Agtech Solutions to Food Security

Agriculture experts agree that innovations on the farm will be critical to ensuring that enough food is produced to feed the growing population. Entrepreneurs have stepped up to the challenge and agtech startups are popping up around the world offering innovating farming solutions that enable better efficiency and result in increased crop yields. Below are articles highlighting how agtech solutions can help to ensure global food security. Agtech Key to Feeding the World by 2050read more

Innovations in Agriculture

At Invested Development, we believe innovative technologies in farming will play a key role in ensuring that food production meets the calorie needs of the growing global population.  To date, we have invested in five ventures whose innovative technologies have applications in agriculture solutions: OnFarm, Cropin, iProcure, Rowbot, and Promethean Power Systems. Below are articles highlighting how innovation in farming technology is improving agriculture. Investing in Agriculture: Innovation is Changing read more

Food & Agriculture

Finding a way to sustainably feed the world will require government initiatives, funding, and most importantly, technology solutions for farmers. The articles below highlight recent developments in initiatives to solve the global food problem. In poor countries, companies step in to fill gaps left by agriculture nonprofits by Sarah Shemkus on The Guardian Across developing countries, 2.5 billion farmers live on less than $4 a day according a recent report released by Acumen and Bain read more

Agriculture and Food Security Developments

As the world population increases along with global incomes and standards of living, there will be over 9 million mouths to feed globally by 2050. This is a number we see, talk and read about often. To ensure food security for our future, changes must be made in the agriculture industry. Below are recent articles that innovation, progress in the sector and offer advice for continued development.

To feed the world, food and agriculture industry read more

Why We Invest in Ag Tech

Farming may be one of the oldest industries, but there is no lack of opportunity for investment. Below are articles highlighting the need for innovations in agriculture, opportunities for investment, and the recent success of technology in the space.

Ag-tech could change how the world eats on Grand Haven Tribune

Venture capitalists are putting money into “ag tech” companies focused on anything from big data to drone technology, in an effort to feed the growing … read more

Big Data on the Farm

Big Data and Big Agriculture by Adam Lesser on Gigaom

Gigaom, the blog focused on emerging technologies, is tuned into the influence of big data in agriculture.  The research arm has released a new report reviewing a variety of data driven services and their potential value-add for agribusiness.

Key findings include:

  • There will be more incentives to leverage new technology to increase crop yields and manage risk as global population increases, environment volatility grows and
read more

Gender Lens Investing

In the impact space, we frequently consider the social impact of our investments. A tangible way of looking at impact is through environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics. Many of our peers focus specifically on the gender lens, a social metric in the ESG framework. Check out the following recent articles that discuss the tangible impact of gender lens investing and the admirable work of our peers.

WIN-WIN 2.0: Connecting gender lens investing with clean read more

Updates from the AgTech Space

Agriculture Technology has the potential to tackle global problems of climate change and food security. We are happy to have had the opportunity to invest in technologies, such as the Rowbot, that are contributing to improvements in agriculture. Below are recent articles highlighting exciting developments in ag tech globally.

Ag Tech Avalance by Chris Bennett on AgWeb

“Big data and precision ag technology will be the most exciting front in technology for global agriculture for … read more

Integrating Mobile Money into Agricultural Development

The Mobile Financial Service industry has made financial inclusion possible for millions in developing nations. Today, there is an opportunity to integrate mobile money into agriculture development with the potential to benefit farmers, buyers and mobile money providers. Below is a series of articles by Lee Babcock, digital finance thought leader, suggesting the best way to jumpstart mobile payments in the agriculture sector.

Three Steps to Jumpstart Agriculture Mobile Payments by Lee Babcock on Next read more

Updates on UAV use in Agriculture

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as a farming tool has been an increasingly popular topic in the agriculture technology space. The collection of articles below outline the benefits UAV use can offer the agriculture sector as well as the roadblocks in the way of widespread commercial use.

Good Morning! I’m Here to Scout Your Crop by Elton Robinson on Delta Farm Press

UAVs in agriculture are still a work in progress yet they … read more

Importance of Precision Agriculture

In the next forty years, we will need to produce more food than we have over the entire course of human history. On a planet with diminishing resources that is subject to environmental stress, advancements in agricultural technology offer the best solution to the issue of feeding an increasing population in a sustainable manner. The following articles detail a few advancements relating to this goal.

