not only will they be able to procure connectivity hardware more easily and affordably through those partnerships, they will also be better positioned to develop close relationships with farmers as connectivity becomes a strategic issue. Input providers or distributors could thus find themselves in a connectivity race. If input providers manage to develop such partnerships, they could connect directly with farmers and cut out distributors entirely. If distributors win that race, they will consolidate their position in the value chain by remaining an essential intermediary, closer to the needs of farmers.

The public sector also could play a role by improving the economics of developing broadband networks, particularly in rural areas. For example, the German and Korean governments have played a major role in making network development more attractive by heavily subsidizing spectrum or providing tax breaks to telcos. 6 “Das Breitbandförderprogramm des Bundes” [in German], Bundesministerium für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur, 2020, bmvi.de; 5G in Korea: Volume 1: Get a taste of the future, Samsung Electronics, 2019, samsungnetworks.com. Other regions could replicate this model, accelerating development of connective products by cost-effectively giving input providers and agritech companies assurance of a backbone over which they could deliver services. Eventual deployment of LEO satellite constellations would likely have a similar impact.

Agriculture, one of the world’s oldest industries, finds itself at a technological crossroads. To handle increasing demand and several disruptive trends successfully, the industry will need to overcome the challenges to deploying advanced connectivity. This will require significant investment in infrastructure and a realignment of traditional roles. It is a huge but critical undertaking, with more than $500 billion in value at stake. The success and sustainability of one of the planet’s oldest industries may well depend on this technology transformation, and those that embrace it at the outset may be best positioned to thrive in agriculture’s connectivity-driven future.

Lutz Goedde is a senior partner and global leader of McKinsey’s Agriculture Practice in the Denver office; Joshua Katz is a partner in the Stamford office; and Alexandre Menard is a senior partner in the Paris office, where Julien Revellat is an associate partner.

The authors wish to thank Nicolas D. Estais, Claus Gerckens, Vincent Tourangeau, and the McKinsey Center for Advanced Connectivity for their contributions to the article.

This article was edited by Daniel Eisenberg, a senior editor in the New York office.

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What if… imagining the future of agriculture.

Every single person on the planet having the means to grow or buy food: How do we build that vision?

Gina Castillo is the Agriculture Program Manager at Oxfam America.

How will agriculture meet global food demand sustainably and equitably? This question is potentially controversial; it is often framed in terms of either organic versus conventional, or small farmer led versus large scale industrial farming. But don’t we all want an agriculture that provides nutritious food for everyone and that doesn’t decimate the natural resources that it uses? These are goals that should unite us, but the reality is that it often does not.

How can we then rise above this polarization and tap into the synergy and common aspirations? This was the question that some of us at Oxfam wanted to try and tackle. So we invited passionate people with knowledge about agriculture—from farmers, to Syngenta representatives, to the head of the Food and Agriculture Organization at the United Nations—to imagine and to articulate what this agricultural system could look like. In other words, we wanted to tap into the kind of stuff that gets lost when agriculture forecasts and reports are usually presented.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”  ~ Albert Einstein

The challenge we presented to essayists was intended to tap into their creativity and imagination, and to spur a dialogue that could “crowd-source” a vision for agriculture in the future. These essays were then featured on a two-week  online debate . Today we are publishing a synthesis of that discussion , as well as the original 23 essays from 16 countries. The four questions answered in the essays and discussions included:

• What if all farmers had adequate risk management systems to deal with climate trends and shocks, as well as with price volatility in input and product markets?
• What if fossil fuels were no longer required in any form of input to global agricultural production?
• What if all farmers, male and female, had full and equal control over the necessary resources for farming, and over the outputs of their labor?
• What if the ideas and innovations of resource-poor farmers leading to improvements of their natural resource base were supported by adequate access to public and private sector investments?

These questions may appear naïve and idealistic, even ridiculous to some. But don’t all good visions and change start with some idealism and optimism? Funny enough, no one we invited to write an essay told us they were silly. On the contrary, we realized people want to be involved in actively creating the future.

So what came out of the debate and the essays? Our essayists overwhelmingly agree that a lot of the technologies and practices to achieve a more equitable and sustainable agriculture are within reach, and that many farmers are inherently creative and inventive, adapting their farming practices beyond what we “experts” think. What is lacking is real political will. What is lacking are actual investments to support farmers’ creativity and foster collaborations to better link farmers to each other, to the private sector, to extension services, etc.

It turns out then that what separates the start of a vision and its actualization is getting real about the future. Our essays and discussion reveal that unlocking idealism and creativity is a key part of that.

Related posts

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Home / Blog

Importance and Future of Sustainable Agriculture

January 20, 2022 

Sustainable agriculture has a significant role to play in feeding the growing worldwide population and reducing the impact of climate change.

Today, agriculture accounts for up to 30% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the World Bank. The agriculture infrastructure churns out emissions through transportation; the planting, harvesting, and processing of crops; and the production of livestock. That’s not to mention water pollution from pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.

Clearly, there’s a need to reduce agriculture’s impact on the environment, but at the same time, increase productivity to feed a growing world population. Those who are interested in this challenge and want to learn more about the importance of sustainable agriculture should consider advancing their education in a field such as  sustainability .

The Importance of Sustainable Agriculture

The world population is expected to grow from 7.7 billion today to 9 billion by 2050, and, at the same time, agricultural land is being lost to expanding urban areas and climate change. The World Bank estimates that food production will have to increase by 70% by 2050 to make up the difference.

That’s where the importance of sustainable agriculture comes in. The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines it as practices intended to protect the environment, expand Earth’s natural resource base, and maintain and improve soil fertility.

The desired outcomes are to:

•  Satisfy human food and fiber needs
• Enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agriculture economy depends
• Make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls
• Sustain the economic viability of farm operations
• Enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole

Sustainable Agriculture Benefits

Some elemental sustainable agriculture methods can help reduce the environmental impact of farming. Benefits include the following:

• Keeping carbon in the soil . A method called  no-till farming  maintains carbon in the soil instead of releasing it into the air. No-till farming calls for the farmer to leave crop detritus in the field after harvest instead of plowing it under. It can extend to planting, when the farmer drops seed on the ground rather than submerging under the soil surface. It also reduces the number of passes through a field with machinery.
• Reducing the use of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers . The practice of alternating different crops in the same field, called  crop rotation , helps keep the soil healthy and productive, developing a mix of nutrients in the soil. This can help reduce the use of fertilizer and chemicals to kill weeds and insects.
• Maintaining pastureland. Rotating grazing livestock  from field to field builds up soil from the animals’ manure, boosting the robustness of different pastures since the livestock doesn’t strip one field of its grass. It also enables the soil to store more carbon.
• Reducing fuel consumption . Planting crops that come up every year, called perennials, reduces the number of times farmers must take machinery into the field to plant and apply chemicals.

These basic practices are important for sustainable agriculture because they can be implemented on small farms in the U.S. and other developed nations as well as in agricultural settings in developing countries. The up-front costs are low and the payoff can be realized quickly.

Trends Shaping the Future of Sustainable Agriculture

Farmers, if not early adopters of technology, have been consistent in bringing tech to the field. Today, farmers plow fields with the aid of satellites, get information about their soil from sensors, and manage operations with the aid of sophisticated software.

Farm technologies help make crops more productive by providing more accurate and timely field and weather data, decreasing the need for fertilizers and pesticides, increasing efficiency, and reducing fuel use.

The technologies that are important to sustainable agriculture include the following:

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems analyze data to help farmers determine when and where to plant crops and feed livestock or even when to sell to get the best prices. Data can help farmers apply fertilizers in a more timely and accurate manner. The more farmers know before they grow, the better they can allocate resources and, ultimately, use less chemicals and fuel.

Biotechnology

Biotechnology is one of the oldest tools that farmers have for improving crops. Over eons, crossbreeding has produced hardier plants with better yields as well as heftier livestock.

Sophisticated modern methods developed in the lab have decreased the time it takes to crossbreed plants, adding or deleting characteristics to adapt to conditions.

Although these methods are controversial — opponents fear that modified crops could introduce unforeseen and potentially devastating effects — proponents point to how crops can be made more productive and resistant to insects and disease and better able to respond to local conditions, such as more severe droughts or higher amounts of moisture.

The new gene editing CRISPR technology can also be used to increase productivity and disease resistance by altering specific traits.

Farmers continue to find more uses for drones that help them manage crops more efficiently. At first, drones were deployed to spray crops with chemicals. Other emerging uses include taking aerial photos to assess crops and capture data from sensors that can be mined to determine the health of crops as well as weed populations. In some cases, drones drop tree seeds for reforestation projects.

Blockchain Technology

Blockchain technology is commonly associated with the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies, but it has applications in agriculture. Blockchain technology tracks transactions securely and accurately. Using blockchain in agriculture allows for the tracking of ag products from farm to consumer. Agricultural supply chains are already using it to determine where outbreaks of salmonella and other food poisoning causes originated.

Challenges to Building Sustainable Agriculture Strategies

It’s good if one farmer farms sustainably, but it’s better if neighbors do, too, and even better if it’s a regional or national implementation of sustainable agriculture practices.

However, wide adoption of sustainable agriculture runs into obstacles. Farmers compensate for poor growing conditions by applying more chemicals. Even in more productive areas, farmers may feel that the only way to increase production is to add more fertilizer. Perhaps the most obstinate obstacle is that sustainable agriculture tries to change practices that’ve become ingrained over decades, if not centuries.

Overcoming Obstacles

Wherever an obstacle exists, there’s an opportunity for those in sustainability roles to advocate for and champion sustainable agriculture. Individuals can use their command of sustainability principles and processes to clear roadblocks and help sustainability blossom.

Organizations and agencies in the U.S. and around the world have places for those who understand the importance of sustainable agriculture. They include the following:

• National Institute of Food and Agriculture.  Part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, NIFA offers loans and grants for projects that boost agricultural yields; improve the efficiency of water and nitrogen use; reduce losses from stresses, diseases, and pests; reduce foodborne diseases; and develop bio-based fuels, chemicals, and coproducts.
• American Farm Bureau Federation . AFBF is a mainstream organization representing farmers and agribusinesses. It provides information about sustainable practices to its members, focusing on “climate smart” farming, carbon markets, renewable energy, and research.
• 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference . Some 45 nations promised action and investment to protect the environment and move to sustainable farming methods. Pledges to be achieved by 2030 included plans by Brazil to increase its ABC+ low-carbon farming program and plans by Germany to lower emissions from land use by 25 million tons.
• World Bank . The World Bank sponsors sustainable ag projects that affect sustainable transportation, processing, and markets.
• Private sector . The private sector recognizes the importance of sustainable agriculture as well as potential sales and profits. Large multinational companies develop seeds for crops that can grow more efficiently. Startup companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are adapting technology to meet sustainable farming needs, such as making beef and dairy cattle farming more productive and efficient and analyzing soil health.

