Smart agriculture
The leading factor in modern food production for the global population is smart agriculture. Through more efficient use of natural resources, it contributes to increased yields and improved land and environmental management.
In addition to this key advantage, there are other benefits that digitalized agriculture provides to farmers around the world.
Supply chains are characterized by a power imbalance among participants. Farmers often have less power due to the lack of timely feedback about customer satisfaction with their products. Smart agriculture enables efficient and fair information flow, allowing all participants to make better decisions. This creates the potential to rebalance power and ensure a fairer distribution of profits in the supply chain. The growing customer demands and their satisfaction are crucial for agricultural businesses to remain sustainable in the future.
Smart agriculture helps in better understanding important factors such as water, topography, vegetation, land appearance, and types. This enables farmers to determine the best use of scarce resources and manage them in an ecologically and economically sustainable way.
From an economic standpoint, automation truly means that farmers can reduce costs and, through more efficient resource use, achieve higher profits. Smart agriculture can be applied well in food safety and standards such as ISO 22000, FSSC 22000, IFS, BRC, as well as standards in primary production such as Global GAP, GRASP, and organic products.
Automation is changing both the types of jobs and the ways they are performed. Understanding and using technology requires new skills. This attracts new people who might not have previously considered a career in agriculture. However, automation can also present a challenge for farmers who struggle to adapt to new technologies. This means that suppliers need to make their technology as simple as possible to achieve wide application.
Smart agriculture also includes data and information sharing. There are cost-effective and accessible applications that can be very useful for small-scale farmers. This could include meteorological radars and alerts for severe weather conditions, such as flood or storm forecasts, which can give smallholders enough time to move livestock to higher ground or protect and harvest their crops.
Smart agriculture plays a significant role in verifying production data and product origins. Consumers make purchasing decisions based on their preferences related to food safety, sustainability, animal welfare, and country of origin.
Recognizing the increasing pressure on the food chain due to global challenges such as climate change, population growth, and the risk of pandemics, ISO established the Smart Agriculture Strategic Advisory Group (SAG-SF) to address this challenge. The first priority for SAG is a Roadmap for Standardization that will set the course for international smart agriculture standards in the years ahead and enable smart agriculture to realize its full potential.