This is the second blog post of the series about the future of farming through agricultural technology and agriculture in general.
What can we gain from agri-tech?
Agriculture remains a big player in generating income and a source of food for many people around the world. The sector has seen many changes and advancements in different farming approaches and techniques over the years. There is a need to use natural resources and processes to improve agricultural production and reduce costs. Today, for example, inorganic fertilizers are used, lesser amounts of pesticides are consumed, and different tractors and machinery are used. Over the years, technology has proven to be extremely useful in the agricultural sector.
Agri-tech solutions aim to digitize farm-related information to provide stakeholders with accurate data on crop and soil health, weather forecasts, and various threats such as weeds overgrowth, pests attacks, lack of irrigation, or waterlogging. Furthermore, the satellite-based analytics helps determine the harvesting window, estimate field productivity, and decide on fertilization strategy based on prescription maps. With technology, farmers are able to electrify any process for efficiency and improved production. So there are many benefits to using modern technology in agriculture.
Factors affecting the adoption of agricultural technology
There have been several limitations on how to accelerate the process of modern technological adaptation in agriculture. This can be attributed to the fact that accelerating this concept requires a lot of knowledge, technical know-how and understanding of some of the elements that influence farmers’ decisions. Risk and uncertainty also play major factors affecting farmers in the adoption of new technology in agriculture.
The following aspects are accountable for the slow rate of adoption of transforming agriculture into agri-tech:
1. Institutional, social and economic are some of the factors that influence how quickly or slowly agricultural technologies are adopted.
2. Land size, cost and benefits of technology are some of the economic factors that determine the rate of adoption of agricultural technology.
3. Education level, age, social groups and gender of farmers are some of the social factors that affect the likelihood of a farmer adopting modern agricultural technologies.
4. Smallholder farmers face both internal and external challenges in adopting modern agricultural technologies.
Irrespective of the challenges, what matters is whether modern technologies have any value in the agricultural sector.
