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Agriculture’s High-Tech Future

I know, I know ... agriculture is already a high-tech industry. I don’t necessarily disagree with the sentiment, but the industry is going to witness even more technoligical innovation in the near future and if farmers want to remain in business they need to stay abreast of major developments in a number of different fields.

For example, this article from today’s New York Times briefly profiles Phytech, an Israeli company, which is placing sensors on fruit trees and other crops to provide real-time information to farmers. As the price of next-generation sensors continue to drop, farmers can expect to employ sensors to do everything from determine how much water a crop needs to deciding what the optimum amount of a pesticide that needs to be applied in order to do the job..

As advances in genomics continue, the agriculture industry will be further transformed. (For a more detailed look into genomics and agriculture, I’d recommend this old post.) NatureNews, for example, is running an interesting article describing how researchers have tweaked the E Coli bacteria to hunt down atrazine—a widely used herbicide . The significance of this development is that soon a major environmental issue for farmers could be resolved because designer bacteria may prevent a variety of pesticides and herbicides from seeping into the groundwater and polluting sources downstream.

The agriculture industry will also continue to change for another major reason—both land and crops will be soon be an important source of energy. The opportunity in biofuels and wind production is already established, but this is just the start.

Crops might soon be able to efficiently and cheaply produce ethanol, biodiesel and even hydrogen; and—thanks to advances such as this one—an acre of land might soon be able to produce two to three times as much electricity from wind power. Longer-term, advances in solar technology could also turn huge tracks of land into massive solar farms.

These advances are just the tip of the iceberg. Progress in robotics, RFID technology, synthetic biology and nanotechnology will also transform the agricultural industry. My point is this: If you thought farming has changed a lot in the last 100 years—and it has—this sweeping amount of past change pales in comparison to what awaits the farmer of the future.

For related writings on the future of agriculture, I’d recommend these past posts:

The Future of Agriculture
The Future of Bioenergy
Synthetic Biology: Creating a New Life Form

Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, robotics, RFID, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.

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