THE RISE OF AGRITECH

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During the last century, food production has seen technological breakthroughs such as mechanisation and chemicals application (fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides…) At the same time, new frameworks known under the common label of “intensive farming” emerged and transformed many farms though a process of mass production: the increase of fields size and yield, monoculture, battery cages and high volume slaughterhouses. These combined changes resulted in the supply of abundant and cheaper food volumes to accommodate demographic growth.

These days, the situation is still challenged where 9 billion people are expected to be fe by 2050, the demand for food is growing proportionately. The UN estimates that we will have to, at the very least, double our agricultural output by 2050 to keep up with this worldwide population growth.

What is Agritech?

Agritech = agriculture + technology

Agritech is the use of technology and technological innovation to develop the efficiency and output of agriculture. Put simply it is the application of technology to improve all elements of the farming and growing process.

The rise of Agritech

New technologies are creating big opportunities. This has opened up opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovators to help solve problems with food production and the preservation of natural resources. Agritech, the use of technology in agriculture with the aim of improving sustainability, efficiency and profitability, is leading the way. Today, Agritech startups around the world are looking to scale, leveraging technology to positively disrupt the sector.

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THE CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIR

By 2050, the world population is expected to reach 9.7 billion1 and will require 70% more protein than is currently available. With 2 billion more mouths to feed, security of food supply will be at risk if we continue to use traditional agricultural methods. Currently, we are living beyond ecological means and over-using our natural resources by more than 50%, this over use means the earth needs 1.6 years to regenerate our annual consumption. In addition, changes in the environment and global warming could negatively impact on the health of our livestock. According to the DECC’s Low Carbon Transition plan, UK agriculture contributes to 7% of the UK’s carbon emissions. Furthermore, emerging diseases threaten the health of livestock, and there is a need for measures to be in place to limit the spread of infectious diseases.

These challenges are making agriculture a hot topic, as it is one of the key industries where changes must be implemented in order to create a sustainable future for the next generations.

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WHY DO OTHER NATIONS SHOULD FOLLOW ISRAEL’S AGRITECH?

Israel is a country with powerful agricultural capabilities, and it’s producing world-leading food technologies right now. Having strong support from the government, access to military-grade technology and some of the most advanced scientific developments, Israel is striving to become the AgriTechno capital of the world. The country is working on implementing machine learning projects in agriculture, agrifood blockchain, innovative AgriTechno animal health technologies and more. Over the next few years, Israel is expected to invite more investments into its agricultural sector. Continue reading to find out how.

The success of Israel Agritechno

Israel is recognized as a leading innovator in agriculture technologies – this is one of the reasons that Agritechno Israel is considered a leading event in the field. Israeli start-up companies are coming up with breakthrough technologies that are gaining the attention of investors around the globe. In light of this, Israel NewTech, together with other governmental partners, are launching the first Agrivest Summit this year, scheduled for May 14th, right before the beginning of Agritechno Israel 2012.

Israel is considered a world leader in water technologies, with a specialization in water for agriculture. One of the most famous examples is drip irrigation, which was invented in Israel in the 1960’s and is considered the most prevalent irrigation technology in the world today, with Netafim the leading supplier. A number of Israeli success stories in Agritechno  highlight the connection between water and agriculture technologies. Israel’s NaanDan Jain Irrigation is the leading global provider of tailor-made irrigation solutions. Active in over 100 countries, and bringing over 70 years of experience, the company offers a wide range of technologies that deliver increased productivity and drive higher crop yields. An additional success story is Plastro, active in the dynamic irrigation market, which was acquired by John Deere Water.

Another example is Kaiima, a next-generation seed and breeding-technology company, which develops NON-GMO crops with dramatically improved productivity and improved land and water-use efficiencies. Kaiima received a second round of investment in 2011 totaling over $20, including from very prestigious investment group Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the first time KPCB decided to invest in an Israeli company.

