The Three Core Challenges Facing Agriculture

Ram Mudholkar

Ram Mudholkar

Within the world, as we speak, the agriculture sector is facing the following core challenges.

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The first challenge is that the world population is growing steadily and is expected to reach almost 10 billion by 2050. This will naturally entail the need to enhance crop production significantly so as to meet the food demands of the growing population. As the cultivable land continues to shrink globally, FAO estimates that 90% of the desired increase in crop production has to come from improvements in crop yields and by increasing cropping intensity.

Secondly, in todays world the challenge becomes multifold considering the growing environmental and food safety concerns around the world. Agriculture is under increasing demand and pressure from consumer advocacy groups and regulators to ensure the food is grown in significantly more sustainable and safer ways. This would mean more innovative and sustainable approaches to provide suitable solutions to enhance crop production- indeed the need is to produce more not only per acre, but also per drop of water, per gram of nutrient, and per unit of any agri input.

Third, with global integration of markets, growers are finding it difficult to maintain cost competitiveness and yet ensure desired profitability and earnings. They are demanding and seeking solutions that help them reduce cost of production significantly while delivering on sustainability goals at the same time.

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Thus, the future need- over the next 2 decades or more – is for transformational changes in agriculture which can only be met through a combination of innovative new solutions alongside some of the good traditional practices. In the field of crop production and protection, the overdependence on chemical fertilizers and crop protection chemicals has to be substantially recued by way of deployment of new solutions in biologicals, biostimulants and other bio products.

The biostimulants space has evolved significantly over the last decade or so and continues to grow and evolve rapidly. With this in mind, it is a great opportunity for the industry to discover more about commercializing and developing such products. There is no better opportunity for this than attending the AgriBusiness GlobalSM Biostimulant CommerceCon, taking place at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix, AZ this summer.

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