The Future Of Agriculture And Food

Thomas Jefferson once said “Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness”. Agriculture is single-handedly the most important industry in the country, and even the world. The way that we can keep up with the growing population and demands for fresh food is through agribusiness. Google has two definitions of agribusiness; the first says agriculture conducted on commercial principles, especially using advanced technology. The second definition states that it is the group of industries dealing with agricultural produce and services required in farming. There are many different important roles in agribusiness, but I am only going to talk about a few. The roles I am elaborating on are the advancement in machinery, modified seeds and research.

Advancements in agriculture has sky rocketed in the past few decades, especially in machinery. Michell Zappa (2014) says in his article ’15 Emerging Agriculture Technologies That Will Change The World’ that there are four key areas of accelerating change and they are sensors, food, automation, and engineering. The sensors help by enabling traceability and data from the livestock, crops, or machine states. This can include air and soil sensors which will give an accurate understanding of the conditions of the current farm, forest, or body of water. Another example is livestock biometrics in which you can relay vital information about the livestock by placing collars with GPS, RFID and biometrics to the owner. The accelerating changes of food are the genetically designed food which is the creation of entirely new strains of plants and animals to address their physiological and biological food, this would be engineering them from the ground up. The next change is in automation. This will provide with the agriculture industry with many new advancements such as agricultural robots, precision agriculture, robotic farm swarms, and variable rate swath control which all will help farmers in being more efficient and less wasteful. The last key area is engineering though which closed ecological systems which is the replication of an ecosystem that would transform waste products into oxygen. Another example is synthetic biology which will help in manipulating chemicals, fabricate materials and structures, produce energy, provide food, and maintain health for humans and the environment. Another advancement in Agribusiness is seeds and chemicals being altered and enhanced

There are different companies that are producing modified seeds, and Monsanto is one of the largest companies to do so. Monsanto is a sustainable agriculture company that delivers products that support farmers all around the world. Their website states that they are “offering complex solutions to issues by developing better seeds and systems to help farmers with productivity on the farm and grow more nutritious food while conserving natural resources”. The company has a world-class breeding program that is aimed to adapt the seeds to local conditions. These adaptations are made possible through genetic modification through breeding of two ideal parents to create an offspring that has the best plant characteristics for certain areas that farmers are located. The different characteristics that the plants are bred to tolerate are herbicide tolerance, insect tolerance, and drought tolerance. The eight row crops that Monsanto provides seeds for are: alfalfa, cotton, canola, sorghum, corn, soybeans, sugarbeets and wheat. These seed modifications are aiding farmers in getting a higher yield and can potentially help produce more food for the growing population. This however cannot be done without the right research.

Agribusiness is partially about sensing an opportunity. Strategic and financial investors are racing to capture value through technological innovation in food and agriculture. Finding the right investment is not easy, and it requires a deep understanding of many factors including production on specific crops, geographic, inputs, processing and retailing. The investors that see trends in agribusiness and food and fiber will be the ones who have profitability. Some of the major trends lie in companies, suppliers of machinery, seeds, chemicals, animal-health and vaccines, and precision agriculture. The need for a regulatory data system for farmers to get reliable data on the environment and the crop production is growing. Deere & Company and Monsanto have announced partnerships on data with input firms, which should make more opportunities arise and allow for comprehensive data to become available.

Agribusiness is a growing sector from the investments in machinery, modified seeds and research. There will always be agriculture and it is an important industry to be in because of that. With the growing technology there will be many advancements all the way from the farm to the table. Modified seeds are allowing farmers to defy their environment and plant seeds to help with herbicide tolerance, insect tolerance, and drought tolerance. With the right knowledge and research, investors can make the right investment opportunity in the agriculture industry and examine trends that can positively affect farmers in their harvests. This is just scratching the surface on the future of the Agribusiness sector in relation to food, fiber, sustainability and technology, but these are very important factors that are shaping the agriculture industry no and will continue to shape it in the future.