It’s easy to get mopey and depressed when you read the papers. Violent crime. Rampant corruption. Failing education. Weakening Rand.

Farmers face a dual challenge. How can they produce the food required to feed the world, while protecting the planet at the same time? The solution will rest on finding effective ways to minimize the losses of energy, water and nutrients associated with farming.

Suid Afrika se Landbouers het toegang tot vele "gadgets" wat allerhande data kan versamel en op byna enige implement, trekker of masjinerie geinstalleer kan word. Dit is die versameling van data, data wat letterlik elke dag bestudeer moet word om suksesvol te kan boer.

AGRICULTURE today is becoming ever more reliant on Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, but a good many also have their eyes trained on the potential vulnerabilities our most vital industry may be exposed to through agritech devices.

It’s time for agricultural researchers to take better advantage of the massive amount of data they produce and move into an era of “big science.” Open data—data that are publicly available and have been intentionally prepared for reuse and innovation by others—is the path to the research breakthroughs of the future. But to make that move, agricultural science must change in significant ways.

As Canadian farmers leave traditional tasks to smart machines, and focus on strategy and systems, they’ll be better positioned than ever to feed a fast-growing global population. But to do that, they’ll need a wide range of new skills, as well as enhanced old skills, that Canada isn’t developing anywhere near fast enough.

A comment I hear regularly from my customers across the world is: “My data is in the wrong place, I can’t make any sense of it, help, what do I do next?” Another is: “I only start my computer up a couple of times a year and I’ve forgotten how to work the software.”

Trade wars, labor shortages, and drastic weather really tested our patience and our commitment to farming.

Agrimetrics’ Agri-Food Data Marketplace enables data-owners safely to share and monetise their data, whilst making it easier for data-consumers to find the information they need.

Canadian researchers have identified data ownership concerns as harmful to farmers’ return-on-investment, adding yet another barrier to precision-tech adoption.

Africa can often be a continent of major contradictions, but perhaps especially when it comes to agriculture.

The COVID-19 pandemic and consequent lockdown measures have had a huge negative impact on producers and consumers. Food production has been disrupted, and incomes have been lost. But a far more devastating welfare consequence of the pandemic could be reduced access to food.

Over the past few days, we have reflected on 2020/21 global grain and oilseed production estimates from the International Grain Council (IGC).

By 2050, it is estimated that our planet will have 9 billion inhabitants. And they all need one thing: food.

I can well see how farmers in five years’ time will insist on interaction between data providers, service providers and consultants visiting their farms,” says Coenraad Fraenkel, CEO of Agrimotion Consulting, soon to be based at the University of Stellenbosch’s AgroHub at Welgevallen experimental farm, where they are the only commercial consultancy present amid leading research institutes.

 We have been writing for a while about South Africa's agricultural performance in 2020, but with full-year trade data now available, we felt compelled to revisit the subject. South Africa's agricultural exports amounted to US$10,2 billion in 2020, which is a 3% increase from the previous year.

Bayer’s digital arm, The Climate Corporation, is further expanding its position worldwide.

DEVELOPING ag tech products that save farmers time and money, and securing the capital and effective strategies to bring those products to market, hold the key to increasing the adoption of ag tech in the farming sector.

In recent years, the adoption of digital technologies in precision agriculture has been adjusting the ways that farmers treat crops and manage fields.

Combining data in a structured way is often a problem for growers, says Chief Marketing Officer Reinder Prins of Agworld. “That is the biggest hurdle for them.”