Help Make the Change That Changes the World

Sustainable agriculture is an important piece of the puzzle of how to feed more people and reduce climate change. Shifting food and fiber production to a sustainable system helps attain both objectives. Sustainable agriculture practices are intended to protect the environment, expand Earth’s natural resources, and maintain and improve soil fertility.

Learn about sustainable agriculture and sustainability tools and strategies in  Maryville University’s online Bachelor of Science in Sustainability  program. With a core curriculum covering everything from Earth Systems to Understanding Statistical Inference, along with three concentrations (Environmental Science, Business, and Policy), Maryville’s program can provide the knowledge and skills you need to pursue a career in this vital and challenging field.

Recommended Reading

Sustainability vs. Sustainable Development: Examining Two Important Concepts

Careers in Sustainability with a Bachelor of Science Degree

Soil Conservation Guide: Importance and Practices

  Sources

American Farm Bureau Federation, Our Impact

Climate Institute, “Carbon Sequestration: Addressing Climate Change and Food Security Through Sustainable Agriculture”

National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Sustainable Agriculture

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, “Three Key Challenges Facing Agriculture and How to Start Solving Them”

U.N. Climate Change Conference UK 2021, Nations and Businesses Commit to Create Sustainable Agriculture and Land Use

U.S. Farmers & Ranchers in Action, “5 Tools and Technologies tThat Drive Sustainable Agriculture”

World Bank, Climate-Smart Agriculture

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Growing the Future Essays

These essays debate the future direction of agriculture and food, and discuss how research can respond to challenges and opportunities.

Published essays

• The future of food production: more from less By Dr Jen Taylor and Filip Janakievski Pressure on Australian farmers has never been greater, leaving many farmers feeling under siege. When farmers are being asked to generate more from less – growing higher quality produce and creating more economic value, often from decreasing water, labour, and soil resources – it's clear that a significant step change is required.
• Breeding resilience in a changing climate By Dr Michiel van Lookeren Campagne Crop breeding techniques have come a long way in developing plants suited to Australian climates. But how far can we go? Will new technologies and research infrastructure keep pace with the need to make Australian agriculture more agile, more responsive and more resilient to the changes ahead?
• Yes, we can reach $100 billion ag target – here's how By Mike Grundy Australia needs to overcome a $40 billion shortfall in agricultural productivity over the next decade, but it's not an impossible task. The cumulative impacts of decades of research and development are ushering a new age of agriculture, which has the potential to kick the industry from reverse all the way into top gear.
• What does the future hold for livestock production in Australia? By Drewe Ferguson and Ian Colditz Digital disruption, ethical disruption, the environment, feed versus food and production efficiency: the ability of the livestock sector to rapidly, effectively and demonstrably find the balance between increased productivity and sustainability will ultimately determine its future.
• Why Australia needs to become Asia’s innovation partner By Andy Hall and Jen Kelly Asia is emerging as a major hub of agrifood industry innovation. What sort of public and private sector investments are needed to make this a win-win collaboration that strengthens both Australia and its Asian partners' ability to innovate for a sustainable and prosperous future?
• Long-term rural research partnerships still delivering value By Larry Marshall Australia's Rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs) are critical to turning our science into real world innovation. They have supported Australian science and research for decades, making life better for our farmers, agribusinesses, and by extension, our whole nation. Here, we repost a speech given by CSIRO Chief Executive, Dr Larry Marshall, to the Council of Rural RDCs.
• Digital agriculture: what's all the fuss about? By Michael Robertson, Andrew Moore, Dave Henry and Simon Barry Digital disruption, ethical disruption, the environment, feed versus food and production efficiency: the ability of the livestock sector to rapidly, effectively and demonstrably find the balance between increased productivity and sustainability will ultimately determine its future.
• Changing face of agribusiness creates new opportunities By John Manners Agribusiness innovation is now increasingly being found in partnerships and alliances between research organisations and industry; from multi-national agribusiness giants with billions of dollars at their disposal all the way to small-scale start-ups with little more than a good idea, determination and some savvy investors.
• Agricultural innovation as important today as 100 years ago By Brian Keating and Kate Langford For much of its modern existence, Australia has built its fortune on raw commodities; wool, wheat and a wealth of mineral resources. But as the mining boom slows, and issues such as food security, climate change and sustainability come to the forefront of global consciousness, a new opportunity is arising for Australian producers and manufacturers to position themselves at the forefront of the food and agribusiness revolution.
• The Future of Food By Martin Cole and Manny Noakes For much of its modern existence, Australia has built its fortune on raw commodities; wool, wheat and a wealth of mineral resources. But as the mining boom slows, and issues such as food security, climate change and sustainability come to the forefront of global consciousness, a new opportunity is arising for Australian producers and manufacturers to position themselves at the forefront of the food and agribusiness revolution.
• Carbon farming: individually, Australia's 140,000 farmers are small but collectively, results could be large. But exactly what is carbon farming and what are the opportunities and pitfalls?

[Music plays and the CSIRO logo appears in the centre of screen]

[Text appears: CSIRO, Growing the future]

[Music plays and an image of clouds in a blue sky appear and then the camera zooms out to show a paddock of stubble]

[Image changes to show sheep in the paddock and the camera pans across the flock of sheep]

[Image changes to show wheat heads waving in the wind and then the image changes to show sheep in yards]

Narrator: We’ve come a long way since farming began in Australia.

[Images move through of a finger pointing at a wall chart and people working in a laboratory]

But where are we heading? Can we foresee the future? Can we plan for it?

[Image changes to show a sign “Commonwealth of Australia Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and then black and white images move through of males talking, the entrance the CSIRO building and researchers in a library]

In 1916 when Prime Minister Billy Hughes established the Advisory Council of Science and Industry (eventually becoming the CSIRO) cutting edge technology in agriculture included

[Images move through of a male hand ploughing, a close-up of a harvester and wheat waving in the wind]

the stump jump plough, the combine harvester and rust-resistant wheat.

[Image changes to show an aerial view of four ploughs moving over a paddock]

Today, researchers are developing autonomous farm machinery

[Images move through of a male looking at a drone, two people sitting inside a helicopter, wheat heads and yabbies crawling in an aquarium]

and wireless farms that constantly monitor soil moisture, plant growth or animal health.

[Images move through of four ladies seated around a table having afternoon tea in a garden]

In 1916 we were only just beginning to eat pavlova and lamingtons, and drink coffee.

[Image changes to show a female working on a food processing line and then the camera zooms out to show the meals moving along the line and then the camera zooms in to show the meals]

Today we are investigating meals personalised to our needs and processing techniques

[Image changes to show a male inserting a bottle of oil into a white tube]

that preserve taste, texture and nutritional value like never before.

[Music plays and the camera pans over a scrubby landscape with the sun setting in the background and then the image changes and the camera pans over a green landscape]

The Australian bush has long been a managed landscape.

[Image changes to show the camera panning over a scrubby gorge and then the camera shows an aerial view of water at the base of the gorge]

Well before white people arrived, indigenous Australians engaged in systematic burning to enhance natural productivity,

[Camera zooms in on the water in the base of the gorge and then the image changes to show a sunset through wheat stalks waving in the wind]

managed complex fish trapping systems and sowed or planted food for harvest.

[Image changes to show a sheepdog running over the backs of the sheep in a yard]

From the days of riding on the sheep’s back,

[Image changes to show an aerial view of cattle around a tractor and then the image changes to show wheat stalks and then grasses waving in the wind]

agriculture in Australia has evolved significantly.

[Images move through of Friesian cattle grazing, a cotton plant and a bunch of grapes on a vine]

Our agriculture and food sectors are now diverse, high-value and high-tech.

[Image changes to show a female working in a laboratory and then images flash through of workers in a cotton field]

Innovation, ingenuity and hard work have got us to where we are today.

[Image changes to show a male operating a sprayer on the back of a tractor and then images move through of cattle and a truck moving towards the camera down a country road and the truck driver’s hands on the wheel]

Australia is a leading exporter of fine food, meats and grains.

[Image changes to show a truck lit up in the harvester’s head lights and then images move through of wheat stalks against a sunset and Friesian cattle grazing]

Australian agriculture has had to be adaptable as well as resilient and inventive.

[Image changes to show harvesters working in a field and then the image changes to show a male looking at the crop]

Farming has changed over the years but many of the same challenges remain:

[Images move through of a sprinkler operating, a windmill next to a dam, cattle running and a bug in a flower]

access to fresh water, vast distances, drought, soil fertility, pests and diseases.

[Images move through of sheep grazing, a car on a dirt road and a male and female in the middle of a planted crop]

In many agricultural industries, productivity has plateaued in recent years, making it increasingly difficult for Australian farmers to remain competitive.

[Images move through of a male looking at a crop and putting information into a digital device and then the camera zooms in on the male’s face]

There is an enormous challenge to increase production while lowering costs.

[Image changes to show the edge of a crop and then the image changes to show a male looking at the crop]

There are new challenges too, facing not just Australia but the world.

[Image changes to show cattle feeding on hay in a shed]

The world is getting hungrier.

[Image changes to show five people around tubs of meat and then the camera zooms in on one of the people writing and then the camera zooms out to show four of the people talking]

By 2050, there will be 70% or up to 2.4 billion more people on earth,

[Image changes to show a female putting a piece of meat into a machine and then images move through of oranges on a tree and a bee on a flower]

who will need 60 to 70% more food than what’s currently available.

[Images move through of a bunch of grapes on a vine and some cattle in a paddock]

The world is getting wealthier and consumers are demanding more and diverse foods.

[Images move through of a male working with carcasses of beef, a production line for cutting beef and customers looking at cuts of meat in a market]

In Asia alone, beef consumption is predicted to rise 120%.

[Images changes to show bread dough being kneaded]

Customers are becoming fussier.

