Introduction
It is estimated that global demand for food will rise by 50 percent by 2050 to feed a population of almost 10 billion with rising income levels. Further, a rapid rate of urbanization is expected in the coming years, with approximately 66 percent of the world’s population expected to live in urban areas by 2050.
To achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number two, to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture” by 2030, the FAO is calling for more productive, efficient, sustainable, inclusive, transparent, and resilient food systems.
The goal of the global agricultural value chain, which involves the full range of value adding activities spanning through the different phases of production, manufacturing, storage, distribution and supply and impacting several interconnected areas, is to provide sustainable access to affordable food and achieve other sustainable development goals. However, this goal is getting harder to achieve every year due to several prominent challenges such as climate change, rapid technological innovation, access to information etc. and manifesting themselves through increased volatility, complexity and scrutiny throughout the value chain. Recent food controversies in the UK, such as the ongoing horsemeat scandal (Figure 4.0) and the supplier of halal food found to contain traces of pork, further drive transparency and food security demands from society.
Technology can serve as an enabler for improvements in creating an integrated food system that can help meet the goals of providing sustainable access to food and welfare. The use of new and advanced disruptive technologies can help farmers and other players through the value chain to improve food production and achieve other direct and ancillary benefits. This e-book outlines the ways in which disruptive technologies can help access the benefits from the food system and also points out the potential negative impacts through their use.
Traditional food supply chain
Figure 5.0 depict the various functions, inputs, key actors, consequences and impacts across the four typical categories of the food supply chain (land/livestock, crop/livestock, product and food).
The traditional food supply chain of produce involves the cultivation of the land by the farmer, maintaining a healthy growth of the crop to harvest, harvesting including post-harvest processing such as threshing drying etc. of the crops and storage, transportation to processors/distributors, value-added processing, if any, packaging and shipping to retailers/restaurants/food outlets or to the wholesaler/retailers.
The typical livestock/meat supply has the breeder/farmer raising the livestock who are then sent to the slaughterhouse to harvest meat, this meat undergoes boning/cutting and is packed to be shipped to meat product producer/distributer/retailer and finally to consumers.
Challenges in the existing food supply chain
There are many challenges faced by the traditional food supply chain that can be mitigated at least in part by the new and emerging disruptive technologies. Examples of the challenges faced by current stakeholders in the food supply chain include:
Increasing urbanization, reducing available farmland to meet increasing demand. These encompass constant need to improve yields with the use of fertilizers, high-yield cultivars
Prevent crop loss to - pests and diseases, inadequate irrigation in the face of unpredictable weather patterns and climate change as well as prevent loss among livestock farmers due to spread of infectious diseases, loss due to theft and inadequate storage facilities
Lack of access to agricultural finance and insurance, market access and infrastructure.
Loss/wastage of food due to over-production, low shelf-life, contamination, lack of adequate transport to the distribution outlets
Opportunities provided by emerging technologies
Disruptive technologies can help the key actors optimize the relationships between the inputs and functions, minimize the negative consequences and impacts and maximize benefits such as yields, market presence and value, access to food etc. The disruptive technologies offer us the opportunity to rethink the supply chain and help tackle the challenges along all levels of the chain through use of innovative solutions. The following sections describe the various disruptive technologies for the four supply chain categories across the technology domains. In addition to providing example technologies, the sections will also broadly provide details on implementation factors including their relevance, applicability, dependability, and scalability, and barriers.
Rethinking Production
Disruptive technologies such as IOT for soil monitoring and theft prevention, aerial monitoring for pest control, shared services for mechanized farming, irrigation control through apps on mobile phones provide innovative solutions to the challenges faced by the farmers.
- Aerial Monitoring Tools: Aerial monitoring, also known as remote sensing, can be conducted by drones, airplanes, and satellites, which monitor conditions from different altitudes to reveal patterns that highlight irrigation problems, soil variation, deforestation, changes in livestock, tracking the movement of livestock, soil erosion, pest and fungal infestations, and other information that may not be easily apparent at ground level. Airborne cameras can take multispectral images, capturing data from the infrared as well as the visual spectrum. These images can be sequenced to show changes in fields.
- Ground-Based Monitoring Tools: In- or on-ground sensors can be deployed to monitor soil conditions, weather data, and many other details, which can then be transmitted to decision analytics platforms via the Internet of Things. Startup firm Arable, for example, has designed a solar-powered in-ground sensor that can gather data on crop stress, air pressure, humidity, temperature, chlorophyll, canopy biomass, rainfall, and other information which can then be analyzed on its platform to improve precision farming.
Example Technologies
Chipsafer - Uruguay (Internet of Things)- IOT and cloud -based solution to prevent cattle theft, early detection of diseases affecting cattle
Smart agricultural monitoring solutions -La Fábrica a Alegre - Internet of Things- IOT based monitoring solution for pest control with minimum use of pesticides and other crop management measures
This technology provides affordable, open-source sensor solutions that function on 2G, 3G bands and Wifi that allows them to be adapted to meet the needs of developing countries. Amongst the devices are Garden Gnome, an open-sourced Internet of Things (IoT) based platform for agricultural monitoring along with TrapIt, an automated pest-monitoring system that attracts, traps, and counts invasive moth species in real time.
