Ag Tech Sunday - We’ve seen a lot of hype around Ag Tech in recent years

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By Bert Rijk - Director at Aurea - The Crop Intelligence Company and Co-Founder of Dronewerkers

I’ve been a known critic of (over)hyped technology but I’m not as cynical as you may think. Let me explain some of my concerns and let me also share some of our vision on where we at Aurea believe agtech should go to.

Gartner’s theory on the ‘hype cycle’ for expectations of new technology applies perfectly to precision agriculture. The expectations of new technology follow a typical cycle from inflated expectations (‘the hype’) for new technology, a dip of disappointment, the enlightenment and finally the plateau of productivity, where we find the applications and technology that make financial and technical sense for real-world applications.

The Hype of Precision Agriculture

We’ve seen a lot of hype around agtech in recent years. Agriculture is ‘hot’ and talented developers and other tech enthusiasts want to contribute something to the world, something they can’t do in finance or manufacturing. Google & Microsoft are moving into data on the food system & Amazon bought a supermarket chain. This inflow of talented people and Venture Capital leads to opportunism and consequently to inflated expectations. Hyperspectral sensors that measure thousands of wavelengths, radar technology that can see through the clouds and other ‘magic bullets’ receive billions of investment with little agronomic backing or practical applications. I can’t blame people for being optimistic and I encourage ambitious ideas, but the problem with inflated expectations is that it unavoidably leads to disappointment. Agtech is especially sensitive to overhyped products, as agriculture’s word-to-mouth reputation of agtech will suffer for many years after.

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Slope of Enlightenment

Some parts of agtech, like GPS guidance, reached the ‘Plateau of Productivity’ a decade ago, but we still see an influx of new overhyped technology. It’s now crucial for the sector to set a path that leads to an ambitious future for agriculture, but without wasting billions of ‘stupid money’, or worse, farmer’s money. Luckily, we see some interesting technology becoming reality, like spot-spraying of weeds (saving up to 97% on herbicide), integrated data platforms for easier sharing of field data (like Dacom’s collaboration with Fendt) and even tree-level prescription maps in orchards.

Vision on Agtech

Most technologies are usually very specific, targeting 1 action or application. At Aurea, we believe that the future will only work if we cooperate with other data providers and experts to get an integrated data solution. A farmer doesn’t just look at the crop without considering the soil, weather and biology. We have to connect the data dots to reach full potential of smart farming! A digital twin of agriculture that features every possible data set and sensor with relations on how they all tie together in the real world.

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To give you an example: Deep learning models applied on ultra-high resolution imagery (see below) are perfect to detect weeds and possibly even disease infections. Most fungicides however work to prevent an infection, not cure it. We should therefore reverse engineer crop growth models that can predict the outbreak of these diseases, based on the conditions before the detected infection. Once you see an infection, you can start to figure out why it occurred specifically on that location. This requires integration of different models, algorithms and a lot of different data sources.

Similarly, we’re integrating growth monitoring using drones with yield prediction models and yield measurements on AVR potato harvesters for FarmFrites, under the IoF2020 project. By integrating these data sets, it’s not only possible to see where the yield variation is in the field, but by analyzing the largest influencing factors (like emergence, soil, drainage), farmers can gain new insights and take targeted measures.

In apple and pear production we can now measure the amount of blossom per tree, the tree size & vigour throughout the season and early maturing trees. Especially in perennial crop, you can even monitor plants and trees through multiple years. The vigour in previous year is partially responsible for next year’s fruit count. But too much blossom will exhaust a tree, causing early maturity and weaker trees next year, or even a downward spiral of production fluctuation. Understanding these relationships, supported by data, on a tree level, will increase our capacity to keep producing sustainably.

An ambitious future

Nobody knows the full extent of what technology will bring, but the future is looking very bright. First examples of integrated data solutions and actual ‘smart farming’ start to reach the plateau of productivity. Overyping agtech will only set us tech innovators back, so be real about what you can and cannot do and set the right expectations. So here’s a call for ambition plans, fruitful collaborations and a profitable agriculture!

https://www.aurea.com/