The Farms of the Future

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / December 13, 2023 / Hormel Foods Corporation
By DOMINIQUE SAINT MALO

Innovation is changing the agricultural landscape to lead us into a new age of food production.

Foto: Accesswire

For a look into how new technologies are affecting the future of farming, Hormel Foods asked Ithaca College Assistant Professor Dominique Saint Malo to share her insights on developments in the industry. Note: Hormel Foods does not endorse companies mentioned in this report.

Over the last 50,000 years, humans have settled and resettled around the world, clearing land in the pursuit of expanding agriculture. With a growing world population, innovation in farming is necessary for us not only to thrive, but to survive.

Global agricultural production on our available agricultural land has increased over the years, and according to Our World in Data, a British research organization, we can continue increasing production with the space we have allocated to date, so long as we reconsider the way we use it. Luckily for us, we are reaching a new age of farming. At this moment, for both independent and large farms, agricultural machinery manufacturers and grassroots organizations are rethinking and reinventing farming.

Has the world passed peak agricultural land?

Agricultural land is the sum of cropland and pasture used for grazing livestock. This is shown for three sources, which use different methods of estimation. While they disagree on how much land is used for agriculture, and the exact date that it peaked, they do all agree that we have passed the peak.

A New Age of Farming

Demand and population are increasing, and so is waste of all sorts - from animals, crops, forests and discarded food. Dumping this waste causes pollution, but smaller farms and companies are finding ways to reuse waste.

Worldwide, about $120 billion worth of agricultural waste is burned in the open each year, but India-based startup Takachar, an MIT spinoff, is turning this biomass problem into profits with their small-scale, portable system that transforms rural agricultural waste into carbon-rich bioproducts.

"You can think of this as a biomass roasting machine," says Vidyut Mohan, Takachar's CEO and cofounder. "Similar to a coffee roaster, we put agricultural waste into the equipment and it is heated in minimal amounts of oxygen; it leaves behind a dense, carbon-rich material used to make fuels, fertilizers or activated carbon." These carbon-rich materials (known as biochar and made from waste like straw, rice husks, coconut shells and pine needles) are then redistributed into the soil, making it healthier and reusable at a quicker rate than waste-burning would allow. The farmers see more yields faster, leaving a smaller carbon footprint.