Agriculture and climate change: What is technological convergence…?
As is already known, climate change has negative impacts on agriculture, and even when a moderate increase in temperature and fertilization by CO2 bring increases in yields of some crops, if this increase in temperature exceeds 2 ºC the effects will be completely negative for the practice of agriculture, according to the unanimity of the experts.
With the reality of climate change, the productive capacity of agro-ecosystems is altered, the incidence of pests and diseases increases, and the frequency and intensity of extreme climatic phenomena change. Even if GHG (greenhouse gas) levels in the atmosphere stabilize or begin to decline, the persistence of accumulated stock is sufficient for the temperature increase to continue for a significant period of time. Hence the urge to adapt.
Although agricultural activity is responsible for one third of global GHG emissions, it is also true that agriculture has significant mitigation potential. This can be achieved through the adjustment and change of productive practices. Adaptation to climate change and the contribution of the sector to its mitigation pose the need to introduce changes in the way agricultural practice relates to the environment. These transformations can range from simple modifications in sowing and harvesting dates, to significant structural changes, such as the development of new ways of doing agriculture.
New technologies for a new agriculture
The contribution of the so-called new technologies, or emerging technologies, are an element in full development and application in the perspective of this new agriculture, and within this practice the concept of technological convergence stands out, a concept that emerged with force does something more of a decade to make sense of the interaction and growing integration between sciences.
In agriculture, the most notable example has been the development of precision agriculture, where knowledge and technologies developed in the field of agro-environmental sciences, agricultural engineering and geographic information systems, such as information, converge. satellite, global positioning systems, GPS, or the use of drones, among others.
What is technological convergence?
Specifically, technological convergence involves the interaction of one of these four major areas of science and technology:
- Nanotechnology and nano-science
- Biotechnology, biomedicine and genetic engineering
- Information technology, advanced computing and communications
- Cognitive science and neuroscience
This concept is also identified as "Science and technology NBIC" (by its acronym Nano, Bio, Info and Cogno).
The concept of technological convergence, in a simple way, is the synergistic combination of two or more of these generic technologies in the pursuit of common objectives, achieving a reciprocal enhancement between such technologies because they are enabled to work with each other. In the case of new agriculture, it is about the interaction of information and communication technologies (ICT), biotechnology and nanotechnology.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, the technological challenge is to produce more, better and more varied food or non-food agricultural products, developing production processes that generate less GHG or other pollutants, using more efficient water and energy, occupying the same or less amount of land, responding to new biotic and abiotic stress caused by climate change and that these processes are subject to greater surveillance of society in relation to the technologies used.
In agriculture, the role of ICT is increasingly recognized for its contribution to environmental management through the development of tools for the integration and management of agro-climatic and productive information. In the case of biotechnology, their contributions are widely recognized, as in the development of varieties more resistant to water stress and heat, for example. And with regard to nanotechnology, much of the work is still in an experimental phase, but with great potential, with applications throughout the agrifood chain.
The applications of ICT, biotechnology, nanotechnology and the convergence between them, open up new opportunities and are reinventing the way of doing agriculture. It is the agriculture of mechatronics, of nanobiosensors. It is the new agricultural revolution that lives the world, a revolution that is infonanobiotechnological and organizational.
Source: Martín Carrillo O. - Blueberries Consulting
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