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FROM AGRICULTURE TO AGRITECHNO

The Agriculture industry is about to be disrupted and will transform into a high-tech industry

Today’s agricultural industry is on the verge of turning into a high-tech industry, as the growing number of agricultural startups and investors shows.

Three high-impact growth opportunities

As a consequence of the identified disruption drivers, the agricultural ecosystem faces new challenges, from which three significant growth opportunities for current and future players can be derived.

1. Improving yield efficiency

The world population, of which 10% remain undernourished, is rapidly growing, thereby creating severe urgency to increase yields.

2. Increasing supply chain efficiency

Reducing the average value chain loss of 33% of initial production is a substantial- ly stronger lever in increasing effective output than upfront yield improvement.

3. Decreasing complexity along farmers’ value chain

Since today’s farmer already faces high complexity and tomorrow’s farmer will deal with even more players and technologies after the disruption, farmers are willing to pay for integrated solutions and ecosystems.

Why it’s high time to invest in Agritechno

- Unseen, rapid growth
- Low-hanging fruit
- Huge market potential

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AGRICULTURE 4.0

Although demand is continuously growing, by 2050 we will need to produce 70 percent more food. Meanwhile, agriculture’s share of global GDP has shrunk to just 3 percent, one-third its contribution just decades ago. Roughly 800 million people worldwide suffer from hunger. And under a business-as-usual scenario, 8 percent of the world’s population (or 650 million) will still be undernourished by 2030. The reality is that very little innovation has taken place in the industry of late—in any case, nothing to indicate that food scarcity and hunger will not be an issue in the coming decades.

To meet these challenges will require a concerted effort by governments, investors, and agritechno (innovative agricultural technologies). Agriculture 4.0 will no longer depend on applying water, fertilizers, and pesticides uniformly across entire fields. Instead, farmers will use the minimum quantities required and target very specific areas. The report further states that farms and agricultural operations will have to be run very differently, primarily due to advancements in technology such as sensors, devices, machines, and information technology. Future agriculture will use sophisticated agritechno such as robots, temperature and moisture sensors, aerial images, and GPS technology. These advanced devices and precision agriculture and robotic systems will allow farms to be more profitable, efficient, safe, and environmentally friendly.

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Microsoft Announces Program to Accelerate Growth of Agritech Startups in India

Microsoft announced the launch of a program for agritech startups in India that are committed to driving transformation in agriculture. The Microsoft for Agritech Startups program is designed to help startups build industry-specific solutions, scale, and grow with access to deep technology, business, and marketing resources.

Agritech startups in India are transforming agriculture by developing innovative digital solutions to maximize productivity, improve market linkages, increase supply chain efficiency, and provide greater access to inputs for agri-businesses. In its efforts to bolster the country’s startup ecosystem, this program offers the best-in-class tech and business enablement resources to help agritech startups innovate and scale fast. Startups can also get access to Azure FarmBeats, which can help them focus on core value-adds instead of the undifferentiated heavy lifting of data engineering. Available on the Azure Marketplace, Azure FarmBeats enables aggregation of agricultural datasets across providers and generation of actionable insights by building AI/ML models based on fused datasets.

Spread across three tiers, the program offers a range of benefits, including tech enablement and business resources:

- All startups: Qualified Seed to Series C startups can boost their businesses with Azure benefits (including free credits), unlimited technical support and help with Azure Marketplace onboarding.

- Co-sell startups: Startups with enterprise-ready solutions can scale quickly with joint go-to-market strategies, technical support and new sales opportunities with Microsoft’s partner ecosystem.

- Co-create solutions: Startups that are looking to create digital agriculture solutions have the opportunity to co-build customized solutions with Azure FarmBeats without investing in deep data engineering resources. Using Azure FarmBeats, startups can acquire, aggregate and process agricultural data and rapidly develop their own AI/ML models.

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DRONE STARTUPS HAVE KICKSTARTED AGRITECH REVOLUTION IN ASIA

Drones are now doing a lot more than dropping bombs and shooting video. A new generation of programmable, autonomous drones has arrived, and it’s powering an agritech revolution in Asia.

