Agribusiness is a dynamic and complex sector that faces many challenges and opportunities in the 21st century.
From climate change and sustainability to digital transformation and innovation, the industry needs to adapt and evolve to meet the changing needs and demands of consumers, producers, and regulators. In this article, we will explore some of the most important trends in agribusiness that will impact your business in the next five years and how you can prepare for them.
1 Climate-smart agriculture
One of the most pressing issues for agribusiness is how to reduce its environmental footprint and enhance its resilience to climate change. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach that aims to achieve three objectives: increase productivity, adapt to climate variability and extremes, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. CSA involves adopting practices and technologies that improve soil health, water efficiency, crop diversity, pest management, and carbon sequestration. By implementing CSA, you can improve your profitability, reduce your risks, and contribute to global climate goals.
4 Circular agriculture
A fourth significant trend in agribusiness is the transition from a linear to a circular economy that minimizes waste and maximizes resource efficiency. Circular agriculture is a principle that aims to close the loops in the production and consumption of agricultural products by reducing, reusing, and recycling materials and energy. Circular agriculture can help you save costs, generate new income, and enhance your environmental and social performance. Circular agriculture involves adopting practices and technologies that enable biorefinery, biogas, composting, biochar, and other forms of valorization and recovery.
Circular agriculture aims to reintegrate food waste and organic residues into the soil, but implementing this large-scale practice involves challenges. Developing compatible infrastructure requires substantial resources. Also, ensuring the safety and benefit of returned materials is vital, yet complicated, as food waste varies and can harbor toxins. Logistics and costs of managing waste might discourage stakeholders. Changing societal perspective on waste is essential, yet demanding. Addressing these requires political commitment, technological innovation, effective legislation, and public education.
It is very pertinent for those who believe that beautiful things come in small packages. Small, Simple and Efficient. In a crowded world with many condominium buildings and small spaces, surely this type of Agribusiness has a future
5 Inclusive agriculture
A fifth important trend in agribusiness is the promotion of inclusive and equitable development that benefits all stakeholders in the sector. Inclusive agriculture is an approach that seeks to empower smallholders, women, youth, and marginalized groups to access markets, finance, technology, and knowledge. Inclusive agriculture can help you improve your productivity, quality, and competitiveness, as well as your social impact and reputation. Inclusive agriculture requires you to engage in multi-stakeholder platforms, value chain integration, capacity building, and social responsibility.
Digital tools, platforms, automated farm equipment, and biological innovations can increase agricultural productivity, and powerful new technologies accelerate far-reaching social and ecological change. However, these ag-tech opportunities stand on shaky ground due to factors such as unequal access by farmers, a narrow focus on a few commercial crops and livestock, faulty equipment (GPS systems, sensors, and other hardware and software algorithms), and the inability of these technologies to gauge complex farm realities, practices, cultures, and micro-climates. As global crises of food, finance, and the environment converge, there is a need for coordinated and equitable global decision-making.
What will the tractor of 2030 look like?
The ongoing conflict between various nations, war and war-like situations have highlighted the importance of food security. In addition, the trend towards sustainable use of resources for crop production, like low water usage, low NPK requirement or less use of crop protection chemicals, the need for reduced carbon emission and increased yield to feed the growing population and protein demand will drive industry innovation and product development in the coming decade. New seed technologies like gene editing along with existing transgenic techniques, digital agriculture, and biologicals will help attain such goals in the future.
By the year 2050, U.S. growers will need to reach an impressive level of food production to help feed a growing world population. Fewer in number, they will operate multifaceted businesses with stunning new technology to increase efficiency on farms.
These predictions come from experts who study food and farming trends. Here’s a look at what they think life on the farm will look like in 33 years.
Food Demand Increases
The two big drivers of food demand—population and income—are on the rise. The world’s population is expected to reach 9.1 billion people in 2050, up from 7.4 billion in 2016. Farmers globally must increase food production 70 percent compared to 2007 levels to meet the needs of the larger population, according to a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.1
Also driving food demand is an increase in global income levels, especially those in developing countries. As a result, these countries will be able to expand diets with more protein.
When older growers exit the business, there are fewer younger growers to replace them. As a result, farm consolidation will be significant and quick, says Widmar. The consolidation will change farm dynamics to larger, more managerial complexities.
Farming will go “from a one-man show to something resembling a medium- to large-size business,” he says. “As a farmer, it will be very complicated, with a mix of multigenerational family members and hired employees.”
High-Tech Solutions Evolve
Farm consolidation will drive the need for more outside labor. Expect high-tech solutions like robotics to come to the rescue.
“If you have a robot, it can help manage labor issues,” Widmar says. Already, dairy farmers use robotic milkers as a substitute for labor. And farm equipment manufacturers are testing prototypes of robotic tractors and sprayers to handle fieldwork without human drivers.
The leap from prototype to commercial operation of robotic machinery may be short. Many new machines are currently equipped with the electronics to control operations with very little human interaction. However, the legal and regulatory issues surrounding robots must be bridged first.
With its regulations already in place, drone technology is poised for a boom in farm usage. In the next 10 years, the agricultural drone industry will generate 100,000 jobs in the U.S. and $82 billion in economic activity, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research report. Potential use of on-farm drones by 2050 is huge, from imagery and product application to transporting supplies and jobs not yet imagined.
