Smart farming’s bid to solve world food crisis
Global efforts to use new technologies to boost food production will be discussed during the Irish Technology Leadership Group Silicon Valley Global Technology Summit, which takes places next Monday and Tuesday in north Dublin venues such as the Helix at DCU and Malahide Castle.
The ITLG AgTech Revolution will discuss how technology can help the world’s food producers adapt to the challenge to feed the 9.6 billion people who will inhabit the planet by 2050. Food production must increase by 70% in the interim.
Challenges include the limited availability of arable lands, the increasing need for fresh water — agriculture consumes 70% of the world’s fresh water supply — and other less predictable factors, such as the impact of climate change, which the UN predicts will alter seasonal events in the life cycle of plant and animals.
Speakers at the event will include Caroline Keeling, chief executive of horticulture group Keelings; and Pat Casey, chief information officer at Kerry Group; and Nora Khaldi, founder and CSO at Nuritas.
The panel will lead a debate on ‘smart farming’. Among other possible food production solutions, the debate will assess how the use of sensing technology to make farms more “intelligent” and more connected through the so-called “precision agriculture” can help increase the quality and quantity of agricultural production.
