The time has now come for the advent of digital technology in agriculture

Article 2/3 about high tech and agriculture

In spite of the vitality of digital technology for agriculture, it is only today that the high-tech field of business is mobilizing for horticulture after having invested in other more profitable and easier to understand sectors such as automotive, chemicals or energy.

Proof of this is that the CEA had long been working for the previous sectors when it opened a post in Grenoble just five years ago, dedicated to implement its portfolio of existing solutions in the agri-food industry. I also realize that over the niche market of horticulture, most of the technologies implemented by digital players are outdated in comparison with those used in the consumer market, and that the equipment they offer is generally diverted from its original intended use for the needs of the building industry or other process industries. In horticulture, however, the harsh conditions of use and the demand for higher performance requires the development of specific equipment at the cutting edge of technology. As regards to process automation in greenhouses, traditional systems are facing their limits because the challenge is to control precisely and steadily the many production conditions requested by the crop (temperature, humidity, light, CO2, acidity and nutrient concentration in irrigation water). Compared to climate management in buildings, it is much more challenging in greenhouses because of the influence of both outdoor weather conditions and the transpiration activity of the plant.

Apart from the small size of the outlet of horticulture, its delay in technology is probably due to the fact that standardization is a challenge with living organisms, as well as to the mistrust of a wide majority of consumers and some farmers towards the technology, in opposition to agricultural processes that are supposed to be natural, which has always been far from being the case. By sanctioning intensive horticulture through the purchase of produces from organic or sustainable agriculture, civil society blames high-tech for its part of responsibility in the industrialization of an agriculture fantasized as necessarily traditional. Technology is implicitly guilty of a regression in our relationship with the environment because of scales savings that go hand in hand with standardization, while at the social level, automation makes it suspect of Taylorism.

I think that facing the emergency of climate change and given the need to preserve water and fossil fuel resources while facing a shortage of skills and labor, we cannot afford to do without high tech, as far as the demand for food raw materials from a world population that has become plethoric is exponential. This is all the more compulsory since the increase of extreme poverty combined with the globalization of trade, imposes on horticulture an economic efficiency that technology now makes possible. From this point of view, the advantages of digital technology undoubtedly outweigh its disadvantages.

Fortunately, we are entering the era of high tech that far exceeds the shy boom of the two thousand years. The very recent emergence of the Internet of Things, big data, deep-learning, cloud and other new technologies, is exerting a powerful leverage effect on innovation, which enables to considerably extend the field of possibilities in horticulture. This advent will undoubtedly allow more complex and in some cases increasingly large horticultural operations, to access industry standard tools such as ERP and other means for management control or process traceability. By virtue of the adage according to which the body creates the function, it sounds clear that horticulture will adopt the previous means as soon as they are made available by the digital. I think that the question is no longer whether the previous technologies will be adopted by horticulture, but when they will be.

The answer to this question logically depends on the investment in R&D of technology providers, which remains more than ever the first condition for their survival. This condition is undoubtedly the sinews of war in the high-tech sector where not being ahead of the game means being behind. Today, the abundant supply of new technologies acts as a factor in increasing inequalities between digital players. The gap is widening between those who are in a position to take advantage of it and those who will have to drop out in a field of business that is negotiating its shift towards maturity. We are indeed witnessing the gradual withdrawal of small companies that had bet on their domestic market and no longer have the means to finance R&D because of an increasingly narrow customer base. Facing the obsolescence of their product range, some of these companies switch to low tech market, while others are disappearing. As for the very few large companies that had gambled on the global market, they become aware a strategy based on investment in sales and marketing only is no longer sustainable.

It is clear we are now at a turning point that shows the evidence of a unique path for digital players in horticulture: that of innovation.

More generally, I think this trend is part of a paradigm shift in the market economy. At end of last war, emergency of reconstruction had given the power in companies to the production department. Throughout the thirty glorious years, it passed into the hands of marketing and sales executives, who were asked to dispose of the surpluses manufactured by production staff. In the age of knowledge and so the digital era, it is now up to engineers and technicians to take up the new challenges mentioned in this article.

The issue is all the more important for horticulture as another move is happening: that of the reversal of priorities between economic sectors. As a result of climate change and the increasing scarcity of natural resources, the primary sector (including agriculture) is becoming a priority at the detriment to the service sector. This is confirmed by the increasingly frequent tensions on the raw materials market.