Agriculture has come a long way since it was born around 10,000BC when humans started farming, a period referred to as the 1st Agricultural Revolution. This marked a transition from a nomadic lifestyle to fixed settlements, due to the necessity of having a constant source of food through the cultivation of fields. We will explore how we got from that to the idea of Agriculture 4.0 and what it entails.
The 2nd Agricultural Revolution consisted in the reorganization of farmland between the 17th and the 19th centuries. There was a gradual increase in farm size which led to the development of crop rotation, and technical improvements to the plough to make it more efficient, as it was necessary to increase the productivity of agricultural land. Farming activities began to attract commercial value, and national trade began.
The 3rd Agricultural Revolution (The Green Revolution) which began around 1910 was primarily focused on productivity and efficiency. It has seen the advent of farm mechanization and chemical fertilizers and pesticides, geometric increase in average farm yields, animal farming and industrialized storage. However, this has led to farming to become a highly industrial process with a focus on ever growing yields while also growing a disregard towards the environmental effects.
At IntelliDigest we believe that sustainable agriculture must be based on a holistic system that produces a large amount of nutrient-dense food while also preserving the environment.
Agriculture 4.0
The predicted changes as a result of new technological inventions, particularly artificial intelligence, are referred to as Agriculture 4.0 or the 4th agricultural revolution. Planting, picking crops, weeding, and milking cattle might all be done by robots. Drones for dispensing agrochemicals, and farming-specific technology such as gene editing to generate higher yielding, disease-resistant crops, vertical farms, and synthetic lab-grown meat are all examples of farming-specific technologies.
The UK media coverage of new farming technologies is optimistic, portraying them as key to solving farming challenges. As convincing as it sounds, precedence has shown that without first overcoming some obstacles, we can’t expect all of these new farming technologies to be embraced. Benefits are unlikely to be distributed equitably across society, and some people will lose out. We need to figure out who stands to lose and what we can do about it, as well as explore bigger questions like whether new technologies will deliver on their promises. Many other agricultural advances, such as genetically engineered crops and chemicals like the now-banned pesticide DDT, were hailed with similar excitement before causing problems later on.
Opportunities & Challenges
New technologies, according to the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), could attract younger, more technically skilled workers to an ageing workforce. Existing farm workers, on the other hand, who are at risk of being replaced by a machine or whose talents are incompatible with a new farming technique, will inevitably be less enthusiastic about the prospect of change.
In this new revolution, there is also the possibility of power imbalances. In the past tech corporations and large farm businesses have mostly benefited from such changes. For the future, this could mean that the benefits go primarily to industrialists, instead of the farmers (agriculturists).
Public opinion and perception are important when considering the 4th revolution: how will the public perceive DNA editing, robotic farming, lab-grown meat? What are the likely environmental, medical and genetic effects on the planet, farm produce and consumers? These and many more are the necessary challenges to consider with the same vigour as the more exciting aspects of the revolution.
The fourth agricultural revolution is “exciting – as well as a bit scary … but then the two often go together”. National Farmers’ Union (NFU).