Can agriculture be cool again?

I regularly attend an agricultural conference with my family. My primary motivation was to introduce the concept of supply and demand in the best basic sense to my son. But now I attend this with my wife to get updated on technology advancements (and its applications) on one of the oldest and the most consequential industry to the human civilization.

Agriculture is an old industry; I don’t think I need to provide further information on explaining why this is old. You never hear a seed round from Sequoia on a potato farm. To the general masses, agriculture is in the other side of the barometer against when thinking about what is popular, hot, and lucrative.

Yet, a lot of economic concepts on production and compounding benefits of efficiency are derived from farming. For example, Micron (the leading-edge maker in memory chips) has had its largest investments received from a renown Idaho potato farmer. Through thinking and ruthlessly acting in the point of view of a commodity business standpoint, Micron was able to keep their competency as a technology provider in the chip industry while weathering the harsh pricing wars in the 80s.

Okay enough about history lets talk about the future.

This old industry thrives in a simple model in generating value to the general masses: the more you produce at a cheaper cost, the more your will earn. The vast majority of creating this value depends on technology. So, what we consider the oldest industry with painstakingly low margins has myriad of ways we can apply our latest technology.

Water usage is essential for farms, especially large ones. Spraying the right amount of water on crops is key to avoiding high costs and low yields. IoT technology can help farmers by embedding sensors in water sprayers and monitoring them from a central hub. This data can be used to adjust the amount of water sprayed based on weather conditions, ensuring that crops get the water they need without wasting water or leaving them vulnerable to heat stress. This on/off mechanism, in increasing water usage, requires millions of sensors, semiconductors, and a coordination of all automated farming tools that are rendered through a production monitoring system.

Enhancing water usage is one of the examples of technology used to enhance our food supply. And in retrospect, advancements in farming techniques are even more important than knowing what new in smartphone technology because this helps solve hunger in impoverished places in the planet.

Supply chain disruptions are common nowadays. The world is getting less connected than it use to be. Every aspect of our purchasing power is getting hit with problems as supply constraints causes less quantities at a higher cost. This goes against the value generated by the farming industry and hence food shortage can be an issue in the future.

Just as fertilizers revolutionized modern agriculture, the next wave of industry revolution can be ensued to put thrusters in a supply that keeps us alive for centuries to come. By feeding us and our children.

Chong