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Agritech is the use of technology and technological innovation to improve the efficiency and output of agricultural processes. In other words, it is the application of technology to improve all elements of the farming and growing processes.

No choice but to Innovate

World population is expected to reach circa 11 billions inhabitants by 2100

Agri-environmental issues

Protection of the planet is a key objective. Many regional and global initiatives have been implemented to protect the planet via the development of sustainable economy.

 
A sustainable economy is one that is resilient and provides a good quality of life for everybody. It stays within the limits of the planet and helps keep global warming within the well below 2°C threshold. 

For agriculture, this encompasses managing natural resources to ensure their long-term viability and reducing the negative environmental impacts of agriculture production, such as pollutants and waste, which can damage the natural assets.

As pointed out by the OECD, Sustainable agriculture production systems also need to account for the projected impacts of climate change and the associated adaptation responses, as well as the mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Roadmaps

In many developed countries, roadmaps are set up and implemented to increase innovation in agriculture.

In the UK for example, the industry roadmap ‘Feeding the Future’ sets out the innovation requirements for primary food production in the UK to 2030 in eight priorities for research:

  • Use modern technologies to improve the precision and efficiency of key agricultural management practices
  • Apply modern genetic and breeding approaches to improve the quality, sustainability, resilience and yield-led profitability of crops and farm animals
  • Use systems-based approaches to understand better and manage interactions between soil, water and crop/animal processes
  • Develop integrated approaches to the effective management of crop weeds, pests and diseases within farming systems
  • Develop integrated approaches to the management of animal disease within farming systems
  • Develop evidence-based approaches to value ecosystem service delivery by land users and incorporate these approaches into effective decision support systems at the enterprise or grouped enterprise level
  • Extend the training, professional development and communication channels of researchers, practitioners and advisors to promote delivery of the targets above
  • Improve the use of social and economic science to promote the development, uptake and use of sustainable, resilient and profitable agricultural practice that can deliver affordable, safe and high-quality products

Benefits of Agritech

COVID-19 has reiterated that agribusinesses can no longer afford to provide services to producers which rely on manual and rudimentary information aggregating processes.

Agritech is more than ever seen as a relevant answer to challenges as recently highlighted by IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative.

The range of digital tools in agriculture is broad,  from low-tech solutions disseminating voice and  text-based advisory on feature phones, to high-tech  holistic tools involving satellites, sensors and big data  analytics. They offer an array of benefits to smallholder  farmers, including participation in the formal economy  and greater resilience to climate change.

GSMA has segmented digital agriculture solutions  into three broad categories of access that further  break down into five use cases and 24 sub-use casesto show the benefits provided by Agritech to small farmers

Technologies used in Agritech