Sabah Softwoods, a tree plantation in Malaysia, is using smart drone tech to kill weeds in its vast timber woodlands. It bought a custom drone from Malaysia-based enterprise Poladrone to spray weeds so that soon this task can be automated, and their staff won’t have to do it. 

“Spraying chemicals by hand is slow,” says Sabah Softwoods Survey and Mapping Manager Albert Ku. “Especially on challenging terrain.”

Depending on the landscape and crop, it can take a worker all day to spray 0.65 acres of farmland with pesticides. A drone can perform this same task in just two minutes. Using drones also means that farmhands don’t need to come into direct contact with pesticides and other chemicals, a practice that a recent study found left 70% of farm workers with symptoms of acute pesticide poisoning.

Other farms in Asia now use drones to optimize crop watering and increase yield per acre. Drone sensors pick up data and run it through machine learning algorithms, giving farmers valuable operational insights. Many modern agricultural drones don’t even need a trained pilot; they can be programmed to follow preset flight patterns, and they can use cloud-based management software to make in-flight adjustments as needed.   

Source: techforimpact.asia

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CropSafe - Northern Ireland Start-up

Founded originally as a student research project at St Mary’s Grammar School in Magherafelt, CropSafe co-founders Micheál McLaughlin and John McElhone are now sowing the seeds of their success as a start-up.

They have created an app that combines AI and satellite images to detect diseases in crop fields. With this information, farmers can pinpoint their sprays, reducing the impact that these chemicals have on the environment, while saving money.

The company was one of 12 finalists in the Invent 2019 competition for start-ups in Northern Ireland, where it won the prize for best agri-science product

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How Artificial Intelligence (A.I) Can Help Farmers Scout Crops A.I excels at Monotony

Imagine looking at the same image of a field, week after week, searching for even the slightest variation. An activity that would sound mind-numbing to people is tailor-made for artificial intelligence. Machine learning (a subset of AI) uses algorithms to parse data, learn from it, and make determinations without human intervention. Since machines are built for repetition, machine learning can look pixel-by-pixel and notice even the slightest change in a field image. In the case of scouting innovations like those from Intelinair, field imagery data comes from planes, and is combined with other layers, such as moisture, soil and planting data. The algorithm uses this data to find changes in the field.

A.I can see the light

No doubt, the human eye is remarkable, but it has limitations. For instance, the amount of sunlight a plant reflects can tell us a great deal about the crop's health. High-tech cameras and software can see a much broader spectrum of light reflected by a crop. This is the same principle that informs technology like night-vision. Companies like Intelinair are deploying advanced, highly sensitive cameras, along with powerful software that can see changes the human eye would never detect.

Connecting to the future

Through partnerships, digital farming can bring you advances such as artificial intelligence in aerial imagery so much faster, since newcomers can leverage existing infrastructure. And there are so many potential applications. Imagine if you could opt to connect your field imagery to your insurance provider so that providing proof of hail damage, for example, would be nearly instantaneous. This is just one of many opportunities where by working together, we can work more efficiently. And really, that's what data science is all about.

Source: agritechtomorrow.com

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Agritechno: Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

With a strong combination of leadership in aerospace and defence, by innovative forces developing both UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) products and services, and industry leaders finding new ways to influence their companies by leveraging technology, European startups are helping to make this a global industry. One of the brightest stars in this field is Accelerated Dynamics, a UK-based startup.

Accelerated Dynamics, founded in 2016, has developed an operating platform to simplify the management of several UAVs. Its software solution enables farmers to use the air vehicle fleets without any training. Accelerated Dynamics’ platform integrates IoT devices such as moisture sensors and irrigation devices to monitor crops at all times and ensure that farmers increase the quality and quantity of their produce. The machines are also equipped with infrared technology used to distinguish between healthy and damaged crops. Over time, a series of photos taken by drones gives farmers a richer picture of how their crops are developing and the effectiveness of different farming methods and techniques.

