The FAO report ‘The State of Food and Agriculture 2022‘ (SOFA) is dedicated to the role of automation in agriculture with respect to theSustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in UN Agenda 2030. (2)
1) SOFA, the FAO report on automation in agriculture.
The State of Food and Agriculture
(SOFA) is one of the major reports published annually by theFood and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Its 2022 edition analyzes 27 case studies of the use of automation and new technologies in different agricultural supply chains.
2) Automation v. mechanization
Automation in agriculture is defined as ‘the use of machinery and equipment in agricultural operations to improve their diagnosis, decision making or execution, reducing farm labor fatigue and/or improving the timeliness, and potentially the accuracy, of agricultural operations.’
The mechanization of agricultural work has automated only the executive phase of processes (e.g., irrigation, harvesting). Instead, automation can replace humans even in diagnosis and decision-making. For example, sensors detect a plant’s water needs, and the system decides the optimal watering times and volumes.
3) Opportunities
The key players in automation in agriculture are Artificial Intelligence (AI), drones and robotics, sensors, satellite navigation systems (GNSS) and other digital systems.
Optimization of interventions (so-called precision agriculture) aspires to increase yields, reduce inputs in agriculture, and save resources (water, energy, labor).
3.1) Work and safety
Reducing the workload can ease the lives of farmers and alleviate those of the often involved (and exploited) women and children. As well as filling labor shortages, especially in high-income countries. (3)
Occupational safety can also be improved, with special emphasis on the risks of exposure to toxic chemicals.
More judicious use of agrotoxics (e.g., pesticides, herbicides) and veterinary drugs (e.g., antibiotics) could improve food safety.
3.2) Environmental sustainability and animal welfare
Technologies can be used to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as to reduce the consumption of natural resources. Although natural resources needed to realize the technologies themselves must also be considered.
So-called precision breeding in turn enables constant monitoring of the health status of animals, as well as timely and targeted interventions. Not without ethical concerns when the relationship between farmers and animals is broken.
4) Possible negative implications
Inequalities can be exacerbated by automation in many ways, which should therefore receive consideration by policy makers (see para. 5):
– inability to adopt the technologies, in some areas of the world, due to infrastructural deficiencies (e.g., roads, electricity, connectivity),
– inequitable distribution of benefits between farms, to the detriment of peasant agriculture, and within them (to the disadvantage of farmworkers, women and children),
– decline in demand for unskilled workers, with their increased exposure to the risks of even extreme poverty.
4.1) Environmental issues
The concern that accompanies any new technology pertains to its motivation. Old and new GMOs, as it turns out, have always been instrumental in increasing sales of herbicides and pesticides that GM plants alone are able to resist. (4)
Ecosystems may come under as many risks if technologies are directed toward the development of intensive monocultures and industrial agriculture. (5) Resulting in biodiversity loss, deforestation, soil erosion and toxicity of agricultural systems, (6) Accelerating climate change. (7)
4.2) Oligopolis
‘There is a genuine danger that such new food systems could succumb to the corporate capture and concentration that dominate the current system. (8)
In both the old and the new systems, we should campaign for intellectual property rights to be weak and anti-trust laws strong‘ (George Monbiot, Twitter, 17.11.22).
5) Technologies in the service of inclusion.
FAO indicates the possibility of contributing to the achievement of some SDGs with automation and new technologies can in agriculture, provided they are inclusive.
Equal access to these technologies postulates that they are bottom-up scalable. That is, accessible to everyone, including micro enterprises. And interoperable, we add. (9)
5.1) Shared services
Technology accessibility, in some of the cases examined, was achieved through shared services:
– in Ghana, for example, TROTRO Tractor, a kind of Uber for tractors, was born,
– in Myanmar an equipment rental service, Tun Yat, is available to small producers (<2 ha of land) and women-owned businesses.
Farmers can thus access technologies with significant purchase costs. And their owners manage to amortize the related investments through rental rates.
5.2) Work and inclusion
Agriculture supported by automation stimulates new job opportunities, FAO report highlights. Which require skills on new technologies, so also schooling, and can offer decent salaries. As well as facilitating the inclusion of people with disabilities.
Transparent policies are essential to ensuring that technologies are sustainable and accessible to all types of businesses, without endorsing monopolies by the most investment-capable companies. The key concept FAO focuses on is ‘responsible technological change.’
6) Necessary policies
‘Responsible technological change,’ according to FAO, requires policy intervention in four areas:
6.1. Capacity building
Investment is needed to create and/or strengthen the necessary infrastructure (e.g.roads, energy, connectivity), as well as in finance and data management.
6.2. Financial Support
Targeted public investment should support the use of automation, especially for small and micro enterprises.
6.3. Sustainability and resilience
Planning and monitoring of land use and incentives for responsible investment are needed to prevent a recurrence of the problems already highlighted by FAO in industrial agriculture and animal husbandry (5,10).
6.4. Support for marginalized groups
Inclusion of women, youth and small producers is essential, including through less expensive small machinery, shared services and digital technologies that are easy to access via smartphones or tablets.
It remains necessary to improve rural infrastructure, develop knowledge and organize farmers in order to amortize costs.
7) Interim Conclusions
The cost-effectiveness of automation in agriculture is still in the making. Only 10 of the 27 cases examined in the FAO report under review show that the revenues brought by new technologies exceed the costs required to adopt them.
Monopolies must be prevented by the measures so far ignored in the equally crucial areas of seeds and pesticides. (11) Nevertheless, FAO experts consider the need to develop automation in agricultural systems will be possible to meet the challenges ahead.
#SDG1, no poverty. #SDG2, zero hunger. #SDG8, decent work and economic growth. #SDG12, responsible consumption and production.
Dario Dongo and Alessandra Mei
Notes
(1) FAO. The State of Food and Agriculture 2022. Leveraging automation in agriculture for transforming agrifood systems. https://www.fao.org/3/cb9479en/online/cb9479en.html
(2) Dario Dongo. SDGs, the dutiful transformations for the food supply chain. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 19.9.19
(3) The FAO SOFA 2022 report reports that 2.5 million workers have left agriculture, in the European Union, in the past 10 years
(4) Dario Dongo. New GMOs serving agrotoxics. Proof of 9 in Monsanto’s new GE corn. Petition. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 4.7.20
(5) Marta Strinati, Dario Dongo. Industrial agriculture, the 10 critical points to be addressed. UNEP Report. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 24.7.20
(6) Dario Dongo, Donato Ferrucci. Pesticides, acute toxicity in the US agricultural system. Scientific study. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 25.8.19
(7) Dario Dongo. Biodiversity and climate emergency, the common thread. Égalité. 13.2.20
(8) Marta Strinati, Dario Dongo. Pesticide Atlas 2022, the global business of agrotoxics. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 1.11.22
(9) Interoperability involves the absence of constraints on the use of proprietary hardware and software in order to make systems work, and the consequent ability to make various devices interact through shared languages
(10) Dario Dongo, Marina De Nobili. Livestock, FAO proposes 5 areas of action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 29.8.20
(11) Dario Dongo. Seeds, the 4 masters of the world. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 15.1.19
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Graduated in Law from the University of Bologna, she attended the Master in Food Law at the same University. You participate in the WIISE srl benefit team by dedicating yourself to European and international research and innovation projects.
