Growing a Cleaner Future with Agritech and Cleantech

Introduction

The world needs to increase food production by 70% to feed a global population that’s expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Yet farmers face environmental constraints that limit traditional approaches to agriculture. From greenhouse gas limits to restrictions on synthetic fertilizers, and from water scarcity to soil depletion, agriculture is at a crossroads.

Fortunately, farms can use existing and emerging technologies to achieve food systems that are both more productive and more sustainable. Agricultural technology, or agritech, encompasses a wide range of solutions, including data analytics, automation, biotechnology, and precision farming methods. By leveraging digital tools and technological advances, farmers can optimize resource use, minimize environmental impact, and enhance crop yields.

A significant part of agritech’s promise is its relationship to clean technology, or cleantech. This broader discipline offers solutions for agriculture that go beyond renewable energy integration and waste-to-energy solutions. Cleantech innovations for agriculture include smart irrigation systems for water conversation, carbon sequestration for soil health, robotic weed control for reduced pesticide use, and sustainable cold storage systems that can reduce post-harvest losses.

Finding Solutions

Together, agritech and cleantech can increase agricultural outputs and reduce environmental impacts as farmers feed a hungry world. Technology solutions vary but include precision agriculture systems, controlled environment agriculture, biotechnology platforms and automation, waste-to-value systems, artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles. Farms that implement some or all these technologies can enjoy measurable successes and overcome difficult challenges.

Precision Agriculture Systems

Precision agriculture systems use technologies like GPS guidance for farm vehicles, remote sensing for soil moisture and temperature, and nanotechnology for the smart delivery of nutrients. Whether the goal is optimized irrigation, more efficient feeding, or reduced fertilizer runoff, smart farms use sensor networks combined with real-time data collection and edge computing. Tractors and drones also use supporting technologies such as EMI shielding and multi-polarized antennas.

Controlled Environment Agriculture

Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) involves growing crops in an environment that’s carefully managed to optimize plant growth and productivity. To support predictable yields and high-quality produce, CEA uses a range of technologies to control variables such as light, temperature, water usage, and nutrient delivery. Examples include LED spectrum tuning for photosynthetic efficiency, HVAC design and thermodynamics in vertical farms, and SCADA systems for real-time monitoring. 

Biotechnology Platforms and Robotics

Biotechnology platforms like CRISPR and automation technologies like robotics can help prevent diseases that limit crop yield. CRISPR enables scientists to precisely target, edit, and modify DNA sequences to impart enhanced disease resistance. Robots can remove weeds and pests, but these automated systems can also improve harvesting. Additional agritech solutions include embedded systems for disease detection and microfluidics for soil and plant diagnosis.

Waste-to-Value Systems

Waste-to-value systems convert waste materials like dried stalks into valuable resources like renewable energy and soil amendments. For example, anaerobic digestion generates biogas and pyrolysis produces biochar. To improve the properties of crop residues for energy production or soil amendment, thermal processing can be used. By integrating sources of agricultural waste with renewable energy microgrids, agritech can also leverage other cleantech solutions.         

Artificial intelligence and Autonomous Vehicles

Artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous vehicles are critical for these and other advances. For example, precision agriculture can use AI-powered irrigation systems to monitor moisture levels and adjust watering schedules. Machine vision, a field of AI, enables computers to interpret images that can indicate the presence of crop disease. Autonomous tractors might not need operator cabins, but these electric vehicles require battery power and effective thermal management.

Measuring Success

Measuring the success of agricultural technologies is also a key part of farm management. Regardless of the size of an operation, farmers want to know how well their technology investments are maximizing agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability. Data analytics leverages information from sources such as sensors, drones, and satellites so that farmers can use key performance indicators and life cycle assessments as management and measurement tools. 

Key Performance Indicators

Key performance indicators (KPIs) provide quantifiable data for tracking a farm’s progress, identifying areas that need improvement, and enhancing efficiency and profitability. With vertical farms, for example, yield per watt (W) is a critical metric because these operations depend heavily on artificial lighting. Smart irrigation systems can report kilowatts per liter (kWh/liter), and farmers can measure the efficiency of fertilizer applications in terms of kilogram per hectare (kg/ha) saved. 

Life Cycle Assessments

Life cycle assessments are used to measure the environmental impact of agricultural products and systems over the long term. For example, farmers who monitor greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can implement mitigation strategies ranging from improved soil management to more efficient fertilizer use. In arid regions, IoT-driven irrigation can help reduce overall energy consumption. There are also carbon intensity comparisons between traditional and tech-enable agriculture to consider. 

Overcoming Challenges

Farms that implement advanced agricultural technologies will need to overcome various challenges, some of which are more difficult and expensive than others. Examples include infrastructure gaps in rural areas, material selection and design for extreme environments, cost performance trade-offs, and ethical considerations. There’s also a need for training, instruction, and technical support. This makes choosing the right technology an important business decision.

Infrastructure Gaps in Rural Areas

Most farms are in rural areas, and these regions often lack robust infrastructure. For example, a lack of electrical transmission lines may require farmers to invest in off-grid power solutions. There are other challenges as well, but they’re contributing to technological innovations. For example, network latency for cloud-based analytics is supporting the push for edge computing, which puts data processing closer to the source for reduced latency along with lower bandwidth requirements and real-time decision making. 

Material Selection and Design for Extreme Environments

To support advanced technologies, agritech needs materials that resist water, weather, ozone, sunlight, abrasion, and corrosion. For example, the door seals on tractor cabs are typically made of EPDM, an elastomeric material that withstands outdoor environments but is difficult to recycle. Thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) are more expensive, but farmers can choose tractors that use these recyclable and weather-resistant materials. Innovators who keep design for sustainability (DFS) in mind can help agriculture minimize long-term environmental impacts.  

Cost Performance Trade-offs

Large-scale farms dominate agricultural production, but most of the world’s farms are small-scale operations. In the European Union, for example, 70% of farms have less than 10 hectares. Agritech companies need to provide scalable solutions for family farms and industrial farms – and at an affordable price. Modular designs for rapid deployment and maintenance can contribute to these cost performance trade-offs for farms of any size.

Ethical Considerations

Farms that implement advanced agritech solutions may also have concerns about data privacy, especially with cloud-based applications. There’s also a healthy debate between open-source and proprietary ecosystems for hardware and software. Users want security and privacy, but they also want control and freedom. The ideal agritech solutions address all these concerns and help reduce the risks associated with cyberattacks.    

Conclusion: Interdependence is Everywhere

Agritech is a proving ground for cleantech innovations that requires multi-disciplinary collaboration and systems thinking. Innovators have a vital role to play in designing the next generation of food systems — not just to meet productivity targets, but to engineer sustainability itself. Fortunately, the number and type of solutions is increasing along with the world’s growing demand for food.  

As food, energy, and climate systems become more interdependent, the ability to engineer the right solutions will define how well the world navigates the next two-and-half decades and beyond. Increasing food production by 2050 is an ambitious goal, but agritech advances look promising, especially for farms that choose the right technology partners.