[Images move through of a cooked loaf of bread being torn in half, grains moving through a machine, a hand opening to show grains and two males working on a factory line of pears and kale]

The consumers of 2050 will expect food to be nothing less than healthy, nutritious, clean, green and ethically produced.

[Image moves through of a wheat plant in a pot and then the camera zooms out to show a researcher working on the potted wheat plant and looking at a leaf under a microscope]

Technology is transforming industries.

[Image changes to show plants in a greenhouse and then the image changes to show a researcher putting monitoring equipment onto an oyster and placing the oyster in a tank]

Advanced digital, genetic and materials science technologies will enable farmers to improve how they produce food and fibre products.

[Images move through of a line graph and a male walking through a greenhouse of plants]

Innovative sensory systems and data analytics will create highly integrated ‘farm to fork’ supply chains.

[Image changes to show a farmer feeding hay to some cattle using a tractor]

Farmers will be able to make better decisions

[Image shows a male pushing a large machine through a field of canola]

and manage risk more effectively,

[Images move through of loaves of bread and a male removing loaves of bread from an oven]

while consumers will have greater access to trace the origins of their food.

[Images move through of a male looking at a canola plant, a hand holding a bud on a plant and then the image changes to show an aerial view of paddocks and people working with cotton in the back of a truck]

But Australian rural industries will also require greater resilience to withstand shocks associated with climate change, environmental change and globalisation.

[Images move through of an aerial view of cattle in a paddock, a female pulling out a bit of dough and tasting it and an aerial view looking down on people sitting at a trestle table enjoying a meal]

From the gene to the plate, now more than ever we need to embrace innovation and new technologies

[Images move through of a male carving meat]

to meet the challenges of the future.

[Images move through of a male inside a large warehouse and two males in front of a herd of cattle in a paddock and then the camera zooms in on the cattle]

Working together, Australian researchers and industries have an extraordinary opportunity to shape the way

[Image changes to show a young boy hoeing a patch of ground]

our agriculture and food sectors operate in the coming years.

[Image changes to show two farmers talking next to a gate and the camera zooms out to show a tractor in the foreground]

By combining our efforts, we can be at the forefront of global innovation.

[Text appears: With thanks to: Rob Birtle, CSIRO, Jamie Scarrow, High Resolution Plan Phenomics Centre, CSIRO Agersens Australian Meat Processor Corporation]

[CSIRO logo and text appears: Australia’s innovation catalyst]

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Laura Battle

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

When my father was born, in 1943, our farm was still powered by horses. Today he frets about the cost of a 345-horsepower tractor and follows the latest developments in “agtech” robotics.

Farming has always involved detours and distractions. One adventurous ancestor moved into livestock ointments in the 1830s (Battles Maggot Oil remains a shepherding staple); and, since my conservationist mother arrived on the scene 40 years ago, we have worked to protect and encourage wildlife. But throughout this time — in fact, since the birth of an agrarian civilisation around 9500BC — the main purpose of farming has been clear and unerring: to produce food for human and animal consumption.

That is no longer a given. My father’s lifespan has borne witness to the most dramatic transformation of agriculture in several millennia — and more radical change is likely to be just around the corner.

While the war in Ukraine has disrupted exports and future harvests in one of the largest grain-producing nations and highlighted the precarity of global food supplies, the distinction between feeding the world and destroying it hangs in the balance. The intensification of agriculture, largely as a result of post-1945 policies designed to avert food shortages, is now considered by many to be the primary cause of environmental destruction.

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As Sarah Langford writes in Rooted , her memoir-ish account of farming’s recent past and a meditation on its future, “my grandfather, Peter, was considered a hero who fed a starving nation. Now his son Charlie, my uncle, is considered a villain, blamed for ecological catastrophe and with a legacy no one wants.”

The truth is: we are all complicit in farming processes. The surprising success of books such as James Rebanks ’ The Shepherd’s Life , together with a growing interest in previously obscure subjects including rewilding and “soil health”, suggests that people are increasingly aware of this, and of the current window of opportunity to ensure a better future. Can agriculture now solve some of the manifold problems it has helped to create?

It surely makes sense to encourage farmers to do more for the environment, rather than pushing them towards a position of alienated belligerence

At the heart of the debate is whether 21st-century farmers can somehow blend the roles of food producers, conservationists, carbon sequesters, leisure providers and linchpins of the rural community. Or whether the very term “farmer” — along with the practice and sociocultural history with which it is associated — will soon become obsolete.

For Langford — as for Jake Fiennes, conservation manager at Holkham Estate in Norfolk and author of Land Healer — the former is achievable. These two authors set out a case for the continued production of meat and arable crops through “regenerative” agriculture — broadly, a form of farming that seeks to replenish and enhance natural ecosystems. Their focus is the UK, and on local or even individual improvements that can contribute to the greater good. For George Monbiot, who in Regenesis describes farming as “the most destructive force ever to have been unleashed by humans”, the only way forward is a radical overhaul of global food production and eating habits.

By some way the most ambitious and deeply researched of these three books, Regenesis begins with the idea that global food production has developed into a “complex system” — a self-organising network that can transmit shocks in unpredictable ways. The narrowing of diets, crop varieties and corporate power structures over the past 50 years means the system is now increasingly vulnerable to collapse, and yet the warning signs have “scarcely ruffled the surface of public consciousness”.

As an environmental activist and vegan campaigner, Monbiot is something of a professional ruffler — and his book exposes, with journalistic flair, the “gulf between perception and reality” about where and how our food is produced. He wades through slimy water in the River Wye in Wales, where run-off from industrial chicken farms is causing frequent algal blooms. And he reports innumerable horrifying facts, from the quantities of microplastics in fertilisers to statistics on the scale of “Insectageddon”.

Regenesis dovetails neatly with Monbiot’s 2013 book Feral , which made a persuasive — and, it turns out, impactful — case for rewilding. While “regenerative” champions believe that a form of low-intensity mixed livestock and arable farming is the best way to produce food and at the same time care for nature, Monbiot uses his latest book to argue that we should “rewild most of the land now used for farming”. As for how to enact this revolution, he proposes universal veganism — which, he says, would reduce the amount of land used for farming around the world by 76 per cent — and a completely new approach to growing plants.

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The book includes some fascinating case studies. There is Iain Tolhurst, a fruit and vegetable grower in Oxfordshire who has developed a “stockfree organic” (without use of livestock products, including manure) approach to horticulture. In a chapter titled “Farmfree”, we meet Finnish entrepreneur Pasi Vainikka, whose food-tech start-up creates protein flour from a soil bacterium. These producers are mostly referred to as “cultivators” or “growers”; if farmers appear in this vision of the future it is in partnership with scientists or as “small farmers [practising] high-yielding agroecology”.

Though bristling with ideas and indignation, Regenesis is not lacking in humour. Railing against the popular television shows that romanticise livestock farming, Monbiot writes: “If the BBC were any keener on sheep it would be illegal.” If the book does fall short it is in providing an off-ramp, as it were, for conventional farmers. Although acknowledging “the Counter-Agricultural Revolution will be extremely disruptive”, he suggests little more than repurposing “vast” government livestock farming subsidies from “helping people to stay in the industry to helping them leave it”.

Whether or not Monbiot’s assertions materialise in the coming years, it surely makes sense to encourage farmers to do more for the environment, rather than pushing them towards a position of alienated belligerence.

Langford’s previous book, In Your Defence (2018), was a quietly devastating exposé of the failures of the British justice system, told through her own experience as a criminal and family barrister. With Rooted , Langford — who has swapped the law for running a family farm in Suffolk — adopts a similar approach to highlight the yawning disconnect between city dwellers and the rural populace, between the ruddy-cheeked farmer of popular myth and the harsh realities of life faced by most farmers in the UK.

Like Fiennes, Langford is quick to point out the harm and hypocrisy of pinning all of our collective environmental failings on farmers: “I read and hear so many words of blame about farming but far fewer of responsibility.” With the suicide rate for the UK’s male farm workers at three times the male national average, these are not empty sentiments.

Rooted contrasts Langford’s stilted but rewarding experiments in regenerative agriculture on her own farm with the attitudes of her uncle Charlie (a “Brexit-supporting, climate-change sceptic in a checked shirt and wellingtons”), who feels resentment at being demonised for simply doing his job. It hints at seismic shifts ahead, in a country where the average farmer is just under 60 and yet agriculture is one of the fastest growing subjects at UK universities.

One of the most affecting chapters follows Rebecca and Stuart, a couple whose pig-farming business was destroyed by tragedy and disease in the 2000s, and who overcame numerous hurdles to start over again with a small-scale dairy herd, a focus on soil and environmental improvement, and a thriving farm shop.

‘Rooted’ offers a refreshing perspective on an overwhelmingly masculine world, and the stories it contains coalesce into a powerful narrative of struggle and innovation

Langford is at times gratingly solipsistic: on a visit to London she consciously links herself “to the lapwings that rise up from Hampshire stubble fields; to the frogs that spawn in Cumbrian streams; to the hare that runs on East Anglian maize strips”. And the drama of individual lives is a little overcooked. But Rooted offers a refreshing perspective on an overwhelmingly masculine world, and the stories it contains coalesce into a powerful narrative of struggle and innovation.

Though no less sympathetic to the predicament facing farmers, Fiennes’s tone is bracingly straightforward from the off: “I firmly believe that the natural world is not totally fucked,” he writes at the start of Land Healer . “We can fix it.”

The writer belongs to that clan of famous Fienneses. While his elder brother Ralph is well known for performing the great Shakespearean roles, Jake — with his blunt and somewhat geezerish charm — might have walked off the set of a Guy Ritchie movie, albeit one set in rural East Anglia. After a rustic upbringing, and a stint in nightclub work, he fell into gamekeeping but in time developed an interest — then a career — in ecology.

In a chapter titled “Hedge Porn”, he explains that he started to enhance the “natural capital” of one of the farms on the estate, beginning with leaving hedges untrimmed. Elsewhere, he details the benefits of establishing flower-rich margins and practising light tilling as opposed to deep ploughing.

Fiennes admits he is neither a farmer nor a landowner (Holkham, home to the Earl of Leicester and one of the country’s grandest estates, certainly has more financial heft than most farms), but Land Healer is in many ways a practical guide to “small changes that could save the countryside for farming and for nature”. It could, however, have benefited from a more cogent argument built around the assertion made by the ecologist Colin Tubbs that English biodiversity peaked in the late 18th century, after the land had been farmed for thousands of years.

