Researchers suggest using artificial intelligence and nanotechnology in agriculture could offer new solutions to the many challenges that are currently threatening global food security. Together, the two technologies could help prevent hunger for millions by 2030.
Studying Precision Agriculture
The study published in the journal Nature Plants, entitled "Nanotechnology and artificial intelligence to enable sustainable and precision agriculture" by researchers at the University of Birmingham, UK, analyzed how 'precision agriculture' could give farmers new technologies to respond to real-time changes in crop growth.
Thus, precision agriculture, according to AGFundNews, is all about farming methods that better measure and respond to the variability of crops while allowing the management of land, prioritizing optimization of crop growth, efficiency, and effectively reducing waste.
Researchers suggest that using a combination of AI and nanotechnology could help farmers' crops and enhance soil performance.
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Issues of Global Food Security
The United Nations estimates that roughly 840 million people worldwide would be affected by hunger in 2030. Hence, researchers developed a roadmap that combines smart agriculture with AI and machine learning to reduce the number of people affected by issues of global food security.
As of now, 9% of the global population is experiencing hunger.
Iseult Lynch, the co-author of the study from the School of Geography, University of Birmingham, says to EuroNews that finding sustainable agriculture solutions to global hunger requires a bold new approach that integrates knowledge from various fields.
He adds that the combination of precision agriculture, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology offers an exciting opportunity for more sustainable food production. Researchers could link current nutrient cycling and crop productivity models with nanoinformatics to address the enhancement of crops and soil performance safely, responsibly, and sustainably.
Currently, the global motivation for innovation in the field of agriculture is the need to feed the incessant global population and the decrease in the land area available for agriculture use, all the while conserving and protecting soil health and environmental quality.
Water plays a vital role in the problems plaguing agriculture today. Having placed millions of people at risk of hunger, the COVID-19 pandemic has become a pivotal time of rethinking the many systems behind nutrition and food. Unfortunately, as of now, we are still far from achieving the goal of ensuring water and sanitation for the global population by 2030.
Inefficiencies and Challenges of the Agricultural Sector
The enormous demand for agriculture results in poor global nitrogen use and inefficiencies. These challenges refer to the amount of nitrogen used in the many farming processes that are absorbed by the crops.
The inefficiencies thus pose a grave threat to our environment as large amounts of nutrients are being lost to water and air, resulting in further global warming, with almost 11% of the global greenhouse gas emissions stemming from the agricultural sector.
A particular concern is the emissions of nitrous oxide that result from the excessive fertilization of land; this is roughly 300 times more potent than CO2 when it comes to causing global warming.
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