What could the future of agriculture look like?
UN Entity:
ITC
SDGs:
SDG 02: Zero Hunger
Innovation Area:
Internet of Things
Automation & Robotics
Data Innovation
Agricultural technology – if you think those two words don’t go together, then you'd be surprised to hear that demand for agritech – from vertical farming to agricultural apps to farm drones – is growing and becoming the new normal. In 2019, for example, Africa more than doubled its venture capital funding for agri-food tech… and Latin America closed more deals in agri-food tech last year than it did in the entire venture capital industry in 2017. This is important because farmers will have to feed more than 11 billion people by the end of the century, according to the UN. At the same time, the sector has to cope with challenges such as climate change, ageing farmers, changing trade patterns, and now the Covid-19 pandemic.
To learn about the future of agriculture and specifically about agriculture in Kenya, we talk to Peter Muthee Mwangi, a Kenyan sustainable agri-preneur and co-founder of FarmWorks who works with ITC’s Alliances for Action Programme and Network.