TropAg 2019

Digital technologies take farmers to market

Tapping into a technology already widely used for other reasons is one of the ways a leading agricultural company is helping to improve the livelihood of its smallholder farmers.

Farmers in India are keen users of mobile phones so it was a logical step for Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company Private Limited (Mahyco) to embrace this near-ubiquitous technology (an estimated 800 million users in India) to interact with its growers and help bolster their incomes.

Mahyco director and chief technology officer, Dr Usha Barwale Zehr, has used various technologies and tools, including biotechnology, to improve seed quality and productivity, and she says the company’s decision to embrace digital technology has become an extension of this.

As a keynote speaker at the 2019 TropAg International Conference from 11-13 November in Brisbane, Dr Zehr will speak about the ways the company hopes to improve grower access to markets via digital platforms such as smartphones. She will also outline knowledge gathered from Mahyco’s 50 years in agricultural R&D.

The company was founded in 1964 to empower Indian farmers by enhancing productivity. It focuses on seed research and development, production, processing and marketing. It is now working on a digital platform to aid on-farm decision-making.

Dr Zehr says Mahyco’s farmers already use the company’s app – from planting to harvest. “At each step they can request services, send photos if disease appears, check the quality of the produce they deliver, and further payments into their bank account. It is also helpful when purchasing inputs: they can see the product offerings on their device and then choose what they need.”

Digital platforms that provide information on weather, soil health, carbon status, predicted yield, financial transactions or market opportunities are also being delivered to farmers in local languages, helping with decision-making.

However, Mahyco is taking this further and is working on a way for farmers to access commercial grain prices at local markets. This could improve on-farm decision- making and boost incomes.

While embracing Indian farmers’ uptake of digital technology will help contribute to improving livelihoods, Dr Zehr says she cannot overstate how important more ‘traditional’ agricultural R&D is too.

She says Indian farmers, like others in tropical areas, are facing climate uncertainty. “Rainfall is the most critical challenge, followed by other abiotic stresses.”

Dr Zehr says this year showed how important research is for Mahyco’s farmers. “In some areas we had too much water. However, making rice tolerant to submergence for up to 15 days is one of the ways research is saving those crops. Through the simple use of molecular markers, varieties and hybrids are being developed to face this challenge.”

With long product development cycles for new varieties – of five to seven years – she says researchers cannot be complacent. “If we are and do not invest, we will suffer the consequences down the line. And we have to keep in mind the challenges of dynamic climate conditions, sustainability and, most importantly, production. We have to ensure farmers are producing enough while creating economic opportunities, so they thrive and improve their livelihoods.”

Small holder farmers and science of tomorrow

Small Holder farmers in India have benefited from the scientific advances be it the high yielding varieties of Green revolution or the most recent revolution with the use of Bt cotton leading to livelihood improvement. The small holder farmers in India will continue to feed the nation and more under several environmental constraints which require rededicated effort in agricultural sciences. Application of new science to agriculture is critical be it New Breeding Technologies, greater focus on soil health, water use efficiency and more. Farmers are also constrained by what they have access to, where their inputs come from and where they will go to market their harvest. Indian farmers are using mobile phones in large numbers, from basic to smart phones and with relatively cheap access to data, are using these devices to share information. Digital platforms which provide information on weather, soil health, carbon status, predict yield, financial transactions or market opportunities in addition to the genetic improvements are being delivered to farmers in local languages and impacting their decision making and improving lives. Policies around new innovation must be clear to deliver the benefits of these advances to the farmers. These innovations are shaping the future of science for small holder farmers and may even entice the youth to continue to farm.

Researchers from the ‘hot zone’ call for a food revolution

Agricultural scientists are setting the stage for a food revolution – a reconfiguration of the way the world farms, which they see as essential to the future of food security.

Over 700 of the world’s leading researchers in food and agriculture will come together at the 2019 TropAg International Conference in Brisbane in November to discuss how that reconfiguration might unfold in the tropics – home to the world’s fastest growing populations and frontline for climate change impacts.

TropAg Conference Chair Professor Robert Henry, and Director of the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), says conventional technology simply won’t be capable of producing the amount of food the world needs – even in 20 years’ time.

Professor Henry says cereal crop yield increases of 50 per cent are needed by 2035 to meet the growing demand. However, the genetic basis for yield gains in these crops is essentially already exhausted.

“This is tantamount to a staging a food revolution … and doing so in a race against time.”

Forward projections are stark, with the world on track for food shortages in coming decades, with the global population forecast to stabilise at about 10 billion people in 2050.