Rethinking Data Analytics and agricultural information dissemination
Many centralized digital platforms are available that use agronomic data gathered from precision monitoring technology, historic weather data, and other sources to conduct detailed analysis. Analysis can help farmers make informed decisions such as optimize their operations, improve the timing of pest control, receive real time alerts, increase yields and save time and resources like pesticides.
Example Technologies
SXagro – Sxagro from Stesalit with embedded GIS interface can better organize and analyze spatial data, address the problems related to spatial and temporal variability of various natural resources on which the performance of agricultural systems depends. The system allows the management to gather, analyze, and display spatial data.
Rethinking solutions for Farm mechanization and irrigation
Emerging innovations such as self-driving tractors have the potential to improve farm productivity in new ways, enabling farmers to tend to several fields from one location and operate equipment throughout the day and night. Uber for tractors is a new concept that allows farmers needing a tractor or any farm equipment to use a mobile app and place their order. They will receive a well-maintained tractor along with a professional driver with utmost ease. Not only can they get their work done in a stress-free manner, with consistent use of mechanisation, their productivity increases too.
Automated irrigation systems can collect data on soil type, water levels, quality, and accessibility to efficiently deploy water and soil nutrients. When automated machines are connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) and other analytics tools, precision and efficiency in operations can be achieved.
Example Technologies
Trringo Pay per use farm mechanization
Hello Tractor Smart Multipurpose Tractor
Rethinking mobile irrigation and farming solutions
Agriworks Mobile Irrigation System for African Smallholders
Illuminium Greenhouses Smart mobile farming in Africa
Rethinking Institutional/Social Contract and ways of doing business
Technology solutions are also being designed to help farmers and communities to engage in community awareness and education, social protection schemes, entrepreneurial programs for poor women smallholders etc.
Example Technology
Rethinking Markets and Food traceability solutions
Once the food leaves the farm, it enters into a lifecycle which may include processing, warehousing, distribution and delivery to retailers. These stages can introduce a whole range of risks including safety and quality, waste and environmental issues, traceability, regulatory controls, and consumer protection. Several technologies are being developed to address these risks and targeted at not only providing last mile solutions such as protecting the interests and safety of the consumer of food products but also of ensuring that the farmers are able to reap the social and economic benefits from the sales.
IoT sensors attached to pallets help monitor the temperature and humidity conditions are with respect to the products. In a processing plant, IoT sensors can monitor the freshness of the products to adjust packaging to the conditions of particular products to preserve freshness and reduce spoilage.
Progress of goods can be geographically tracked to market, while feeding analytics systems that help determine the safest and speediest routes. The goods can also be monitored for environmental controls such as refrigeration and the integrity of packages and containers that meats and produce are stored. If the seal of a container is broken, or temperature and humidity controls within the container fail, the sensors issue immediate alerts to supply chain managers so the situation can be mitigated. Together, these food track, trace and control mechanisms reduce spoilage and maintain the track and trace of foods. These traceability solutions can particularly help developing countries be able to meet stringent regulatory requirements and compete and sell their products in developed countries.
The food freshness journey doesn't stop at the retailer, however. Today’s smart refrigerators also aid consumers in managing their food freshness and avoiding spoilage. These smart refrigerators can now read everything from a single label on a product, including where the product came from, what ingredients it contains, and what its current freshness is. The refrigerated appliance can even recommend to consumers which foods to eat first in order to avoid waste.
In addition to using IoT solutions for traceability blockchain technology can also help to integrate with smart contracts to automate payments when certain milestones are achieved, such as product received into processing facility. This eliminates the lag time for farmers getting paid for their product. Smart contracts can also be configured to spread out payment to farmers periodically through the year versus the traditional method of paying farmers seasonally.
Example Technologies
SmartmooSmart Dairy
Management (Internet of Things)
ZestFreshFreshness
Management (Internet of Things, Blockchain and AI)
Benefits and challenges of changes from disruption
The rapidly changing landscape as a result of the adoption of disruptive technologies in the agricultural food supply chain has presented tremendous demonstrated and potential benefits while also posing some challenges that need to be addressed.
Benefits:
Improved productivity and increased profits for the farmer/producer due to reduction in costs such as targeted pest control, effective use of fertilizers and soil monitoring techniques, better disease control, mitigation of loss due to theft
Better soil management, sustainable irrigation , reduction in environmental footprint by use of sustainable techniques such as reduced use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers
Better access to markets, financing, infrastructure and social development resulting from innovative business models
Increased food safety for the consumer from improved food traceability
Challenges:
Loss of employment due to increased automation
Concerns related to privacy of data collected from the IOT devices