If there is one subject on which the three authors agree it is the importance of soil. A mind-blowingly complex ecosystem that has, until very recently, been overlooked, soil — and more specifically, its health and fertility — offers solutions to several urgent problems, from food production to wildlife conservation and carbon sequestration. It’s clear that soil will be central to the ongoing debate. As Monbiot writes, “the future lies underground.” The question is: how best to utilise and protect this fragile resource?

Meanwhile, the deepening economic and humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, in part the result of a sudden, experimental switch to organic farming in 2021, demonstrates that there is no such thing as a quick fix. Agriculture will have to adapt to dramatic shifts over the coming years that include climate change, food shortages, geopolitical and corporate disruption and the whims of individual government policy. The results of these changes will impact the lives, not just of farmers, but of every single person on the planet.

Regenesis : Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet by George Monbiot, Allen Lane £20/Penguin $18, 352 pages

Rooted : Stories of Life, Land and a Farming Revolution by Sarah Langford, Viking £16.99, 368 pages

Land Healer : How Farming Can Save Britain’s Countryside by Jake Fiennes, BBC Books £20, 272 pages

Laura Battle is the FT’s deputy books editor

Data visualisation by Keith Fray

This article has been amended since original publication to clarify the breadth of Colin Tubbs’ biodiversity argument

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The Future of Farming: Artificial Intelligence and Agriculture

While artificial intelligence (AI) seemed until recently to be science fiction, countless corporations across the globe are now researching ways to implement this technology in everyday life. AI works by processing large quantities of data, interpreting patterns in that data, and then translating these interpretations into actions that resemble those of a human being. Scientists have used it to develop self-driving cars and chess-playing computers, but the technology has expanded into another domain: agriculture. AI has the potential to spur more efficient methods of farming in order to combat global warming, but only with expanded regulation of its development.

Global Warming and Agriculture: A Vicious Cycle

Global warming continues to threaten every aspect of our everyday lives, including crop production. It will reduce the soil moisture in areas close to the equator while leaving northern countries virtually unscathed, according to a study from Wageningen University. We are already seeing the impact of these modified growing conditions on our food production in the form of lower crop yields .

Reduced food production has an especially devastating impact on developing countries. Climate change causes the loss of 35 trillion consumable food calories per year and harms poorer countries who do not have the money to import food. The result is growing food insecurity. And rising sea levels only compound the problem. By the year 2100, sea levels are expected to rise by one meter, which will have a detrimental impact on growers on the coasts whose crops cannot survive in areas where the water is too salty.

However, agriculture is not just a victim of global warming, but also a cause. Agriculture is part of a vicious cycle in which farming leads to global warming, which in turn devastates agricultural production. The process of clearing land for agriculture results in widespread deforestation and contributes to 40 percent of global methane production. Therefore, to confront climate change, it is necessary to ensure reforestation—but how? What is the path to efficient, environmentally-conscious farming?

The Benefits of AI for Environmentally-Conscious Agriculture

This is where AI enters the scene. Farmers use AI for methods such as precision agriculture ; they can monitor crop moisture, soil composition, and temperature in growing areas, enabling farmers to increase their yields by learning how to take care of their crops and determine the ideal amount of water or fertilizer to use.

Furthermore, this technology may have the capacity to reduce deforestation by allowing humans to grow food in urban areas. One Israeli tech company used AI algorithms that create optimal light and water conditions to grow crops in a container small enough to be stored inside a  home. The technology could be especially beneficial for countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, where much of the population lives in cities. Furthermore, the ability to grow food in pre-existing urban areas suggests that humans could become less dependent on deforestation for food production.

Additionally, AI can help locate and therefore protect carbon sinks , forest areas that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Otherwise, continued efforts to clear these forests will release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Furthermore, some AI is being developed that can find and target weeds in a field with the appropriate amount of herbicide, eliminating the need for farmers to spread chemicals across entire fields and pollute the surrounding ecosystem. Some countries are already implementing AI into their agricultural  methods. Some farmers in Argentina are already using digital agriculture; there are already AI farms in China .

AI can also be used to curb global warming outside of agriculture. The technology can be used to monitor how efficiently buildings are using energy and monitor urban heat islands. Urban heat islands are first created when urban building materials like concrete and asphalt absorb heat, causing cities to grow hotter than the rest of their surroundings. People then rely more heavily on air conditioning throughout the day in order to stay cool, and the energy used for these services results in greater greenhouse gas emissions. Providing information about the location of these islands could help politicians determine what policies they should adopt to reduce emissions and encourage more efficient and environmentally-conscious city planning.

The Risks of AI

Nonetheless, AI is far from a silver bullet—it could actually contribute to global warming. Due to the large amount of data that AI needs to process, training a single AI releases five times the emissions that an average car would emit during its lifetime, thereby adding to the already substantial environmental impact of computing technology. Data storage and processing centers that deliver digital services like entertainment and cloud computing are already responsible for two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, a number comparable to the overall percentage of pollution contributed by the aviation industry. Although this statistic may not seem overwhelming, it does suggest that the environmental costs of AI will need to be reduced before expanding the technology on a global scale. Some researchers are already working on developing a standard metric that researchers can use to compare how efficient their particular AI systems might be, ultimately encouraging innovators to create environmentally-friendly data-processing.

Further, securing access to AI on a global scale may pose some challenges. Countries will both need experts in the field who can successfully use the technology and internet connection, neither of which are always readily available. Therefore, in order for developing countries to take advantage of the benefits of AI and improve their food security, there will need to be a focus on developing the infrastructure necessary for internet access and teaching professionals how to use the technology. Additionally, AI can be expensive . Farmers might go into debt and will not be able to maintain the technology on their own as it suffers everyday wear-and-tear. Those unable to secure access to the technology will lose out to larger farms that can implement AI on a wide scale.

But farm owners themselves will not be the only ones faced with new pressures as a result of AI. New technologies will render many agricultural jobs obsolete as machines are able to accomplish the same tasks as humans. For example, China has created a seven-year pilot program that uses robots instead of humans to run farms. This program does not bode well for the future of jobs in agriculture: many of China’s 250 million farmers could lose their jobs due to increased automation.

Some may argue that the rise of automated jobs is not as threatening as it may seem, especially given the US agricultural labor shortage . However, the situation is not necessarily the same in other countries. Many countries in the Global South remain dependent on the agricultural sector because there are few job opportunities in urban areas. But if farmers can produce more food at a faster rate with machines, they will have an incentive to shift away from hiring humans, placing the livelihoods of many families at risk. Even if farmworkers do not lose their jobs, their wages could decline as they appear less efficient compared to their robot competitors. The result is chronic poverty and inequality.

Looking Forward: The Next Steps for AI in Agriculture

Given these concerns, AI cannot be the only response to climate change. These types of adaptive technologies can mitigate the consequences of climate change, but more sweeping measures are necessary to secure global access to food in the face of rising temperatures. If countries are to develop AI for use in agricultural sectors, global leaders must consider the potential costs, the role of legal institutions, and the environmental consequences of data processing before investing in the technology on a broader scale.

Sydney Young

Sydney is the former Director of Interviews and Perspectives at the HIR. She is interested in health, human rights, and social justice issues.

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Colorado State University

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What is the biggest challenge facing the future of agriculture?

story by CSU MarComm Staff published Sept. 28, 2023

With challenge comes opportunity, and there is no shortage of knowledgeable researchers at Colorado State University who are thinking deeply about how to answer important questions facing the future of agriculture. Experts across multiple disciplines are engaged in forward-thinking research on topics such as soil biodiversity and methane emissions from cattle. Given CSU’s breadth of expertise in all-things agriculture — from the College of Agricultural Sciences and the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences to the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering and the Office of Extension and Engagement — we asked faculty to consider the follow question:

“What’s the biggest challenge and/or opportunity for the future of agriculture and why?”

Here’s what they had to say.

Raymond Goodrich

Professor in Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

“At the risk of suffering from being the proverbial hammer, which sees every problem as a nail, I do believe that addressing animal disease threats, both existing and emerging, is a significant item of concern to the future of agriculture. It is very akin to the same concerns related to human disease, and I believe that we have all lived through what the consequences of the manifestation of a new, emerging disease threat can do not just to human health, but also to economic and societal aspects of the human experience. An outbreak that decimates crops and livestock also decimates those who make a living from growing and raising them. It also decimates a public which relies on food for good health, nutrition and the basic support of life functions. The opportunity that I see is in addressing the challenges by finding ways to create and develop concerted efforts to tackle these threats.”

Dr. Ragan Adams

Veterinary Extension specialist with the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

“I think the diminishing amount and quality of natural resources (land, water, soil, air) for grazing and growing food is the greatest challenge. Effects of climate change that were once subtle and suspect to most who were not specialists are becoming profoundly obvious. Population growth has exploded, and municipalities throughout the nation are vying with agriculture for precious natural resources by drying up farms for urban water needs, using farmed lands for housing developments, decreasing the available soil and vegetation that can slow the carbon dioxide release into the atmosphere by paving surfaces and removing trees, and degrading air quality by man-made activities. The United States is one of the top three agricultural countries in the world. If we lose the land and natural resources to grow and graze food, we will depend on food imports, which bring with them the greater risk for crop and livestock disease.”

Dr. Sarah Raabis

Assistant professor of livestock medicine and surgery in the Department of Clinical Sciences

“Animal health is highly correlated with welfare and productivity, and both are vital for sustaining the future of animal agriculture. At CSU, I think there is a huge opportunity to improve our understanding of disease susceptibility and resistance in livestock, especially as it pertains to multifactorial diseases. A significant challenge to the future of agriculture is public perception and understanding of how food is produced. Advertisement money can make it look like animal health and environmental wellness are being considered at a company, when that might not be true. There is also very inconsistent messaging about agricultural products in the media and advertising (“all natural,” “cage free” and “happy cows”). The definitions of these labels are not consistent and are mostly unregulated.”

Whitney Pennington

Outreach lead, High Plains Intermountain Center for Agricultural Health and Safety in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

“In this time of unprecedented flux post-pandemic, labor shortages and climate change present challenges to agriculture. Prioritizing and protecting the health and safety of workers will enable us to meet these challenges and strengthen the foundation of the food systems — the people who make the production of food and fiber possible. Agricultural businesses have the opportunity to invest in emergency preparedness, heat illness prevention, safety leadership and more to support worker wellbeing and mental health and build resilience among the workforce.”