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FEEDING 9 BILLION IN 2050

Feeding the world

By 2050 we will need to feed two billion more people. How can we do that without overwhelming the planet while all around the world, small farms are playing a big role in feeding the world. There are a few of the men and women behind that effort.

Preparing for the future is always amazing and challenging. In times like these, we must rely on human ingenuity and look for technology solutions, inventions, and discoveries to deal with current and expected challenges. Food is one such area.

How to make more food?

The future of agriculture will be directly impacted by two of humanity’s biggest menaces on the horizon: population growth and climate change. With more mouths to feed and less planet to feed them on, and increasingly alarming predictions of environmental shifts, innovators working in crop agriculture have to figure out how to grow more food, faster, with fewer resources, by developing new technologies to scale up the planet’s food production mechanisms sustainably. To achieve these goals, agritechno must overcome food production plateaus in areas that are being farmed to their maximum capacity, and ensure that these areas that being farmed and ensure that these areas will continue to yield more food year over year without endangering future generations’ access to non-renewable resources. Balancing the need for technological innovation to increase food production at all costs to stop hunger in the next 30 years is very essential, and that should include:

- Precision farming
- Hacking biology to feed the planet
- Robotics and automation
- Vertical farming

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New Agri-techo Innovations Could Help Farmers Adapt to Major Changes

Innovations ranging from crop scouting robots to alternative pesticides and machine learning data systems were showcased at the REAP conference, the centrepiece of Agri-Tech week — a series of online events hosted by industry bodies and research institutes across the region to bring farmers together with technologists, scientists, entrepreneurs and investors.

John Barrett, director of farming company Sentry and chairman of the stakeholder group for event organisers Agri-TechE (formerly Agri-Tech East), opened the conference by illustrating the industry’s need to adapt to the mounting challenges of climate change, the looming loss of EU subsidies after Brexit, and evolving consumer needs during the coronavirus pandemic.

According edp24.

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cool information

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Tech In Agriculture Is Opening Up New Opportunities

Agriculture goes hi-tech

Now, things are about to get even more interesting. You can be sure that, in a decade or so, agriculture would be among the most-sought after vocations. The reason being agriculture’s becoming increasingly hi-tech, so much so that it needs technically qualified people to be involved now.

So, what’s happening?

Just look at the agri-lingo. Earlier, when you talked of agriculture, you spoke about fertilisers, pesticides, water pumps, and maybe solar panels. Today, you are talking sensors, robots, drones, images, big data, artificial intelligence, in conjunction with a lot of computing in the backend. Sensors, embedded in the soil, tells the computer the moisture content present in the soil, and the computer, in turn, tells you how much to water and when. There comes precision.

If you have a large farm and a small corner of it gets infected with some disease, in traditional agriculture you wouldn’t know until the disease has spread all over. Today, with images generated from dedicated satellites or drones, the computer easily identifies the malaise that has just begun. And if yours is a smart-farm, a robot is already on its way to snip away parts of the sick plant which is infected.

Hyperspectral imaging and 3D laser scanning provide information about plants across thousands of acres and every little area under the observation of the machine can be measured as a mathematical value. Robotic de-weeders are coming in too. One example is ‘Hortibot’ which can recognise 25 different types of weeds and spray pesticides selectively just over the weeds. Also, if you perform agriculture in a polyhouse, you have instruments that can control temperature, light, and humidity, to meet the exact needs of the plant.

Big data analytics and predictive analytics can alert farmers to problems that are likely to rise such as pests, diseases, or even climatic changes.

Hydroponics are in — you can have your farm in a container, with plants growing in vertical layers with no soil and their roots dipping in nutrient-enriched flowing water. You create the right conditions inside the container for that particular plant. A company in Abu Dhabi is growing tomatoes inside a container. Tomatoes in a desert!

This opens up exciting possibilities because it has completely de-coupled agriculture from its environmental conditions paving the way to creating your own desired condition. For example, saffron, a very valuable plant, grows only in cold climates, but now it can be cultivated anywhere.