10 Digital Technologies That Are Transforming Agriculture

By Forbes

Described as the world’s least digitized industry by McKinsey analysts (joint last position with hunting), the food producers of the world could only agree that agriculture has struggled to avail of the breakthroughs in technology that have transformed other industries, writes Aidan Connolly at Forbes. Uber has disrupted transportation, Netflix the movies, Airbnb the hotel business, online money movers who hold no cash now dominate banking and we purchase apps from companies who don’t make them. Yet, farming seems to have changed little in the 10,000 years since the first animals were domesticated, and many believe that it will change little in the coming decades.

However, I contend that this view is myopic and fails to recognize the degree of disruption already happening in farming. Sean Moffitt, managing director of Futureproofing, listed the 30 new technologies that both are currently seeing the greatest dollar investments and that industries will require to futureproof themselves for the next decade. Here’s a look at the 10 digital technologies from that list that I see as the most relevant to food and farming.

1. Robotics: Those who associate farming with bucolic country living might not realize that the new generation of farmworkers doesn’t aspire to pick fruit, pick up animals or do many of the common backbreaking tasks associated with farming. Robots now milk cows, pick strawberries and cut up carcasses in processing plants. Robotics in farming represents a global market of over $5 billion and is projected to double in the next five years.