Franklyn Garry

Coordinator of integrated livestock management with AgNext

“I think a lot depends on whether you’re asking from a resource use perspective, a sustainability perspective, a societal opinion and policy perspective, a climate change perspective. There are three essential needs for society — food, water and shelter. Food is the specific domain of ag, but water is also intimately associated with ag. So, ag issues cover two of the three essential needs of humanity. The challenges are hard to boil down to a single topic. One of the remarkable features of our post-modern society is that ag production has been so successful that most people can choose almost any diet they wish without ever thinking about how the ag system delivered it to them. But complexity breeds fragility, and there are many challenges that are not well understood by the non-ag community. One of the biggest challenges is that funding for problem-solving ag research is a fraction of the funding for human medical research. It leaves us in a difficult place.”

Director of agricultural modeling and assessment at AgNext

“Our greatest challenge is to sustainably feed the world. Here, sustainable means two things: feeding the growing population until the anticipated plateau around 2050 and maintaining and improving ecosystem services so that all future generations can also feed themselves.”

Kim Stackhouse-Lawson

Director of AgNext and professor of animal sciences

“The most significant challenges are primarily cost related – the cost of land, labor, access to capital, technology, regulation, intergenerational transfer, etc. – and the greatest opportunity is to meet the growing demand of food in a new way, with greater transparency and more technology, with the intent of redefining the social intrinsic value of agriculture production.”

William Parton

Professor emeritus and senior research scientist with the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory in the Warner College of Natural Resources  

“The biggest challenge for agriculture is to promote the use of sustainable agricultural practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sustain current crop yields. Using grassland/crop rotations, adding compost and manure, proper timing of fertilizer, winter cover crops, reducing the use of fallow, sustainable grazing practices and using slow-release fertilizer all reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sustain current crop yields. We need to find ways to promote the use of these practices by the farmer/rancher community with economic incentives and other approaches.”

Adrian Card

CSU Extension food and agriculture state specialist 

“Farmers and ranchers throughout the United States and in other countries struggle to recruit and retain an affordable, qualified workforce. This is most acute in ‘high-touch’ sectors of agriculture, such as fruit and vegetable production. Much like other parts of the U.S. economy, automation solutions are emerging, especially in the area of vegetable weeding. CSU is leaning into this by tracking the development and market deployment of this agricultural technology and connecting Colorado farmers with opportunities to explore its applicability to their operations.”

Nathan Mueller

Assistant professor in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability and the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences  

“Climate change is, hands down, the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity for the future of agriculture. Reaching a ‘net zero’ food system will require collaboration and innovation across the globe, given that food systems currently emit about a third of global greenhouse gases. At the same time, agriculture fundamentally depends on climate, so it’s essential that we identify the best ways to adapt agricultural systems to a changing climate and help farmers manage climate risks.”

Rebecca Hill

Co-director of AgrAbility, Extension professor in the Regional Economic Development Institute (REDI) and the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics 

“The biggest challenge going into the future for agriculture will be around the sustainable use of our water resources. Over the last 50 years, agriculture has made huge strides in this as well as other areas, but continued innovation in this area will need to be made to address the increased demands on our water resources in the years to come.”

Deana Namuth-Covert  

Director of ag Upskilling Academy, based in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences

“One of the largest challenges for the future of agriculture is empowering people. The challenges we often hear of — drought, pests, producing more food on less land to feed a growing global population and in profitable ways that improve the environment — we have a lot of smart people working on those challenges from scientists to producers to policymakers. What limits us is creating empowering environments in which humans can continue addressing those challenges. People unfamiliar with agriculture may not be aware of all it takes to bring food to their table and might not understand the sustained support and investments needed for humans working in the industry to thrive.”

Carrie Chennault

Co-director of the Prison Agriculture Lab and assistant professor of geography in the Department of Anthropology and Geography

“Building toward the future of agriculture, we have an opportunity to learn from past mistakes — rejecting farming and food systems based on harmful relationships with land, water and people, systems that were deemed necessary to produce profits for the few. The agriculture of tomorrow is here today, if we choose to recognize it. When one looks, we see communities across the globe that are prioritizing food systems that meet people’s basic needs, healing relationships with the Earth that have been damaged through plantation agriculture and factory farming, and valuing the agricultural and food workers who keep us nourished. Imagine what else they — what else we all — could do together if farming and food were decoupled from today’s powerful global agribusiness interests?”

Sonali Diddi

Associate professor in the Department of Design and Merchandising in the College of Health and Human Sciences

“The biggest opportunity for agriculture will be regenerative farming practices using both traditional knowledge and smart technologies to produce sustainable fibers like wool and cotton. Climate positive agricultural practices on wool and cotton farms pioneered by non-profits such as  Fibershed  enhance carbon drawdown and regenerate soil health. Emergence of regional fibersheds worldwide provide local economic development opportunities to build sustainable fashion supply chains.”

Josh Sbicca

Co-director of the Prison Agriculture Lab and an associate professor of Sociology in the College of Liberal Arts

“Corporate concentration threatens the future of agriculture. From driving overproduction and undermining prices for farmers to prioritizing crops for animal feed and fuel and accelerating a warming planet, a handful of companies are putting profits before people. Food sovereignty and agroecology movements offer another way. If we don’t act now to break up these companies and support movements that center the needs of everyday people and the environment, we face impending crises.”

John Ritten

Agricultural economist and extension specialist with AgNext

“Ensuring all people — including the growing global population as well as current underserved/disadvantaged peoples — have access to nutritious and delicious food while maintaining or enhancing the worlds natural resource base for future generations.”

Read more of The Future of Ag is Now

This special report from SOURCE explores the breadth of multidisciplinary, agricultural work happening at CSU — a place where researchers, students and food producers can all gather around a kind of university-wide table to acknowledge the vital importance of ag in Colorado and beyond.

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Agriculture

The future of indian agriculture.

There is a need for work on cost-effective technologies with environmental protection and on conserving our natural resources

By Madhu Sharma

Published: thursday 04 february 2021.

Agriculture in India is livelihood for a majority of the population and can never be underestimated.

Although its contribution in the gross domestic product (GDP) has reduced to less than 20 per cent and contribution of other sectors increased at a faster rate, agricultural production has grown. This has made us self-sufficient and taken us from being a begging bowl for food after independence to a net exporter of agriculture and allied products.

Total foodgrain production in the country is estimated to be a record 291.95 million tonnes, according to the second advance estimates for 2019-20. This is news to be happy about but as per the estimates of Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), demand for foodgrain would increase to 345 million tonnes by 2030.

Increasing population, increasing average income and globalisation effects in India will increase demand for quantity,  quality and nutritious food, and variety of food. Therefore, pressure on decreasing available cultivable land to produce more quantity, variety and quality of food will keep on increasing. 

India is blessed with large arable land with 15 agro-climatic zones as defined by ICAR, having almost all types of weather conditions, soil types and capable of growing a variety of crops. India is the top producer of milk, spices, pulses, tea, cashew and jute, and the second-largest producer of rice, wheat, oilseeds, fruits and vegetables, sugarcane and cotton.

In spite of all these facts, the average productivity of many crops in India is quite low. The country’s population in the next decade is expected to become the largest in the world and providing food for them will be a very prime issue. Farmers are still not able to earn respectable earnings.

Even after over seven decades of planning since the independence, majority of the farmers are still facing problems of poor production and/or poor returns. Major constraints in Indian agriculture are:

• According to 2010-11 Agriculture Census, the total number of operational holdings was 138.35 million with average size of 1.15 hectares (ha). Of the total holdings, 85 per cent are in marginal and small farm categories of less than 2 ha (GOI, 2014).
• Farming for subsistence which makes scale of economy in question with majority of small holdings.
• Low-access of credit and prominent role of unorganised creditors affecting decisions of farmers in purchasing of inputs and selling of outputs
• Less use of technology, mechanisation and poor productivity for which first two points are of major concern
• Very less value addition as compared to developed countries and negligible primary-level processing at farmers level.
• Poor infrastructure for farming making more dependence on weather, marketing and supply chain suitable for high value crops.

Future of agriculture is a very important question for the planners and all other stakeholders. Government and other organisations are trying to address the key challenges of agriculture in India, including small holdings of farmers, primary and secondary processing, supply chain, infrastructure supporting the efficient use of resources and marketing, reducing intermediaries in the market. There is a need for work on cost-effective technologies with environmental protection and on conserving our natural resources.

The reforms towards privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation affected inputs market at a faster pace. Agricultural marketing reforms after 2003 made changes in marketing of agricultural outputs by permitting private investment in developing markets, contract farming and futures trading, etc. These amendments in marketing acts have brought about some changes but the rate is less.

Along with this, the information technology revolution in India, new technologies in agriculture, private investments especially on research and development, government efforts to rejuvenate the cooperative movement to address the problems of small holdings and small produce etc are changing face of agriculture in India.

Many startups in agriculture by highly educated young ones show that they are able to understand the high potential of putting money and efforts in this sector. Cumulative effects of technology over the next decade will change the face of agriculture.

All the constraints in agriculture make the productivity and returns complex but still a high untapped potential is there in India’s agriculture sector.

Advantageous weather and soil conditions, high demand for food, untapped opportunities, various fiscal incentives given by the government for inputs, production infrastructure, availability of cheap credit facilities and for marketing and export promotion are attracting many individuals, big companies, startups and entrepreneurial ventures to do a lot of investments on innovations, inventions, research and development and on other aspects of business.

The efforts are being done to convert all the challenges in agriculture into opportunities and this process is the future of agriculture. 

Key trends expected

1. Changing demand due to increase in incomes, globalisation and health consciousness is affecting and going to affect more the production in future. Demand for fruits and vegetables, dairy products, fish and meat is going to increase in future.

2. Researches, technology improvements, protected cultivation of high value greens and other vegetables will be more. There will be more demand of processed and                      affordable quality products.

3. More competition will be there among private companies giving innovative products, better seeds, fertilisers, plant protection chemicals, customised farm machinery and feed for animals etc in cost effective ways at competitive prices giving more returns on investment by farmers. Use of biotechnology and breeding will be very important in developing eco-friendly and disease resistant, climate resilient, more nutritious and tastier crop varieties.

