Future of Food: People, Planet & Economy

What is AgTech?

Innovation has become essential to agriculture’s future. In recent years, the industry has been facing numerous challenges, including rising supplier costs, labor shortages, and consumer demand for greater transparency and sustainability. Agricultural technology (aka agritech or AgTech) represents the use of technology and innovation to increase the efficiency, productivity, and output of agricultural activities, such as farming and growing of crops.

According to Crunchbase data¹, venture capitalists invested more than $4 billion into the AgTech space in both 2018 and 2019, with 2020 not showing any signs of slowing down. Seana Day from Better Food Ventures also added that “COVID-19, with its disconnect between demand signals and supply, has reminded the world about the food supply chain”.

There are many AgTech applications, some of which are going to be outlined in this report. The main objective of any AgTech app is to grow more food while using less space and/or fewer inputs. Technological advances in agriculture also save farmers time and money by, for example, implementing task automation while replacing manual labour, which often represents the highest cost input in farming.

The technological solutions powering major AgTech innovations include urban farming, robotics and process automation, livestock tech, modernized greenhouses, precision agriculture, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain.

Notable AgTech trends

Urban farming, including indoor vertical farming

Indoor vertical farming is gaining interest due to its ability to thrive in limited space. Its advantages include reduced labor costs, increasing crop yields, overcoming limited land area by enabling food production in urban environments, and reducing the impact that farming has on the environment due to the decreased distance travelled in the supply chain, therefore being more sustainable. Due to the fact that vertical farming can precisely control variables such as light, humidity and water, food production is increased with reliable harvest times all-year-round. In certain setups, vertical farms do not even require soil for plants to grow (such as hydroponic farms, where plants are grown in nutrient-dense bowls of water), while using 70% less water than traditional farms, and therefore optimizing energy conservation.

Farming processes automation or “Smart Farming”

Farm automation refers to technology that makes farming more efficient while automating the production cycle of crops or livestock. This can be done via robotics innovation, such as drones, autonomous tractors, robotic harvesters, automatic watering and seeding robots. Automatic watering and robotic harvesters are already being commonly used in vertical farming. The main goal of farm automation is to cover easier and monotonous tasks. However, it also contributes to tackling such issues as labor shortages, environmental footprint of farming and rapidly changing consumer preferences.

Livestock farming technology

The livestock industry is often not given enough attention; however, it is one of the most crucial areas of agriculture. Livestock management represents running of livestock related agribusinesses, such as poultry farms, dairy farms and cattle ranches. Technological advancements in the past years, such as digital & nutritional technology and genetics, have made managing and tracking livestock easier and more data-driven. The ‘connected cow’ concept is a good example. Putting individual wearable sensors on cattle that track daily activity and health-related activities can provide valuable insights on the entire herd that can then be used to make quick management decisions.

Modernized greenhouses

The greenhouse industry has been transforming itself from small-scale facilities, that are oftentimes just used for R&D, to large-scale direct competitors of land-based traditional food producers. Research conducted by Artemis² in 2017 indicated that the global greenhouse industry produces more than $340 billion worth of vegetables per year, while the US represents less than 0.5% of that. Another interesting note is that the global market for data in the greenhouse vegetable industry is worth more than $120 billion, as the valuable insights help growers cut costs and increase revenues.

With the recent technological advancements and FAO’s estimates that food production would have to increase by 70% to feed 9 billion people by 2050³, the greenhouse market industry is growing like never before. Successful greenhouse companies have located their facilities near urban hubs to capitalize on the increasing demand for local food all-year-round.

Precision agriculture

Precision agriculture companies are developing technologies that enable maximization of yields by controlling every variable involved in farming, such as water or moisture levels, pest stress, soil conditions and micro-climates. This is done in combination with, for example, IoT-connected sensors that constantly provide valuable insights. Efficiency of farming and cost management are then improved by providing more accurate techniques for planting and growing crops.

Big data & artificial intelligence

Due to the increasing amount of digital technology being used in agriculture, there is more and more data being collected by sensors, drones and satellites, which is all available for analysis. The data includes such information as soil moisture and condition, humidity, temperature and plant or livestock health. AI is then able to learn from every single data input, becoming better at predicting the outcomes over time. The goal is for farmers to use AI in making better decisions, thereby improving harvest.

Blockchain

Blockchain’s main aim is to improve transparency and efficiency of supply chain processes and food traceability, together with solving such issues as food fraud. Food traceability is always at the center of food safety discussions due to the perishable nature of the product, which can potentially negatively affect people’s lives. In many cases, the current communication framework within the food ecosystem is very manual and time consuming, and therefore vulnerable to delays, inefficiencies and mistakes. The way blockchain is structured solves that, as information is visible to all participants in the system and its truth is verified and cannot be altered with, due to the nature of the blockchain technology.

Top AgTech Innovators to Watch

Iron Ox (USA)

Iron Ox was founded in 2015 with the main goal of addressing food security by developing autonomous greenhouses that grow local and consistent food. They focus on sustainable, scalable food production for a changing climate and an ever-growing population. Their hydroponic growing system is also very sustainable, as it uses 90% less water than traditional farming, while growing 30 times the amount of crops per acre of land.

CarbonBook (Canada)

CarbonBook, previously known as Motorleaf, founded in 2016, focuses on AI-powered greenhouse automation. Using their clients’ greenhouse data, CarbonBook develops custom-made AI automation technology that will only work at the given farm, therefore enabling powerful data-driven decision-making. Their AI services provide farmers with accurate automated harvest yield forecasts, enabling them to better plan labor, operations and marketing. Using the collected data, CarbonBook will also calculate the farmer’s current carbon footprint and advice on how to improve it, therefore making the farm more sustainable.

Connecterra (the Netherlands)

Founded in 2014, Connecterra is a Dutch company whose mission is to train an AI bot to learn how to farm, empowering farmers of all sizes to increase productivity and harvest, while reducing environmental impact. Their first product, IDA, is a self-learning system that uses AI technology to improve productivity in dairy farming. IDA has already evolved from just being sensor tech to a full-stack tech solution and AI platform that combines proprietary sensor hardware, animal data, third-party enterprise data, and machine-learning algorithms.

AgriWebb (Australia)

Agriwebb, founded in 2013, is transforming global cattle and sheep production with farm management software that delivers profitability, provenance and sustainability across the supply chain. One of their newer features also includes tools for individual livestock management, using IoT-connected wearables. Agriwebb’s solution provides support in many areas, including reports making, farm mapping and management, and task management.

iUNU (the USA)

iUNU focuses on improving the efficiency of greenhouses all over the world. Their main product is an AI called LUNA, which leverages computer vision to allow farmers to manage crop growth cycles more efficiently, while focusing on identifying growing diseases before the crop is affected and promoting improved accountability through the workflow management application. LUNA turns commercial greenhouses into improved, predictable and efficient, demand-based food production systems.

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Footnotes

• Crunchbase, Agtech Sector Blooms As More Dollars and Startups Rush In ↩

• Artemis, Let’s Talk About Market Size ↩

• FAO, Global agriculture towards 2050 ↩