Agricultural Technology
"AgTech represents the application of technology – especially software and hardware technology – to the field (pun intended) of farming."
-Erik Kobayashi-Solomon
Forbes Contributor
The basis of civilization is directly connected to the development of agriculture between 4000 and 3000 BCE. Agriculture is “the science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products.” As agriculture allowed for the development of societies and trade because of a surplus of food, it also enabled population to grow and enabled people to live in cities. As food and resource stability increases the growth in population also continues to grow, increasing by 106 million (1920), 6.923 billion (2010), to 7.8 billion (2020). “The world population is projected to reach 9.9 billion by 2050, an increase of more than 25% from the current 2020 population of 7.8 billion.” With these predictions, CEO Jonathan Webb of AppHarvest states “the world needs 50 to 70 percent more food by 2050. Some say we would need two planet earths to grow that.”
IMPLEMENTATION
Agricultural technology or agrotechnology (abbreviated as AgTech) is the implementation and development of technology used to improve crop yield, efficiency, and profitability in agriculture, horticulture, and aquaculture.
The AgTechnologies are implemented through products, services, and applications that improve certain procedures in the farming industry.
The progression of technology together with the growing world population has continued to expand the way countries think about and do farming.
Technology will help farmers and landowners make smarter decisions, however, there is no one-size-fits-all solution and choosing the right path(s) will be key to success.
DEVELOPMENT
Developing trends in Agtech have been focused on rewarding practices that are more environment friendly. There is a focus on soil health as sustainable soil management. It “has the potential to produce 58% more food,” and a focus on soil health will allow to get as much crop out of the land as possible. Productive soil allows for productive farmers such tools like soil amendments, cover crops, no-till, and others are becoming more popular in farming circles. Healthy soil also combats climate change as it removes about 25% of the world’s fossil fuel emissions each year. Another focus has been on regenerative agriculture which experts believe can help combat and reverse climate change.
The focus here is to keep topsoil healthy from current rates of soil destruction (decarbonization, erosion, desertification, chemical pollution).The Rodale Institute stated, “global adoption of regenerative practices across both grasslands and arable acreage could sequester more than 100% of current anthropogenic emissions of Co2.” There has been a greater push in greener diets meaning eating less or entitle cutting out the consumption of meat. Animal farms do not only produce food but also massive amounts of animal waste (urine and manure) that emits 400 different harmful gasses into the atmosphere.
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION
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Innovative farming ideas, such as digital soil mapping, especially in data-sparse regions such as Africa, are key to planning sustainable agricultural intensification and natural resources management. Underground and vertical farming are becoming very popular in Europe and Asia. Singapore relies heavily on imports for more than 90 per cent of its fruit and vegetables, Panasonic licensed its first indoor vegetable farm. Sharp is growing strawberries in Dubai, while Sony, Toshiba and Fujitsu are all utilizing former clean-room facilities at semiconductor plants across Japan for lettuce. These no-wash, no-soil greens are cultivated by means of hydroponics and grown at more than twice the speed of normal field production, thanks to specialized LED lighting to optimize photosynthesis. The United States stays as the top agriculture exporter of $135 billion (2020) however, Netherlands is currently the seconds largest exporter $111 billion (2017) of agriculture thanks to their focus on sustainable agriculture.
Justification of weak signals are that there are already numerous big tech companies entering the agriculture industry, some for personal gain and profit and others to show the universal applications of the technology they develop. Big names such as Amazon, Walmart and Microsoft are domestic brands that are focusing on farming for more personal gain. (Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba discussed earlier.) Elon Musk famous CEO of Space X has a desire to introduce a self-sustainable space colony to Mars. In 2016, Elon Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk started an indoor urban farming company based in Brooklyn, called Square Roots. The company’s mission is to empower younger generations to begin making urban farms too. Square Roots “Super Farm.” farm includes biosecurity infrastructure, twenty-five climate-controlled shipping containers, cold storage, and everything else needed to run a sizeable vertical farm. Since its launch in 2016, Square Roots has grown over 120 different kinds of crops, including strawberries, greens, and vegetables. Square Roots isn’t the first company to popularize vertical farming on this scale. Singapore Airlines is serving airplane food from a vertical farm within the airport, and a startup company Silicon Valley’s Plenty, which was founded in 2013 are also participating in urban farming.
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Contradictions can be seen in the Netherlands as it is 2.9 times smaller than the state of New York and is the second largest exporter of agricultural goods.
Inflections as a social movement can be seen in growing popularity in green based diets and popular company Beyond Meat which will have an affect on the focus of farmers and improve climate change.
Practices that are commonplace in the U.S. are farmers focusing on corn and wheat as main crops to grow with stimulus from the U.S. government. As the population increases and traditional farming land becomes
Hacks that exist relate to the existing technologies such as LED lighting systems that are allowing plants to replicate the photosynthesis process without any real sunlight. This also allows the manipulation of day and night length and can increase the growth rate of crops.
Extremes can be seen through container farming which takes vertical farming to a smaller scale implementing LED lights and ventilation systems that allow a greenhouse without the glass.
Rarities can be seen in AppHarvest is a publicly traded (SPAC) company based in Kentucky U.S. focusing on building some of the world’s largest controlled environment farms, combining conventional agricultural techniques with today’s technology. They are also not using fertilizers which is contrary to a lot of current farming practices.
FORECAST
Long Range (ten to twenty years): By 2040; sea levels will begin to rise, greater stronger tropical storms will continue to destroy Midwest/Southeast crop land, migration from these areas will push communities more inland even away from their states. Farming areas/ communities will have to shift and establish a digital transformation.
Far Range (twenty to thirty years): By 2050; more self-sustained farms will be implemented that will range in size from gig factories (size of tesla factories) to container farms. Green houses will be more common as an easy way to grow food for family and will be easier to take care of with new tech that waters the plants itself and can tell you based on soil data best times to plant and harvest crops.
Distant (more than thirty years): By/Past 2060; every town (county/state) will have their own food factory. Countries will be dependents more so on themselves in regard to food with a lower rate of world hunger. Diets will become greener and healthier. If Musk gets to Mars the first steps towards a self-relying colony will be farming whether through vertical farming or other procedures introduced then (highly doubt a remote other plant colony will want to solely rely on space/army fry foods.)