The future of food will be proactive, efficient, and digitized — or else
The next great agricultural revolution is likely to come from information, not new plant breeds or genetic tinkering, as digital technology and big data help farmers make better decisions and drive up crop yields, according to the head of a “digital agriculture” company. Michael Stern, president and chief executive officer of Climate Corp., told a Harvard audience on Monday that the ability to gather detailed information about farmers’ fields, coupled with advances in weather forecasting, computing power, and artificial intelligence, will change farming from a business that often reacts to the past — applying fungicide this year because of an outbreak last year, for example — to one that uses real-time data and weather forecasts to make more accurate decisions for the season to come. Introducing Stern, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Peter Huybers, co-director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE), noted that the first great agricultural revolution...