Farming’s Digital Evolution: How Agtech Startups Are Building a Sustainable Future

Technology is a driving force for change. Transforming countless industries, it has brought the world closer through innovative new products and applications. The 2000s brought the iPhone, Facebook, and Uber. However, in the last decade a different type of technological disruption has been taking place. It’s one centered around a very basic human need: food.

The UN projects the world population to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, an increase of almost 25% from 2020¹. This means that farmers must increase food production globally by up to 56% to meet the demands of the growing population².

With a figure that large, questions of sustainability come to mind: How will we be able to feed all of these people? What impact will this population have on our ecological footprint? How will farmers adapt to address the trends in growing population?

There is a specific vertical of technology dedicated to addressing these questions: agtech.

With the potential to address the challenges of population growth and sustainable food, agtech will be a strong area of focus for us at IX Labs, the investment arm of Index Exchange. Our mission is to accelerate the adoption of technology across the world to solve everyday problems, and the sustainable production of food is an imperative problem for us to help solve.

The opportunities in agtech are vast, with lots of potential to improve crop yield and profitability, while remaining environmentally friendly. The benefits to improving our environment, rather than depleting it, instill a feeling of hope for a better tomorrow.

Here are a few of the most impactful ways agtech is transforming one of the oldest jobs known to humankind — farming — and where IX Labs will focus our support:

Drones

Drones have long been known for aerial photography, but it turns out this technology can also improve farming. Drones equipped with multispectral cameras can collect images of crops, capturing vital information such as soil fertility, crop damage, and irrigation levels. This isn’t data human eyes can see, but computer vision can.

Drones also provide a field mapping of crops along with crop counts, resulting in a unified dashboard showing the precise location of plants along with their vitals. This powerful data-driven approach can help farmers manage crops, soil, and irrigation more effectively.

The adoption of drones in agriculture is rapidly growing, and drones will become ubiquitous in the future. The global market size for agricultural drones was an estimated $1.32 billion in 2020 and it’s forecasted to reach $9.89 billion by 2028³. As drones become more advanced, they’ll be used for new applications, such as to spray crops. Spraying fertilizer or pesticide from a drone helps reduce waste by applying the solution only to areas that need it.

Robots

Robots have been in factories and assembly lines since the 1960s. In the past few years, they’ve also served as a helping hand on farms to automate basic and repetitive tasks such as crop picking. Since crops can bruise or damage easily, these robots need advanced levels of precision and dexterity. This requires a mix of robotics, computer vision, and machine learning and can free farmers up to focus on running the farm and improving crop output.

With a range of other use cases — from removing weeds or unwanted items from soil to crop spraying to planting seeds — it’s no surprise the agriculture robots market is expected to grow from $4.5 billion in 2020 to nearly $27 billion by 2027⁴. The proliferation of robotics in agriculture is welcome news for farmers who have been facing labor shortages. According to Pro Farmer, two-thirds of farmers experienced some level of difficulty in hiring adequate labor in 2021, compared to 30% in 2020⁵.

IoT

The internet of things (IoT) allows you to connect ordinary everyday objects to the internet, enabling them to talk to each other and to the cloud in real time. Smart homes and smart cars popularized IoT, but it plays an important role in smart farming as well. Farmers are increasingly embracing collecting and analyzing the data produced on their farms. Hidden inside this data are insights that can maximize operational efficiency and minimize costs.

For example, agriculture accounts for 70% of water withdrawals globally. But, as much as 40% of the water farmers use to irrigate crops is wasted⁶. Most irrigation systems rely on timers for scheduling, so it’s possible to feed crops too much or too little water. This is where IoT can help, as smart irrigation systems allow farmers to apply the right amount of water to crops at the right time, reducing water waste, saving money, and improving crop yield. IoT is essentially personalized medicine for crops.

At IX Labs, we pursue ventures that not only have potential for market success, but also have a positive impact on the world. Agtech is getting both the attention it deserves and that it critically needs, and Labs is looking forward to seeing how technology can disrupt our world and environment in a positive way.

If you’re interested in learning more about IX Labs and how we can work with your company, visit IX Labs or drop me a line.

“Nature once determined how we survive. Now we determine how nature survives.”

David Attenborough, Our Planet (2019)

Sources:

¹ Worldometer, World Population

² WUR, Meta-analysis shows that future food demand will increase between 35–56% over the period 2010–2050

³ Vantage Market Research, Read Statistics 2021 Report on Global and U.S. Agriculture Drones Market Size May Touch $ 9.89 Billion by 2028

⁴ Brandessence Market Research, Agriculture Robots Market Size, Share, Growth And Forecast By 2028

⁵ Pro Farmer, Farm optimism fades as producers fear rising input costs, labor shortages

⁶ High Tide Technologies, Water Usage In The Agricultural Industry