Technology as a Solution: The plethora of problems stated in the agriculture industry has many folds and will require multi-level solutions. Governance, planning, infrastructure, business models, and technology will act as key catalysts to drive effective changes. In this case, technology can be used as an effective tool kit to address these problems. Technologies such as AI, Big Data, IoT (Internet-Of-Things), Agricultural-Automation, Blockchain, Genetics, Biotechnology, and Geo-Satellite could be utilized as effective tools to facilitate the agricultural industry; however, emerging economies face major challenges in facilitating such technology, such as cost of deployment and existing infrastructure. Effective utilization of this technology will require the following:
AI, Big Data, and IoT require significantly advanced infrastructure (data retrieval devices, data curation tools, ubiquitous devices, etc.) to address the challenges posed by the agricultural sector of emerging economies. All these technologies require significant amounts of skilled manpower to design, extract, curate and execute operations. Most of this information is also processed in proprietary enterprise systems which make sense of the data. Unfortunately, most emerging economies cannot facilitate such processes, and even in developed countries such as the United States, home of the “Boston IoT Tomato Project”, development is still contentious and requires several phases of improvement before producing actionable outcomes that will lead to higher productivity and efficiency.9
On the other hand, technologies such as Biotechnology and the Genetic Modification of plant life have yielded far more actionable outcomes. In developed countries such as the United States, scientists at or funded through USDA have opened up new options for farmers responding to market needs and environmental challenges. Many new plant varieties being grown by farmers have been produced using genetic engineering, which involves manipulating the plant’s genes through techniques of modern molecular biology often referred to as recombinant DNA technology. However, such processes require considerable amounts of safety and compliance regulations. In the United States, USDA supports the safe and appropriate use of science and technology, including biotechnology, to help meet agricultural challenges and consumer needs of the 21st-century.10 USDA plays a key role in assuring that biologically altered plants and products derived from those plants are safe to be grown and used in the United States. Once those plants and products enter commerce, USDA supports bringing them and other products to the worldwide market.
As described in this publication, most emerging economies face major governance and infrastructure challenges that leave them unable to create safe and transparent mechanisms. Research is time consuming, costly, and requires considerable amounts of dedicated skilled manpower. While some developing countries have produced successful results through research, such as the high yielding variety of rice (IRRI) produced through BRRI (Bangladesh Rice Research Institute) in Bangladesh, equal amounts of resources and time should be dedicated to meet global demands.11 Agricultural automation or machinery used in agriculture has been the pivotal tool for industrialization. Most developed countries have utilized these machines to exponentially change the production and efficiency of both plants and livestock. Machines, such as an automated saw for rice fields, improve a farmer’s capabilities to produce; however, the saying, “A machine is only as good as its operator,” is a daunting reality in emerging economies, as most farmers who lack the knowledge to effectively utilize agricultural machinery resort to more traditional processes of farming. Furthermore, the cost of such types of machinery and their ancillary requirements, such as uninterrupted power supply or fuel, making them difficult to adopt in emerging economies. As mentioned previously, most farms in developing countries are smallholdings, and large farming machinery such as the “In-Row Weeder” or “Harvester” are unnecessary due to their size. This suggests that new tools, both specialized and localized, are necessary to address the agriculture industry in emerging economies. Unfortunately, most of those countries do not house companies able to produce and deploy such products at scale, and without the utilization of agricultural-machinery, it is difficult to attain a prosperous agricultural industry.
Emerging technologies, such as blockchain, are offering solutions and opportunities in the agricultural industry. Blockchain technology requires less on-ground infrastructure and provides affordable access to multiple sets of tools. Additionally, the skilled manpower required for the technology can largely be pooled from existing resources placed in other parts of the world; thus, the same pool of resources can be shared by multiple parties across various geographic locations. Key challenges in the adoption of blockchain are based on both understanding and creating regulatory and compliance clarity within the agriculture industry. There is no doubt that this technology will have a major impact on the agricultural industry upon implementation.