With an ever growing world population the need to make agriculture more efficient and effective has grown. Technological developments and innovations make the difference, and a number of them will be shown in this article.
Nanotechnology
In agriculture nanotechnology is still in its infancy, though some developments are promising and have already been tested and implemented. One of the developments is the so-called Hexanal solution. The product Hexanal is a natural herbal extract slowing down the enzyme in a fruit or vegetable that cause spoilage by destroying cell membranes. In other words, fruit that would normally all be ripe at the same time, leading to a bumper crop, would ripen at different speeds with the help of Hexanal, thereby lengthening the harvesting time and changing the effects of supply and demand. Prices are no longer driven down during oversupply but stay steady for a longer period. By implementing nanotechnology the producer can create better cash flow and can invest more in his company.
Robots
In the automotive industry the use of robots has been commonplace for decades. Robots are now also entering the field of agriculture, especially autonomous ones. Robots can be used to spray pesticides, to pluck fruit of to sow seeds, so three activities normally requiring human power, but other activities in which robots can play a role in the future are sure to amaze us: self-driving tractors, robots inspecting the condition of crops, spraying wherever necessary, etc.. Such technological innovations make agriculture much more effective and less dependent on human labour, which is increasingly hard to find.
Block chain technology
The word block chain does not immediately remind us of agriculture, but it should, though. Transparency and safety are two issues that are closely linked in agriculture and this is where block chain is a real help. Let’s take an example. After soya beans, wheat and corn, coffee is the most traded agricultural produce. To track the life cycle of coffee beans a Denver-based company called Bext Holding has developed software and an app with the help of block chain technology. This allows consumers to see where their coffee beans have come from and whether the coffee farmer has received a fair price for his beans. This technological development will make sure that the provenance of more and more products will become more transparent in the future. Consumers can therefore make better informed and more conscious choices, and support for mass production in e.g. stockbreeding will surely go down in due course.
We will keep you posted of the technological advances in agriculture, stockbreeding and fishery.