4. Some technologies will be frequently and widely used in future and some will become common in a short time while some will take time to mature. For producing the same products in other way so as to use resources judiciously and using new resources also like hydroponics, use of plastics and bio-plastics in production. There will be more of vertical and urban farming and there will also be efforts in long term to find new areas for production like barren deserts and seawater.

5. Precision farming with soil testing-based decisions, automation using artificial intelligence will be focused for precise application inputs in agriculture. Sensors and drones             will be used for precision, quality, environment in cost effective manner.

Small and marginal farmers will also be using these technologies with the help of private players, government or farmer producer organisations (FPO). Use of GPS technology, drones, robots etc controlled by smart phones etc can make life of farmers easy and exciting with good results. These advanced devices will make agriculture be more profitable, easy and environmentally friendly.

6. Use nano-technology for enhancement of food quality and safety, efficient use of inputs will be in near future. Nano-materials in agriculture will reduce the wastage in use of chemicals, minimise nutrient losses in fertilisation and will be used to increase yield through pest and nutrient management. IFFCO has already done successful tests in nano-fertilisers.

7. India has improved remarkably in its digital connectivity and market access has become very easy. The number of internet users is projected to reach 666.4 million in 2025. Farmers will be behaving more smartly with mobiles in hands and would be able to be more aware and connected with different stake holders. Government will be making wide use of digital technology for generating awareness among farmers, information sharing, government schemes using digital technology for direct transfers of money.

8. There will certainly be more work by government, village communities, agri startups and private players in conserving sharply depleting water resource. Use of digital technology can make revolution in this direction. There will be use of satellites, IoT, drones for better collection of data regarding soil health, crop area and yield which will make cost for insurers less with better estimations and system will be more exact and effective.

9. There will be more of niche marketers in operations, area, and crop specific small equipments which will make operations even at small farms easier and efficient. Food wastage will be less and better use of waste materials in agriculture will be more. Number of warehouses in private sector will be more and linkages between government and private warehouses will be increasing. This will help in balancing supply with demand and stabilisation of prices of agri-outputs in the market.

10. Retailing in agriculture will largely be digitalised. A study estimates that over 90 per cent of kirana stores across the country will be digitalised by 2025 with modern traceable logistics and transparent supply chain. Many players have already taking kiranastores to the door steps of consumers like Amazon and Jio Mart.

Question arises whether farmers will be able to make use of modern technologies in a country where education, holding size, infrastructure, low level of technology adoption and many other constraints are there. 

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IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica

• JCR Impact Factor: 11.8 , Top 4% (SCI Q1) CiteScore: 17.6 , Top 3% (Q1) Google Scholar h5-index: 77， TOP 5

Internet of Things for the Future of Smart Agriculture: A Comprehensive Survey of Emerging Technologies

Doi:  10.1109/jas.2021.1003925.

• Othmane Friha 1 ,  , 
• Mohamed Amine Ferrag 2 ,  , 
• Lei Shu 3, 4 ,  ,  , 
• Leandros Maglaras 5 ,  , 
• Xiaochan Wang 6 , 

Networks and Systems Laboratory, University of Badji Mokhtar-Annaba, Annaba 23000, Algeria

Department of Computer Science, Guelma University, Gulema 24000, Algeria

College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China

School of Engineering, University of Lincoln, Lincoln LN67TS, UK

School of Computer Science and Informatics, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK

Department of Electrical Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China

Othmane Friha received the master degree in computer science from Badji Mokhtar-Annaba University, Algeria, in 2018. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in the University of Badji Mokhtar-Annaba, Algeria. His current research interests include network and computer security, internet of things (IoT), and applied cryptography

Mohamed Amine Ferrag received the bachelor degree (June, 2008), master degree (June, 2010), Ph.D. degree (June, 2014), HDR degree (April, 2019) from Badji Mokhtar-Annaba University, Algeria, all in computer science. Since October 2014, he is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Computer Science, Guelma University, Algeria. Since July 2019, he is a Visiting Senior Researcher, NAULincoln Joint Research Center of Intelligent Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University. His research interests include wireless network security, network coding security, and applied cryptography. He is featured in Stanford University’s list of the world’s Top 2% Scientists for the year 2019. He has been conducting several research projects with international collaborations on these topics. He has published more than 60 papers in international journals and conferences in the above areas. Some of his research findings are published in top-cited journals, such as the IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials , IEEE Internet of Things Journal , IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management , IEEE Access , Journal of Information Security and Applications (Elsevier), Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies (Wiley), Telecommunication Systems (Springer), International Journal of Communication Systems (Wiley), Sustainable Cities and Society (Elsevier), Security and Communication Networks (Wiley), and Journal of Network and Computer Applications (Elsevier). He has participated in many international conferences worldwide, and has been granted short-term research visitor internships to many renowned universities including, De Montfort University, UK, and Istanbul Technical University, Turkey. He is currently serving on various editorial positions such as Editorial Board Member in Journals (Indexed SCI and Scopus) such as, IET Networks and International Journal of Internet Technology and Secured Transactions (Inderscience Publishers)

Lei Shu (M’07–SM’15) received the B.S. degree in computer science from South Central University for Nationalities in 2002, and the M.S. degree in computer engineering from Kyung Hee University, South Korea, in 2005, and the Ph.D. degree from the Digital Enterprise Research Institute, National University of Ireland, Ireland, in 2010. Until 2012, he was a Specially Assigned Researcher with the Department of Multimedia Engineering, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University, Japan. He is currently a Distinguished Professor with Nanjing Agricultural University and a Lincoln Professor with the University of Lincoln, U.K. He is also the Director of the NAU-Lincoln Joint Research Center of Intelligent Engineering. He has published over 400 papers in related conferences, journals, and books in the areas of sensor networks and internet of things (IoT). His current H-index is 54 and i10-index is 197 in Google Scholar Citation. His current research interests include wireless sensor networks and IoT. He has also served as a TPC Member for more than 150 conferences, such as ICDCS, DCOSS, MASS, ICC, GLOBECOM, ICCCN, WCNC, and ISCC. He was a Recipient of the 2014 Top Level Talents in Sailing Plan of Guangdong Province, China, the 2015 Outstanding Young Professor of Guangdong Province, and the GLOBECOM 2010, ICC 2013, ComManTel 2014, WICON 2016, SigTelCom 2017 Best Paper Awards, the 2017 and 2018 IEEE Systems Journal Best Paper Awards, the 2017 Journal of Network and Computer Applications Best Research Paper Award, and the Outstanding Associate Editor Award of 2017, and the 2018 IEEE ACCESS. He has also served over 50 various Co-Chair for international conferences/workshops, such as IWCMC, ICC, ISCC, ICNC, Chinacom, especially the Symposium Co-Chair for IWCMC 2012, ICC 2012, the General Co-Chair for Chinacom 2014, Qshine 2015, Collaboratecom 2017, DependSys 2018, and SCI 2019, the TPC Chair for InisCom 2015, NCCA 2015, WICON 2016, NCCA 2016, Chinacom 2017, InisCom 2017, WMNC 2017, and NCCA 2018

Leandros Maglaras (SM’15) received the B.Sc. degree from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1998, M.Sc. in industrial production and management from University of Thessaly in 2004, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical & computer engineering from University of Volos in 2008 and 2014, respectively. He is the Head of the National Cyber Security Authority of Greece and a Visiting Lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Informatics at the De Montfort University, U.K. He serves on the Editorial Board of several International peer-reviewed journals such as IEEE Access , Wiley Journal on Security & Communication Networks , EAI Transactions on e-Learning and EAI Transactions on Industrial Networks and Intelligent Systems . He is an author of more than 80 papers in scientific magazines and conferences and is a Senior Member of IEEE. His research interests include wireless sensor networks and vehicular ad hoc networks

Xiaochan Wang is currently a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Nanjing Agricultural University. His main research fields include intelligent equipment for horticulture and intelligent measurement and control. He is an ASABE Member, and the Vice Director of CSAM (Chinese Society for Agricultural Machinery), and also the Senior Member of Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering. He was awarded the Second Prize of Science and Technology Invention by the Ministry of Education (2016) and the Advanced Worker for Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering (2012), and he also gotten the “Blue Project” in Jiangsu province young and middle-aged academic leaders (2010)

• Corresponding author: Lei Shu, e-mail: [email protected]
• Revised Date: 2020-11-25
• Accepted Date: 2020-12-30
• Agricultural internet of things (IoT) , 
• internet of things (IoT) , 
• smart agriculture , 
• smart farming , 
• sustainable agriculture

Proportional views

通讯作者: 陈斌, [email protected].

沈阳化工大学材料科学与工程学院 沈阳 110142

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• We review the emerging technologies used by the Internet of Things for the future of smart agriculture.
• We provide a classification of IoT applications for smart agriculture into seven categories, including, smart monitoring, smart water management, agrochemicals applications, disease management, smart harvesting, supply chain management, and smart agricultural practices.
• We provide a taxonomy and a side-by-side comparison of the state-of-the-art methods toward supply chain management based on the blockchain technology for agricultural IoTs.
• We highlight open research challenges and discuss possible future research directions for agricultural IoTs.
• Copyright © 2022 IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica
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• Figure 1. The four agricultural revolutions
• Figure 2. Survey structure
• Figure 3. IoT-connected smart agriculture sensors enable the IoT
• Figure 4. The architecture of a typical IoT sensor node
• Figure 5. Fog computing-based agricultural IoT
• Figure 6. SDN/NFV architecture for smart agriculture
• Figure 7. Classification of IoT applications for smart agriculture
• Figure 8. Greenhouse system [ 101 ]
• Figure 9. Aerial-ground robotics system [ 67 ]
• Figure 10. Photovoltaic agri-IoT schematic diagram [ 251 ]
• Figure 11. Smart dairy farming system [ 254 ]
• Figure 12. IoT-based solar insecticidal lamp [ 256 ], [ 257 ]

Home — Essay Samples — Science — GMO — The Future Of Food Supply And Agriculture

The Future of Food Supply and Agriculture

• Categories: Agriculture Food Safety GMO

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Words: 727 |

Published: Nov 5, 2020

Words: 727 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Works Cited:

• Beauchamp, T. L., Bowie, N. E., & Arnold, D. G. (2009). Ethical theory and business (8th ed.). Prentice Hall.
• HSBC. (n.d.). Ethics and diversity. HSBC Group. https://www.hsbc.com/about-us/our-values/ethics-and-diversity
• Santa Clara University. (n.d.). Framework for ethical decision making. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/framework-for-ethical-decision-making/
• Schermerhorn, J. R., Bachrach, D. G., & Hunt, J. G. (2014). Management (13th ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
• Sims, R. R. (1992). The challenge of ethical behavior in organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 11(7), 505-513.
• Treviño, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2016). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right (7th ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
• Velazquez, M. G. (2016). Business ethics: Concepts and cases (8th ed.). Pearson.
• Wozniak, G. D., & Wozniak, A. J. (2003). Ethical dilemmas in workplace counseling: A qualitative analysis. Journal of Employment Counseling, 40(2), 70-81.
• Zsolnai, L. (2017). Business ethics: A critical approach integrating ethics across the business world. Routledge.
• Zweigenhaft, R. L., & Domhoff, G. W. (2003). Diversity in the power elite: Ironies and unanswered questions. Rowman & Littlefield.