The crisis is especially dire with regards to cereals – bread wheat, rice and maize – the crops that supply half the calories consumed globally.

“We are dealing with a crux of issues – population growth, an increase in per capita food consumption that comes with growing affluence, and the challenge of climate and environmental disruptions.”

Professor Henry said climate change was causing drought and more variable rainfall patterns at the same time the world was dealing with increasing scarcity of vital farming resources: arable land, soil fertility and water.

Weaving together strands of complementary solutions will be essential, he adds.

“We are going to start to see an acceleration of the diversification of the food supply chain and a concurrent development of new production systems, such as ultra-efficient aquaculture systems, vertical farming and indoor cropping systems.”

Professor Henry said the food production crisis provided a crucial opportunity to reconfigure food security along more diverse, environmentally compatible and sustainable lines.

This kind of thinking is now at the vanguard of agricultural innovation across production systems – in crops, horticulture, livestock, aquaculture and fisheries.

From 11-13 November, thought leaders from these sectors will converge at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre to attend the third biennial International Tropical Agriculture (TropAg) Conference, which Professor Henry has helped to convene.

“With the conference we are trying to achieve a critical mass of thinking about the food crisis,” he says.

Presentations span livestock, crop, and horticultural production, and food and nutrition sciences, covering topics including land use diversification, energy from livestock waste, urban agriculture, robots and autonomous technology in horticulture, food safety and traceability, alternative proteins and climate adaptation.

Meet the plant scientists preventing a global beer shortage

A new international study found that yields of barley, the main ingredient in beer, could fall up to 17 percent during the periods of extreme drought and heat expected in coming years. The yield declines could cause the price of beer to skyrocket or even lead to a beer shortage.

Beer fan, and barley breeder, Lee Hickey isn’t worried though. 

“We have the ability to respond rapidly to the threat of climate change through new breeding technologies,” he said. “With them, we can develop stronger barley varieties for our farmers.” 

The senior research fellow at the University of Queensland’s Centre for Crop Science is among a group of plant scientists across the globe who are drawing on a new understanding of barley’s genetic code to develop more resilient varieties. Their work benefits not just beer drinkers, but also the countless people worldwide who work in the $208 billion beer industry. 

Barley breakthrough 

Barley scientists achieved a major milestone in 2017 when they successfully sequenced the cereal plant’s genome. With this advancement, researchers now know exactly which genes control various traits, such as yield, drought-resistance and more. 

The barley genome is roughly twice the size of the human genome, and sequencing it was a complex process that took a team of 77 international scientists 10 years to complete. Their work was ultimately published in Nature, the prestigious scientific journal. 

More resilient crops 

Skadhauge and her colleagues draw on the wealth of genetic information they now have as they use cross-breeding to develop barley varieties that will be resilient to the effects of climate change. 

“What we see when we have droughts or extreme heat is that barley has lower yields, smaller kernels and a lower starch quality,” Skadhauge said. Poorer starch quality leads to less tasty beer. 

Skadhauge and her colleagues have made progress developing drought- and heat-tolerant strains of the plant that offer brewers and beer fans the quality they expect. 

Beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev and Missouri-based agriculture startup Benson Hill Biosystems are also exploring ways to make barley more productive during extreme weather. The two recently teamed up to accelerate the development of higher yielding barley varieties, through traditional breeding methods, that use less water and other natural resources. Like researchers at Carlsberg Research Laboratory, scientists at Benson Hill will draw on their knowledge of barley’s genetics to make stronger, heartier crops. 

“It’s super exciting to be a breeder today with all this genetic information available,” Skadhauge said.

Efficient process 

In his lab, Hickey, the University of Queensland scientist, explores ways to make barley breeding more efficient. Right now, it can take up to 20 years to develop a variety. 

But, because of better genetic knowledge and advanced methods, he says, that timeframe can be reduced considerably. 

He said gene editing, a breeding method that involves making small changes to a plant’s genetic code, is particularly promising “It’s pretty exciting what we can do by precisely tweaking the genome for these important traits,” he said.

“We’re able to make varieties that are drought-resistant more efficiently than ever before.” 

Beer lovers worldwide can toast to that innovation.

Advancing brewing science

Cereals were some of the first crops to be domesticated by humans. Today, cereals represent the biggest starch source in the world and are the primary raw material for food and feed. Modern breeding techniques produced high yielding varieties, but were based on a limited genetic background, which resulted in significant loss of genetic diversity. This could potentially result in major challenges due to recent climate changes and altered growing conditions. It is estimated that an increased global temperature will lead to dramatic loss in plant productivity in many parts of the world.

