Sensors, robots, connected objects, drones, software packages… today enable farmers to make better decisions and improve their practices. But this digitalization raises questions about the evolution of the farming profession and the interoperability of the various tools, technologies and applications of “AGTech”.
What are the challenges, opportunities and obstacles to the digitalization of agriculture? How can the digitalization of agriculture be a vector of competitiveness and sustainability?
In order to write this article, we are relying – in a non-exhaustive and non-exclusive manner – on a conference that was held on October 1 during BIG 2020. Participants included Martin DucroquetCo-founder and CEO of Sencrop; Rémi Duméry, farmer; Florence Pradier, General Manager of La Coopération Agricole; Stéphane Marcel, Chief Digital Officer of Invivo; Maxine Roper, Founder of Connecting Food and Olivier Le Blainvaux, Founder of Néofarm.
Producing better thanks to digitalization
Thanks to monitoring, piloting and decision support tools, digitalization enables precision and conservation agriculture, while reducing the difficulty of certain tasks.
The farmer can, for example, have access to meteorological data; to collaborative maps concerning the progress of certain insects; to sensors that will enable him to know the composition of his soils and the water needs of his crops… The data collected gives him the possibility to better manage the care he must give to his crops, thus tending towards precision agriculture, plot by plot. The result can be seen in terms of added value for consumers with increased product quality: more natural products, better organoleptic qualities by optimizing the time of harvest, for example…
But precision agriculture also allows us to take into consideration the fact that the soil is not only a production support, but a living place. Digitization thus offers the possibility of moving towards conservation agriculture via a set of cultivation techniques designed to maintain and improve the agronomic potential of the soil, while maintaining regular and efficient production on the technical and economic levels.
Finally, the digitalization of agriculture contributes to reducing the drudgery and time required for certain tasks. Examples include the use of robots or connected tractors, or sensors that allow remote control to avoid travel on large farms. The benefits of digitalization in terms of physical strain also reflect a strong evolution of the farming profession through the necessary acquisition of new technical and data analysis skills.
Collectively improving best practices and innovating through data sharing
However, to be fully effective, the digitization of agriculture must be considered on a collective level, by linking data from several farms.
Because life requires a systemic approach and a certain amount of learning time linked to the rhythms of the seasons and of life, it takes years for a farmer’s experience to be built up. With only one crop harvest per year, the farmer has few opportunities to test, compare, or improve his practices.
The fact that we can collect and analyze data related to the practices of thousands of farmers allows us to have a repetition of experiences in different contexts. From this, it is easier to have predictive models and to identify good practices and contextual elements favorable to certain crops.
One of the challenges at this level is that of data collection by cooperatives or organizations capable of processing the data and making recommendations, with the underlying objective of improving competitiveness.
Enabling traceability, a vector of transparency, value, quality and consumer confidence
The advantages of the digitalization of agriculture can be seen in terms of information, communication and differentiation for the consumer. The conditions of production, the societal and environmental impact of a product… are thus made visible and accessible. Thanks to data collection and structuring systems; BlockChain; rating; labeling; data access; digitalization allows the consumer to make a more informed choice of product, by allowing him to access what is invisible to his eyes when he buys the product. The consumer can thus know the origin of a seed, the agricultural practices… he can even know precisely on which plot of land his product was grown!
In this way, traceability makes it possible to re-establish a truth, sometimes far from the allegations or generalizations made by the media. Traceability brings transparency which allows the producer to address directly the consumer by establishing a link with him. It allows to justify the price of a product and to bring the consumer to pay more for a better quality, but also for more virtuous practices.
Making tools accessible, developing farmers’ skills, focusing on interoperability
From the farm to the final consumer, via the collective farm, the digitization of agriculture holds the promise of continuous improvement of production in terms of quality, environmental impact, working conditions and transparency. In doing so, it transforms agriculture and the farming profession.
But to do so, several challenges must be met.
First of all, in order to reveal the hidden value of agriculture, two conditions are necessary: the first is a sufficient number of farmers with connected farms and the second is the harmonization of the data collected.
This is why, for all possible AgTech solutions, farmers must be supported financially and technically in the choice and implementation of tools to be used on their farms. Training is needed on the choice of tools, the selection of control data, but also the processing and analysis of data for continuous improvement. Digitization is an opportunity to train farmers in new techniques and farming approaches. Cooperatives and agricultural unions play an important role in data collection, analysis, information and training, while agricultural training programs must massively integrate these technical and digital skills into their curricula.
Another challenge in the digitalization of agriculture is interoperability. Indeed, one of the major obstacles to the benefits of digitalization is the lack of compatibility between certain tools, systems and data. For successful digitalization, interoperability must work from the field to the plate, with, for example, the possibility of connecting all digital tools to the same data.
Source : wonderfoodjob.com