One of humanity’s age old problems is that of hunger: how to feed everyone sufficiently and efficiently. The original development of agriculture was the next step from humans being hunters and gatherers. This development allowed for reliability and consistency in terms of obtaining food levels. Ever since this breakthrough, we have been constantly trying to improve our agricultural system in order to meet the goals of sufficiency and efficiency. With an exponentially growing population comes more people to feed, and recent developments have created a sub-category known as “Smart Farming” which many believe to be the future for food production.
Essentially what smart farming is revolves around the usage of technology such as sensors, weather predictors, robots/drones, and other new tools that can be used to better the agricultural process. Smart farming is expected to continue on the incredible upward trend that it has been on in recent years. One major reason for this is that governments are beginning to see the incredible benefits of such systems, and have promoted or even subsidized the implementation of smart farming to better the food supply in their countries. The future of smart farming will be determined by how governments and private companies react to this trend and what new technologies will be used in the process.
Governments will need to decide how important smart farming is to their own country’s success in terms of food production, where millions of people are still hungry daily around the world. If this is something that federal or international governments decide to subsidize and invest in, the future of smart farming will be the future of all farming. These technological improvements to the agricultural system will very well become the only way that a farm can succeed. This type of reliance will create an incredible capitalistic opportunity for the market in the private sector of agriculture and technology.
There is so much room for growth where companies like RoboticsPlus and WaterBit have already begun to thrive in smart farming. RoboticsPlus specializes in artificial intelligence that picks and places fruits where they need to be while WaterBit which uses different technologies to improve water irrigation systems for farms. These are just two examples of companies that have seen great success, but the reliance on smart farming in the future will, by the laws of economics, cause more and more companies to compete in this industry and innovate in ways that will improve the agriculture system all over the world.
Innovation is what will be a result of economic investment and reliance for smart farming. While technologies are constantly being brought to the field to improve and enhance traditional farming, there is also a type of farming that is being developed to save physical space as urban areas continue to grow around the world. This is known as vertical farming, a system where water irrigation flows from the top floor to the bottom, harvesting crops and animals in a skyscraper or other vertical building, rather than the horizontal standard we are used to. This will certainly require the use of smart farming, as efficiency will be key in this futuristic way of growing food. Vertical farming is not the only major breakthrough that will come in the future, as the industry’s competition will create so many more.
Overall, the recent smart agriculture developments should see a continuation in their presence all over the world as efforts to improve food supply are constantly needed. Innovation and market pressures will enhance this growth certainly.
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