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Essay on Agriculture for Students and Children

500+ words essay on agriculture.

Agriculture is one of the major sectors of the Indian economy. It is present in the country for thousands of years. Over the years it has developed and the use of new technologies and equipment replaced almost all the traditional methods of farming. Besides, in India, there are still some small farmers that use the old traditional methods of agriculture because they lack the resources to use modern methods. Furthermore, this is the only sector that contributed to the growth of not only itself but also of the other sector of the country.

Growth and Development of the Agriculture Sector

India largely depends on the agriculture sector. Besides, agriculture is not just a mean of livelihood but a way of living life in India. Moreover, the government is continuously making efforts to develop this sector as the whole nation depends on it for food.

For thousands of years, we are practicing agriculture but still, it remained underdeveloped for a long time. Moreover, after independence, we use to import food grains from other countries to fulfill our demand. But, after the green revolution, we become self-sufficient and started exporting our surplus to other countries.

Besides, these earlier we use to depend completely on monsoon for the cultivation of food grains but now we have constructed dams, canals, tube-wells, and pump-sets. Also, we now have a better variety of fertilizers, pesticides, and seeds, which help us to grow more food in comparison to what we produce during old times.

With the advancement of technology, advanced equipment, better irrigation facility and the specialized knowledge of agriculture started improving.

Furthermore, our agriculture sector has grown stronger than many countries and we are the largest exporter of many food grains.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Significance of Agriculture

It is not wrong to say that the food we eat is the gift of agriculture activities and Indian farmers who work their sweat to provide us this food.

In addition, the agricultural sector is one of the major contributors to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and national income of the country.

Also, it requires a large labor force and employees around 80% of the total employed people. The agriculture sector not only employees directly but also indirectly.

Moreover, agriculture forms around 70% of our total exports. The main export items are tea, cotton, textiles, tobacco, sugar, jute products, spices, rice, and many other items.

Negative Impacts of Agriculture

Although agriculture is very beneficial for the economy and the people there are some negative impacts too. These impacts are harmful to both environments as the people involved in this sector.

Deforestation is the first negative impact of agriculture as many forests have been cut downed to turn them into agricultural land. Also, the use of river water for irrigation causes many small rivers and ponds to dry off which disturb the natural habitat.

Moreover, most of the chemical fertilizers and pesticides contaminate the land as well as water bodies nearby. Ultimately it leads to topsoil depletion and contamination of groundwater.

In conclusion, Agriculture has given so much to society. But it has its own pros and cons that we can’t overlook. Furthermore, the government is doing his every bit to help in the growth and development of agriculture; still, it needs to do something for the negative impacts of agriculture. To save the environment and the people involved in it.

FAQs about Essay on Agriculture

Q.1 Name the four types of agriculture? A.1 The four types of agriculture are nomadic herding, shifting cultivation, commercial plantation, and intensive subsistence farming.

Q.2 What are the components of the agriculture revolution? A.2 The agriculture revolution has five components namely, machinery, land under cultivation, fertilizers, and pesticides, irrigation, and high-yielding variety of seeds.

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Agriculture 4.0: Future of Indian Agriculture

• Mar 23, 2023, 14:35
• Agriculture

Overview of Agriculture in India Agriculture plays a significant role in India’s growing economy. With around 54.6% of the total workforce involved in agriculture and allied sector activities, the sector contributes to 17.8% of the country’s gross value added (GVA). During 2021-22, the country recorded US$ 50.2 billion in total agriculture exports with a 20% increase from US$ 41.3 billion in 2020-21. It is projected that the Indian agriculture sector will grow by 3.5% in FY23.

With the use of conventional farming methods, there’s comparatively less improvement in efficiency and agricultural yields which resulted in lower productivity. Due to this concern, the government initiated the fourth wave of revolution in the agricultural sector to introduce technological advancement in these activities to improve yields and promote the involvement of the population in this sector.

Agriculture 4.0 is a considerably advanced version of precision farming methods. It has the potential to transform the existing methods of farming. Precision farming focuses on a comprehensive approach towards maintaining the field and soil well-being with a focus on improving the quality and quantity of yield with minimum environmental harm. The idea of revolution in agriculture involves the use of the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, artificial intelligence, and robotics to accelerate and improve the efficiency of activities throughout the entire production chain. It has the potential to transform the conventional farming industry. Conventional farming practices control crop watering and spraying pesticides or fertilisers uniformly across the field. Instead, the farmers will need to be more targeted and data-driven in the context of farming. Future farms will be more productive owing to the employment of robotics, temperature and moisture sensors, aerial photos, and GPS technology. These cutting-edge methods will improve farm profitability, efficiency, safety, and environmental friendliness. They are together referred to as advanced or high-tech precision farming.

Around one-third of food produced for consumption which is worth over US$ 1 trillion is lost or wasted in transit. This leads to millions of people sleeping hungry every night. The UN World Food Programme reports state that the primary cause of rising hunger around the globe is food wastage or loss due to uneven handling of food.

The concern about food wastage gave rise to the involvement of technology in agriculture to improve productivity and reduce wastage by proper handling of food. The data analytics and AI will help farmers to monitor the activities of seeds to the final crop. This will result in better yield and as a result, people will be involved in agriculture and eventually, the nation will target the least hunger issues. These challenges led to the introduction of Agriculture 4.0 wherein farmers won’t be dependent on water facilities, fertilizers, and pesticides uniformly across entire fields. Instead, farmers will be suggested to use minimum quantities and target specific areas for different crops to get better productivity.

Prospects of Indian Agriculture The continuous technological innovation in the Indian agriculture sector plays a critical role in the growth and development of the Indian agriculture system. It will be crucial for ensuring agricultural production, generating employment, and reducing poverty to promoting equitable and sustainable growth. Constraints include diminishing and degraded land and water resources, drought, flooding, and global warming generating unpredictable weather patterns that present a significant barrier for India's agriculture to grow sustainably and profitably. The future of agriculture seems to involve much-developed technologies like robotics, temperature and moisture sensors, aerial images, and GPS technology. Farms will be able to be more productive, efficient, safe, and environmentally sustainable owing to this cutting-edge equipment, robotic systems, and precision agriculture. 

Various factors such as data analysis matrix and technological advancement in the existing agricultural machinery contribute to the production of food grains for consumption and commercial needs. The production of commercial food grain support the economy and improves the GDP.

Hence, the future growth of Indian agriculture appears to be growing with an upward graph which is backed by technological advancements and government initiatives.

Recent Trends in Agriculture India’s agriculture mainly depends on nature, however changing climate and global warming are making farming unpredictable. The need to use modern technologies to increase productivity and profitability led to the emergence of Agriculture 4.0 in India. There have been significant changes in India in the context of agriculture over the decades and many new technologies have been developed. Several new-age farmers are using soil mapping software as well to determine the optimum level of fertilizers used in the farms. These emerging technologies in farming and agriculture pave the way for more opportunities. The aggrotech start-ups and traditional farmers are also using the latest solutions and trends to improve production in the food value chain. It includes the adoption of new technologies such as cloud-based solutions and other relevant advanced agricultural management techniques to increase farmer efficiency and produce more crops.

• Grape farmers in India who have begun spotting and geo-locating crop diseases or pestilence, allowing them to control infestations earlier and in a more precise manner. This also leads to lower use of harmful pesticides on the crop. Soil mapping software is used by several new farmers to determine the optimum level of fertiliser use in their farms. They are also using drones which allow spraying pesticides in a more targeted manner.
• Sugarcane farmers in India have started using technology to gauge the most appropriate time to harvest their crops, which allows them to better plan their harvest and maximise output. Several Indian farmers have also begun to use AI/ML-powered technologies to forecast crop yield, weather conditions and price trends in mandis. A few farmers have also begun testing self-driving tractors and seed-planting robots to free their farms from the vagaries of labour shortages.

Emerging trends in the agricultural sector that are quite prominent in the post-liberalization era include increased production, increased investment, diversification of the sector, use of modern techniques, development of horticulture and floriculture, increasing volume of exports and development of the food processing industry.

Some of the recent trends in agricultural technology:

• Agricultural Drone Technology-

Drones are used widely for medical delivery to protection assistance and are used in agriculture to improve the growth of crops, maintenance, and cultivation methods. For example, these ariel carriers are used to access crop conditions and execute better fertilization strategies for more yields. Even the accessibility of hovering robots help farmers through a survey of large areas and data collection to generate better insights about their farms. Using drones in agriculture has provided more frequent, cost-effective remote monitoring of crops and livestock. It also helps analyse field conditions and determine appropriate interventions such as fertilizers, nutrients, and pesticides.

• Diversification of Agriculture-

The agricultural sector produces generic consumption needs as well as crops like fruits, vegetables, spices, cashews, areca nuts, coconuts, and floral products such as flowers, orchids, etc. With the increasing demand for these products, there’s a huge potential in terms of production and trade of these products. This shows how the agricultural sector is being transformed into a dynamic and commercial sector by shifting the mix of traditional agricultural products towards higher quality products, with a high potential to accelerate production rates.

The diversification in agriculture is being supported by changes in technology or consumer demand, trade or government policy, transportation, irrigation, and other infrastructure developments.

