Farmers Edge’s CEO explores what’s on the cusp of agriculture and provides his predictions for what 2021 could seem like for this business
As increasingly more biotech and precision agriculture instruments grow to be obtainable, to not point out a shifting political panorama and labor market, it’s no shock that change all the time appears proper across the nook for the agriculture business. A lot of these modifications, particularly as they apply to manufacturing efficiencies and improved environmental impacts, are resoundingly good. Nonetheless, the cadence of those modifications can generally be exhausting to handle. If we take a step again, we are able to have a look at the broader tendencies and, maybe, get a perspective on which path our sector is headed as an entire.
With that in thoughts, I can, in good religion, predict a few of the shifts that we are going to see for the approaching yr. Listed below are my six greatest predictions for the agricultural business in 2021:
1. 2021 shall be a breakout yr for ladies in agriculture
The linked farm and fashionable applied sciences will empower extra girls to run farms and to take management positions within the business. In the present day, brains — not brawn — are the brand new key to a farm’s success as know-how closes the gender hole. As well as, as a result of farm households are getting smaller, all farm children are getting the identical publicity and subject expertise. Know-how makes that outdated notion of solely boys within the subject a factor of the previous.
It’s really thrilling to see this shift going down, and I imagine 2021 shall be a breakout yr for ladies within the business. Simply our workers at Farmers Edge, we’re seeing many extra girls occupying technical roles akin to precision know-how specialists who set up {hardware} for our growers and software program engineers working for our innovation hub, which has elevated greater than the place we had been even simply 5 years in the past.
2. Nitrous oxide mandates are on the horizon
In 2021, we might even see new rules on nitrous oxide. Whereas much less plentiful than CO2, nitrous oxide is 300x extra dangerous to the setting, and it’s growing within the ambiance. Agriculture is among the many largest contributors of nitrous oxide as a result of it’s produced as a by-product of nitrogen-based fertilizer. In 2021, we’ll enhance the adoption of data-driven fertilizer purposes that may apply exactly the correct quantity wanted to scale back nitrous oxide emissions. Mandates or not, utilizing know-how to show you’ve lowered your nitrogen purposes will grow to be much more essential.
3. With carbon credit — cash talks
In 2021, you may guess we’ll begin to see carbon credit within the $30 to $50 per acre vary. That form of cash will definitely get the eye of growers.
Agriculture has been dabbling with carbon credit for a decade by way of small pilot applications. Now we’re seeing broader curiosity and exercise throughout North America, from each authorities businesses and enormous firms. Because the protocols get outlined and the markets develop, growers will begin to establish the alternatives that match greatest for them. These trying to generate carbon credit will flip to their digital instruments and farm administration platform to seize the required information from their fields and operations to simply monitor and fulfill the reporting necessities.
Client demand may also make carbon offsets engaging. Extra shoppers are anxious about the place their meals comes from, so if a grocery chain can legitimately market their bread as being from farms which have lowered their carbon emissions, that bread will go for a premium. Customers can pay extra understanding the farmer is doing every part to safeguard the setting.
4. 2021 will see an abundance of plant-based meals served with a facet of information
Plant-based consuming is on the rise globally, and the market is anticipated to surpass $35 billion (USD) by 2024. Fueling this development is burgeoning consumer demand for transparency and understanding exactly the place their meals has come from and the way it was cultivated, straight again to the farm of origin.
Growers will depend on digital instruments that inform intimately how protein-rich crops like canola, lentils, and peas had been grown, harvested and transported to the buyer, by way of automated audit studies. This info may also allow growers to earn premiums on crops that meet stringent high quality requirements, together with natural and non-GMO.
Past crop traceability, growers will proceed to make use of digital instruments to find out which number of crops they may develop, the place to plant them for the very best yield, and the right way to handle provide and demand to assist forestall shortages of particular crops. Not too way back, peas fell out of favor amongst growers, however we are actually seeing a resurgence of peas to help the manufacturing of meals with plant-based protein.
5. Digital farming will help efforts to assist cease the unfold of COVID-19 on the farm and amongst agricultural professionals
The COVID-19 pandemic confirmed the fragility of our international provide chains and woke up shoppers to the significance of agriculture. Whereas individuals handled large shortages of bathroom paper and workplace furnishings, there was by no means a scarcity of meals as an entire. Individuals in every single place have a renewed appreciation for farmers now, which is super.
In 2021, growers will digitize their farms at a sooner price and use farm platforms to interact electronically with companions, insurance coverage brokers and bankers to conduct routine enterprise, as a substitute of assembly head to head as a part of their pandemic mitigation technique. Growers and agricultural professionals may also enhance funding in private protecting gear for his or her workers and set up higher social distancing within the subject to mitigate the chance of the virus spreading.
6. The USDA shall be below strain to alter its stance on digital InsurTech instruments
In the present day, the USDA nonetheless requires brokers and brokers to satisfy head to head with growers though a digital platform saves money and time.
With the pandemic, the USDA will lastly see the benefit of a protected, distant possibility as extra growers who use digital farming practices that maximize yield and mitigate dangers shall be rewarded by insurance coverage firms with decrease premiums that match exactly the suitable degree of threat.
Whereas the USDA has been gradual to embrace the digital transformation in how crop insurance coverage is underwritten, how claims are filed and processed, and the way acreage studies are created and delivered, they may make massive strikes ahead in 2021 to embrace agri-insurance know-how.
Wade Barnes is CEO and co-founder of Farmers Edge, a number one digital agriculture firm. In his spare time, you’ll find Barnes at his farm in Birtle, Manitoba, the place he farms wheat, canola, barley, and peas.
