One of the key priorities for the Future Agro Challenge community around the world and something that sets us apart in our ecosystem building work, is our passion and belief that farmers need to be highly involved in leading the way in agricultural innovation.

At almost this time last year, the 4th FAC Global Agripreneurs Summit held in Thessaloniki, Greece, centred its theme as “Defining the Future Farmer 4.0”. The goal was to focus global conversations around envisioning how technology will transform the farmer, food, and nutrition. What will the current role of the farmer become? What changes will this create in the food industry? How will we address nutrition in this new dialogue? What new models will the food logistics industry absorb? What skills will be needed for the future farmer? How can traditional farmers prepare for agriculture 4.0? Should robots substitute current farmer roles or do farmers play a substantial role beyond what robots are able to offer us?

Worldwide, agricultural productivity growth is slowing – the key to making the most of future agriculture opportunities is efficiency in production.  For this to occur, we need new technology coupled with an innovative culture.  There is much passion, talent and ideas in the agricultural industry, but not enough commercialisation, patents or venture capital to bring these innovations to market.  We need to build an Agrifood Innovation ecosystem that supports an entrepreneurial mindset around the globe and we need to intentionally include farmers in various roles; as investors, adopters, developers, advisors and consultants. If we don’t, we risk not achieving the trust and credibility required to build traction for innovation and change, or worse still, building and investing in products that don’t solve real problems or add value and that nobody wants to buy!

The Future Agro Challenge isn’t just about the future of farming – innovations are changing the way farms operate right now. From optimising seed placement in horticulture, to real-time tracking of plant disease to automated fruit picking – FAC ecosystem builders are bringing together agrifood innovators and leaders from around the world – where farmers, agripreneurs, chefs, investors, organisations, policy makers, and other thought leaders work together to help bring life to game-changing innovations, and propel agriculture as a sustainable source of growth and economic development to energize the traditional agrifood industry into an innovative space.

The Future Agro Challenge is committed to ensuring that the ‘ag’ in agricultural innovation comes first.

To this end, we want to hear about amazing farmers in your country who are putting innovative practices into place in their agricultural businesses – please reach out to us via our website, social media or email and share their stories so we can help to amplify the exciting work farmers are doing all over the world.