• Increasing Trend in Horticulture Production-

The availability of diverse physiographic, climatic, and soil characteristics enables India to grow various horticulture crops. It includes fruits, vegetables, spices, cashew, coconut, cocoa, areca etc. The total horticulture production in FY22 is estimated at 342.333 million tonnes which is an increase of about 7.03 million tonnes (2.10% increase) from 2020-21. 

• Development of Agriculture in Backward Areas-

In the post-green revolution era, the introduction of new agricultural strategies, research, and technology was mostly limited to producing specific food grains, i.e., wheat and rice. However, under the wave of liberalization, with the growing demand for agricultural exports, many new sectors of agricultural activities have become favourable and profitable.

In some agriculturally backward areas with no irrigation system and access to fewer resources, dryland farming has been introduced. Other activities were also encouraged such as horticulture, floriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, etc. To support the development in those areas, various modern techniques have been installed in the backward areas.

• Ariel Imaging-

Ariel imaging involves the use of geographic information system (GIS) technology to analyse the potential of irrigation projects and their impact on land degradation, erosion, and drainage. The visuals of this technology allow assessment of an individual plant’s foliage. These visuals are actively used to detect pests and diseases to protect crops from environmental threats. It mostly helps farmers to monitor the soil conditions of farms and is useful in the summer season when there is the least availability of water.

• Hydroponics and Vertical Farming

The concept of hydroponics farming focus towards better yields, texture, and taste of the final product with less water consumption. Plants which are grown hydroponically do not need extensive root systems and it allows them to contribute more energy towards the production of leaves and fruits. Because of indoor cultivation, these plants mature quickly and possess better immunity against pests and other diseases. In the context of sustainability, vertical farming allows farms to be located near or within areas of high population density which reduces the need for transportation and any harmful emissions. Vertical farming provides the ability to grow crops in urban environments and contributes to the availability of fresh foods conveniently. This farming significantly reduces the amount of land space required to grow crops compared to conventional farming methods.

• Various farm sensors such as autonomous vehicles, wearables, button cameras, robotics, control systems, etc help in the collection of data to analyse the performance of the farm.
• Use of aerial and ground-based drones for crop health assessment, irrigation, monitoring and field analysis.
• Use of tools to predict rainfall, temperature, soil, humidity, and other forecasted natural calamities.

Government Initiatives The government has taken various initiatives to enable the potential digitalization of the agricultural sector in India. It focuses on promoting Agri-tech businesses which are working towards boosting productivity.

• The government has finalised an India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture (IDEA) framework that will establish the architecture for the federated database of farmers. This database is being built by taking the publicly available data as existing in various schemes and linking them with the digitalized land records. The IDEA would serve as a foundation to build innovative Agri-focused solutions leveraging emerging technologies to contribute effectively to creating a better Ecosystem for Agriculture in India. This Ecosystem shall help the Government in effective planning towards increasing the income of farmers and improving the efficiency of the agriculture sector.
• To facilitate agricultural engineering research, operations, and technology diffusion, the Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal (ICAR-CIAE) of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has created the Krishi Yantra App. A web portal has been made available by ICAR-CIAE on their website to guarantee that businesses choose the proper mechanisation technology. This aids current and potential business owners in choosing machines and purchasing options. The portal also offers the option of user and specialist engagement.
• Farm Safety app was developed by ICAR-CIAE which provides information about safety guidelines and Safety Gadgets to avoid accidents while using different types of agricultural machinery.
• A smartphone app called Water Balance Simulation Model for Roof Water Harvesting assists decision-makers in recommending design criteria. It provides that where the implementation of a roof water harvesting system may result in water savings and water security.

Conclusion Agriculture is an important sector of the country. It is one of the market-driven industries that employ a large segment of the country’s population. The new changes over the last few years have been enormously helpful to contribute more towards economic growth. Recent advancements such as drones, and data-driven facilities help to monitor the process of farming. It has been supporting farmers to increase productivity and contribute more towards the agricultural economy.

The future of Indian agriculture seems bright and promising with the advent of new technologies. The government has increased its focus on the sector, implementing various policies and initiatives to boost productivity and growth. India’s vast and diverse agricultural landscape, coupled with advancements in technology, provides immense opportunities for farmers to harness their potential and increase yield. In addition, start-ups in the agricultural sector are working towards providing innovative solutions to farmers in terms of supporting them with better productivity, measuring tools and other data-driven strategies.

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Budget 2024-25: Protecting and Growing the Future of Agriculture

The Albanese Labor Government will invest $789 million over the next eight years in the Budget to help farmers and producers protect and adapt against the impacts of climate change, build more resilience for the sector and maintain Australia’s position as a trusted and reliable trading partner.

Farmers are on the frontline of climate change, facing more intense and frequent natural disasters and weather extremes which is already hurting the bottom line.

The Albanese Government is committed to helping farmers and regional communities across the country become more productive and more profitable, while also reducing their emissions.

Drought preparedness and resilience

Helping regional and rural communities prepare for the next drought and manage climate risk is a key feature of the Albanese Government’s $519.1 million spend from the Future Drought Fund (FDF). Support for farmers and regional communities in this Budget includes:

• $235 million over eight years to work with regions and communities to help them manage their own drought and climate risks, through collaborative and locally led action. The funding will continue the Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub model, provide for the next phase of the Regional Drought Resilience Planning Program and deliver a revised FDF Communities program. 
• $15 million over four years to work with First Nations peoples and communities to support connection to country through management of drought and climate risks. The funding will establish a First Nations Advisory Group to advise on issues relating to drought and climate resilience, a pilot program to facilitate place-based, First Nations-led activities, and dedicated funding to support activities that seek to improve opportunities for First Nations participation in FDF drought and climate resilience activities. 
• $137.4 million over five years to support farmers and regional communities to make informed decisions and better manage drought and climate risks. The funding will extend and improve the existing Farm Business Resilience and Climate Services for Agriculture programs, and deliver the new Scaling Success Program. 
• $120.3 million over six years for programs that trial innovative solutions with the potential to build the agriculture sector, landscapes and communities’ long-term resilience to drought and climate risks, through transformational change. The funding will continue and expand the FDF Long Term Trials Program, a revised FDF Resilient Landscapes Program, and will implement a new FDF Innovation Challenges Pilot. These activities will lead to increased uptake of evidence-based, innovative practices, approaches and technologies. 
• $11.4 million over four years to support critical enabling activities to effectively deliver drought and climate resilience outcomes. This will support monitoring, evaluation and learning to measure outcomes and share knowledge generated by FDF programs about how to address drought and climate risks. 
• A further $13.9 million over the next four years will be spent to ensure the Government maintains a state of readiness for drought. The funding supports a nationally consistent approach to drought policy and programs, which will informed by the 2024-2029 National Drought Agreement and the Australian Government’s Drought Plan. These key activities will be supported by inclusive and timely stakeholder engagement and communications to ensure drought policy is informed by the people it impacts. Consultation on the Australian Government’s Drought Plan will commence shortly. 
• From 2028-29, a further $3.4 million per year ongoing has also been allocated to ensure the Government has an ongoing focus on drought as we know the best time to prepare for drought is before drought occurs.

Climate and sustainability

To ensure the agriculture and land sectors can meaningfully contribute to the whole-of-economy transition to net zero, the Government is investing $63.8 million over ten years to support initial emissions reduction efforts.

Phase out of live sheep exports by sea

This Budget also includes a $107 million assistance package over five years to help the Australian sheep industry transition away from live exports by 1 May 2028, realising the booming opportunities for Australian sheepmeat and wool across the globe.

Ending the trade was an election commitment, with an independent report recommending a suite of measures following extensive consultation with industry and the public.

The assistance package will help the $77 million industry to transition away from live exports into onshore processing, creating added value for the local processing market and additional jobs in Western Australia.

The package also provides funding for overseas market development for Australian sheepmeat, as well as funding for rural mental health programs in Western Australia.

Agriculture workforce

More Australians will be encouraged to enter the agricultural workforce with a revised and focussed AgUP grants program.

The Government will use $1.9 million over three years to provide targeted grants to industry led projects that can benefit the entire sector.

The program will support the continuation of existing activities for National Farm Safety Week and work experience opportunities for young people interested in agriculture through the AgCareer start pilot.

It also includes funding for a new, skilled agricultural work liaison program, in urban and regional universities, aimed at increasing the number of highly-skilled graduates entering the sector.

The funding will help the Government address diverse and complex workforce issues such as attraction and retention.

Food labelling

This Budget will also see the Government deliver on its election commitment to deliver accurate and clear labelling of plant-based alternative protein products.

The Government will spend $1.5 million over two years from 2023–24 to work with industry and regulatory agencies to improve existing arrangements in labelling.

The funding will also support independent research into consumers’ current understanding of plant-based labelling and inform improvements to guidance material.

Biosecurity

The Albanese Government is investing $16.9 million over four years to ensure the biosecurity integrity of Australia’s border remains contemporary and adaptable to evolving global risks by underpinning biosecurity operations with specialist technology and equipment at Sydney’s new international airport.

Western Sydney International Airport, which is currently under construction, will be fitted out with specialist screening and biosecurity risk detection equipment and scientific diagnostic equipment to support biosecurity officers and detector dogs continue to keep Australia free from exotic pests and diseases.

The canine facility will be fitted out to provide canine care, including medical and veterinarian needs and food and accommodation for the Biosecurity, Australian Border Force and Australian Federal Police dog fleets.

Western Sydney International Airport is expected to be one of Australia’s busiest airports when it opens. The Department is working closely and co-designing with Western Sydney International Airport and other Commonwealth agencies on infrastructure and facilities for border services.

Forestry and Fisheries

The Government is investing $3.4 million over four years to implement and complete its plan for forestry, A Future Grown in Australia: A Better Plan for Forestry and Forestry Products. 

This allows delivery of the Government’s election commitment to develop a national strategy for the wood fibre and forestry sector and a commitment to review the 1992 National Forestry Policy Statement in collaboration with state and territory governments. 

These initiatives are part of a $302 million investment in new plantations and technology and will contribute to achieving and realising a long-term outlook for the forestry industry, which is a key element of regional communities around the country. 

The Government has also committed $1.7 million to ensure the Australian Fisheries Management Authority can protect our northern waters from the growing threat of illegal fishing, which is a risk to our fishing industry, our biosecurity status, our environment and our border security. 

For more information head to the DAFF budget webpage .