The barley breeding effort of the Carlsberg Research Laboratory combines decades of expertise to provide new varieties with unique quality and sustainability traits such as e.g. drought tolerance. Combining traditional breeding, genome data and a new method for screening genetics variants, we have radically shortened the development time of varieties with new traits. This has already resulted in the identification of several hundred genetic variants related to climate, sustainability, productivity and brewing quality. This accelerated approach can easily be applied for the development of other crops in both developing and matured markets around the globe, and help securing a sustainable supply of food and other agricultural products.

_{SOURCE: innovature.com (Meet The Plant Scientists Preventing A Global Beer Shortage from: 3 March 2019)}

Changing the scales of food production to avert crisis

Global food production is beginning to feel the impacts of climate change with declines in crop yields.

Temperature increases over land now average 1.5^oC, and agricultural productivity in many parts of the world is already several per cent lower than it would have been in the absence of climate change.

Leading Australian climate researcher Professor Mark Howden said change is required to help agricultural systems adapt.

As a keynote speaker at the international TropAg Conference on 11-13 November in Brisbane, Professor Howden will discuss the need for incremental, systemic and transformational changes in agriculture.

He said tropical regions, where crops are already growing at the extreme end of their temperature range, are particularly susceptible to climate impacts. These regions are also home to the world’s fastest-growing populations.

“If we ask whether we can meet growing demand for food without making changes, then I think the answer is no,” he said.

Change on three different scales is needed to help agricultural production adapt, in conjunction with other climate initiatives to capture and store carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• Transformational change is where fundamentally new food production systems – for example, insects as a new source of protein – come into play, or where there is significant relocation of production to more amenable regions.
• Systemic change is illustrated by Indian farmers, who have already switched from maize to the more heat and drought tolerant grain, sorghum.
• Incremental change is also underway in the form of international consortia attempting to drive up yield potential and enhance climate adaptation through advanced breeding programs and improved agronomy.

Normally, agricultural efficiencies and innovation maintain a buffer against production shortfalls, but the global population is increasing by about 1.7 per cent a year.

That means food production is under pressure to increase at an equivalent rate, at least until 2050, when the population is expected to stabilise at just below 10 billion people.

“The outlook if we don’t respond effectively is quite challenging,” Professor Howden says.

Food crises are likely to first manifest in the form of price spikes when global-scale events affect production in several important food exporting regions in the same year, such as extended dry conditions that cause both Australian and Ukraine wheat crops to fail.

“The disparities between supply and demand make food price spikes, such as those experienced in 2008-09, more likely and more damaging for those people least able to pay.”

In developing countries, where food security is more reliant on small-scale local production, greater volatility in local supplies is also a likely consequence of greater climate volatility, even as these countries face greater challenges storing food for emergencies.

“We need to be much more strategic about the management of our whole food supply. It is important we get people right across the globe understanding the issues and being able to respond effectively and strategically,” Professor Howden said.

Climate change impacts, adaptation and mitigation for tropical agriculture

As climate change gains pace globally, many of the first and most severe impacts are falling on tropical regions. In particular these impacts are occurring in tropical agriculture and food systems with assessments of falling crop yields, decreases in the productivity of livestock and fisheries and increased climatic disruptions. This is likely to have already increased stresses in relation to food security and natural resource management, both on land and in the adjacent oceans. Unfortunately, increasingly negative changes appear to be likely, with projections of widespread and substantial negative future impacts of climate change on tropical agriculture. There are many potential adaptations to climate change, covering options ranging from incremental to transformational change each with different risk vs return profiles. Limits to adaptation and barriers to action are increasingly being seen as critical issues that will need a focus over the next decade. Similarly, integration of practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enable effective adaptation to a variable and changing climate and enhance sustainable and stable agricultural production will likely become more important as climate change progresses. Furthermore, there will be a need to re-frame the science we do and the way we generate and deliver it. For example, science that is 1) demand-driven rather than supply driven, 2) that aligns with the values, needs or capability of users, 3) that is not presented as suitable for operational use when it is not. We can also better connect knowledge and action via co-learning that links closely the users and producers of climate information so as to address the correct time and spatial scales and climate variables and embed this information into the social and institutional processes through which decisions are made.

Landline's Pip Courtney speaks to Professor Mark Howden of the Climate Change Institute and asks if changes in climate are making farming unviable.

_{READ MORE: Q&A with Mark Howden: Farmers’ growing awareness on climate via 'Newsroom' by Eloise Gibson (23 August 2019).}