Introduction The context Farming is one of the most ancient of human activities, one that has weathered the changes throughout history but continues to face new challenges. Every past generation must have felt that the challenges of its era were unprecedented, and the same is true today. Climate change, global geopolitical problems and depletion of natural resources – especially soil quality – are the issues for the global agriculture sector now, raising questions about the collective ability to ensure food security and access to nutritious food for a global population predicted to reach 9.1 billion by 2050. The following facts highlight the gravity of the situation: –The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that, by 2030, 670 million people – or 8% of the world’s population – will still be undernourished, which means there is no change from 2015 levels, when the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals agenda was launched.4 –The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s estimates, using a range of models, have concluded that climate change will negatively affect per capita calorie availability and nutrition to a substantial extent. It will also have an effect on child undernourishment and mortality through poor nutrition.5 –The availability of agricultural land is not a major challenge in itself; however, issues such as lack of infrastructure and physical inaccessibility to markets can make it difficult to access the land that is available. Furthermore, productive land is not equally distributed across all countries, making it more problematic for some to produce food locally to feed their own populations.6 –The economic impacts of natural disasters jumped almost eightfold from the 1970s to the 2010s, from $49 million to $383 million per day, and human activities have increased the probability of more frequent heatwaves.7 –The FAO has reported that 33% of the Earth’s soil is already degraded and will continue to degrade, and soil erosion might result in a crop-yield loss of 50%. Human activity such as intensive agriculture, deforestation and overgrazing has increased soil erosion by a factor of 1,000.8Such a dynamic situation requires more informed decision-making at every level in the agriculture sector, from policy-makers and private-sector companies to farmers, especially those smallholder and women farmers who are typically more vulnerable. Digital technologies present a scalable and sustainable solution to these challenges. Traditionally, the agriculture sector – primarily in emerging economies in Asia, Africa and Latin America – has been slow to adopt digital technologies. The use of quantum computing, chips and other digital- technology solutions are restricted to the machines that farmers use. However, there have been some farmer-facing applications introduced – the adoption in many countries of smartphones to create an access channel to deliver efficient agriculture services being one example. However, despite this past trend, the advent of AI and its employment in precision agriculture and the post-harvest supply chain has started to shake up the sector for the better. Coupling AI-based use cases with smartphone-based information delivery channels is a positive combination that can help farmers gain access to information and resources to tackle the challenges facing them. In this way, AI and phones are democratizing the use of technology, especially for the most vulnerable. The approach A number of agritech solutions have been available for almost a decade now, and have gone through a cycle of research, development, adoption and scale-up. However, to date these agritech services are yet to achieve scale when compared to the market potential that emerging economies offer. In this context, the World Economic Forum’s Artificial Intelligence for Agriculture Innovation (AI4AI) initiative aims to scale such agritech services through public– private partnerships. The Forum’s 2021 community paper, published as part of its AI4AI initiative, documented more than 20 agritech use cases and technologies and presented a roadmap for these to be scaled in India in four broad categories: intelligent crop planning; smart farming; farmgate-to-fork; and data as an enabler.9 Such categorizations help track the impacts of different technologies on the sector and, at a micro level, on farming at a specific location and/or on an individual farmer.Digital technologies are steadily changing the global agriculture sector, and their role today is more crucial than ever. Climate change, global geopolitical problems and depletion of natural resources – especially soil quality – are the issues for the global agriculture sector now. Agritech: Shaping Agriculture in Emerging Economies, Today and Tomorrow 5

Agritech 2024