Sustainability In The Age of Ag Innovation

Farming needs to be more sustainable. But it’s going to take more than farmers to get there. Sometimes it takes the most unlikely industries to collaborate to find innovative solutions. That’s why as the chief information officer of an agriculture company I was eager to participate in the recent Economist Sustainability Summit in London and push the conversation beyond what might be expected. 

Farming is, of course, resource-heavy by nature; it requires substantial land, fresh water and other resources to grow the food that we need to support a growing population. We can leverage insights from data analytics and data science to develop meaningful solutions for global businesses and for the world’s farmers – especially when it comes to challenges like climate change and water scarcity. And, if we’re able to reduce the environmental impact of farming, we can go a long way toward a more sustainable society. 

Data science and analytics are contributing to Monsanto’s sustainability 

In the agriculture industry, we are seeing that the intersection between data and agriculture is providing creative solutions to help us address global challenges. At Monsanto, we’re working to deliver many of these tools, and we’re collaborating broadly with others who deliver expertise that goes beyond our scope. We’re also adopting many of these tools within our own operations, helping us to reduce our own environmental footprint.

• Reductions in CO2 emissions: For example, a big part of our business includes moving large amount of seed all around the globe. In 2016, we launched a comprehensive Transportation Management System in Brazil that significantly increased the efficiency of our transportation planning and routing. In one year, we were able to eliminate more than 1.4M delivery miles, contributing to a reduction of 2500 tons of CO2 emissions. By the end of 2017, we will have expanded these capabilities to an additional 36 countries across Europe and 40 countries across North America and Asia.
• Reduced land use: We also are reducing our land use in seed production through the use of new data analytical models that enable crop planners to determine how much product to grow and where to grow it with a focus on maximizing yield and reducing the number of acres needed. In 2016 alone, we were able to reduce our corn field production footprint by 1000 acres.
• Water conservation: Water and input conservation is another area where more efficient equipment and data insights can come together to make a big difference. Our teams have developed a program incorporating visualization maps, high resolution virtual probes, irrigation recommendations and mobile alerts to help farmers make better irrigation decisions – producing more while using less water. Farmers in pilot projects in Italy, Greece and Spain were able to achieve a 17% decrease in water usage, a 19% increase in fuel efficiency and a 5% gain in yield. These are encouraging results, results that can make a difference and this is just one project at one company.

There are no one-size-fits-all solutions when it comes to making our planet more sustainable. Improved farming practices among other solutions are a piece of this puzzle, but without a doubt the scope of the opportunity stretches broadly into scientific fields and information technology, as well. As a CIO, I’m passionate about the potential for advances in science, IT and agriculture to help farmers achieve more sustainable operations. As we continue discussion and collaboration on this topic, we’ll need to consider the potential of each discipline to contribute to this important goal.