Modern technologies are found in all industries today, and that includes agriculture. Smart farming technologies are essential in areas like supply chain traceability and food safety management. They also support environmental sustainability goals in numerous ways, including water conservation and soil quality protection.
Meeting Environmental Sustainability Goals
At the heart of smart farming technologies are software-managed big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), the cloud, and reporting. The 17 comprehensive United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are focused on people and the planet, and agricultural methods are important to both. For example, Goal 2 – Zero Hunger targets the doubling of agricultural productivity and revenues of small farmers and ensuring sustainable food production processes that include resilient agricultural practices.
Goal 12-Responsible Consumption and Production targets include reducing food losses along supply chains, reducing waste generation, and strengthening technological capacity to promote sustainable production and consumption patterns. Advanced technologies generate the data analysis needed to support these goals.
Technology Makes Agricultural Sustainability Possible
Smart farming technologies support both the people and planet UN Sustainable Development Goals. The technologies enable tracing inputs like the type of fertilizers, monitoring crops, accelerating payments to small global farmers, identifying product transport, and tracking inventory.
However, supply chain traceability enabled by smart farming technologies is about more than increasing profits and reducing agricultural waste. Achieving the Paris Agreement’s science-based goals to limit the global temperature increase to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels will require the full participation of all industries.
Agriculture is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires in-depth knowledge of each step in the food production system, beginning with farming practices. Smart farming technologies enable detailed tracking and support increased efficiency in the agricultural value chain, which is crucial to achieving environmental sustainability goals that include reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
SourceTrace offers smart farming technologies that enable full traceability in agricultural value chains. Contact us online or via phone or email to learn more about our solutions. You can also check out our Facebook page.
