6 scalable technologies for sustainable agriculture

Sustainability is easily imagined Drew Maloney as a uniquely industrial problem, but zoom out and you’ll see it’s farms, not factories, that can be seen from space. Covering 38% of the Earth’s land area, agriculture accounts for a quarter of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Conversely, zoom in to one of the planet’s 600 million plus farms, 84% of which are smaller than two hectares, and you’ll see that achieving agricultural sustainability is not just a massive challenge, but also a complex one.

Plant and soil microbiome
Leaves, roots and soil contain sophisticated communities of bacteria and fungi. Innovations targeting these microbes can have profound effects on plant and ecosystem health.

Some commercial applications already exist. Biofertilisers like mycorrhizal fungi for example can enhance soil quality and moisture absorption, simultaneously improving nutrition and yields, water conservation and carbon sequestration (soil holds 80% of the carbon in terrestrial ecosystems).

Unmanned aerial systems
Drones are ideally suited to environments where people cannot physically see problems. Using images, videos and other sensor data, drones are already producing 3D maps of farms, helping farmers know the optimal time to harvest and enabling the transition to precision agriculture. This can improve yields, food security and profits.

A more detailed view of irrigation patterns, soil moisture and drainage allows more efficient use of water, while multispectral analysis can improve nitrogen management by showing which areas need more or less fertiliser. That in turn can reduce environmental damage and GHG emissions associated with fertiliser use.

Gene editing
Gene editing involves making precise changes to crop DNA using technologies such as CRISPR- Cas9, making them more nutritious and more resistant to pests, drought, disease and weeds. They can also be cheaper – if the crop is adapted to produce more seeds – and faster to introduce than using traditional backcrossing methods alone.

Taken together, gene-edited crops have immense potential to reduce hunger and enhance food security, health and livelihoods, while reducing the need for environmentally damaging fertilisers.

Quantum computing
Qubits and carrots may not instinctively pair in word association games, but quantum computing has as much potential to revolutionise farming as any other sector.

By exploiting quantum superposition, where a particle can simultaneously exist in more than one state, these machines have massively more processing power than classical, binary computers, enabling them to solve more complex problems, more quickly.

Water management systems
Agriculture accounts for 70% of global freshwater consumption, but water systems are increasingly under stress from rising demand and climate change impacts.

Some innovations aim to improve water efficiency on farms themselves, for example micro-irrigation systems that reduce waste, or units that recover water from slurry or rainfall. There are also technologies that allow treatment of brackish or otherwise unsafe water, or even extract water directly from the atmosphere, increasing local supply.

Biochar
Biochar is a charcoal-like substance produced when organic matter is heated in the absence of oxygen. This process, called pyrolysis, captures a higher proportion of carbon as solids than burning, and the product is more stable.

When agricultural waste is converted to biochar and applied to soil – instead of being burned or allowed to rot – it therefore acts as a carbon sink, simultaneously improving soil quality and creating financial value out of the waste itself.