VilCap Kenya: Serving Farmers 2014
Our partner, Village Capital, … read more

Agriculture Investments in Africa

Given our interest in agriculture, it is great to hear about governmental, institutional, and private efforts towards efficient and sustainable food production. Below are a few articles that detail this progress, with a focus on Africa.

Denmark to invest in African agriculture by Christian Wenande on The Copenhagen Post
Denmark’s trade and development minister recently announced earlier that the department is launching an agriculture investment fund targeting developing nations. The fund will be dedicated to … read more

Climate change and agriculture

Climate change and agriculture are deeply intertwined. Agriculture is responsible for a significant portion of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, while climate change is changing farming by introducing new challenges. The best solutions to mitigating climate change lie in the dynamically changing agriculture sector, and the answer to improving agriculture and global food production lies in technology.

To Deal With Climate Change, We Need Agricultural Innovation — Now by Robert T. Fraley on The Huffington read more

Precision ag firms making headlines

Here at ID, we are always interested and excited to hear news coming out of the precision agriculture space all around the world. The following articles detail recent purchases and venture investments in this sector. We need to increase food production sustainably all around the world, and we’re pleased to see activity everywhere from Europe to South America.

Raven Buys Dutch Precision Ag Firm on Farm Futures
Publicly traded Raven Industries (RAVN) announced its purchase
read more

Internet of Things in Energy and Agriculture

At ID, we’re interested in the growing “Internet of Things” (IoT) trend, especially in the energy and agriculture sectors. In energy, IoT allows for remote monitoring and management of pay-as-you-go and other smart grid systems. In agriculture, it can give farmers fast insight on their crops and livestock without having to physically inspect them. This week, we’re highlighting examples in the news of both applications and a glimpse at the technology development.

‘Internet of things’ read more

The Future of Agriculture Technology

With our vested interest in agriculture technology, we are always excited to hear about new developments in the agriculture sector. Below are some of the best articles about the future of agriculture technology.

Tradition Meets Technology: The Changing Face of Agriculture by Elizabeth Arakelian on Turlock Journal

Agriculture is a $395 billion industry in the United States, but the average age of the American farmer is 58 years old. The inclusion of technology in the … read more

The Paradox Behind Nitrogen and How Ag Tech Can Help

Since 1960 we have increased global food production by 2.5X (FAO) and more than doubled our population. One of the biggest contributing factors to our increased crop production is Nitrogen and the Nitrogen-enriched fertilizer that is produced from it. Nitrogen is one of the basic building blocks of amino acids:  a fundamental part of any organic organism and hugely beneficial to crop growth. However, it can have detrimental effects on the global ecosystem when used … read more

Technological Advancements in Agriculture

The food and agriculture industry, from big to small, from the US to Africa, will undergo a new wave of technology adoption in the next 5-10 years. The core theme driving this adoption is the need for food security and food safety.

Agricultural Technologies Could Increase Global Crop Yields as Much as 67 Percent and Cut Food Prices Nearly in Half by 2050” by International Food Policy Research Institute

The world’s population is … read more

Converging Trends in AgTech

We are always researching the latest innovations in the agriculture technology sector for potential investments for the BSP Fund. Here are some of the stories that caught our attention this week.

Robot Farmers are the Future of Agriculture, says Government by Fiona Harvey
Development of an increasing number of “farmbots” is beginning to take place in many countries. These robots and drones are specially made to perform time-consuming agricultural tasks, such as weeding, pruning, … read more

Push for Agricultural Technology

This week we focused on the growing push of technology in the agricultural sector. An estimated 50% of the world’s land is used for agriculture. With the world’s growing population, we need an increase in food production and sustainable agricultural practices to support upcoming generations. By 2050, the global population is expected to exceed 9 billion people. We are always looking for innovators and start-ups that can bring innovation and technology to the agricultural sector.… read more

Agriculture in Africa

Agriculture employs 65% of Africa’s labor force and accounts for 32% of gross domestic product overall. Of the 65% employed, smallholder farmers produce 80% of Africa’s food. With modern technology, African countries are taking initiatives to change the agricultural sector.

Science Agriculture Estate Programme to Begins Next Year on Ghana News Agency
On November 19, Seth Terkper, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, announced that the Ghanaian government will begin working on an … read more

Urban Population Shift

One of the major reasons we’re investing in agriculture is because of the population shift we will see over the next 40 years. There’ll be more mouths to feed, smaller farming populations, and no new arable land to work with. We’ve visualized the driving force – urbanization – in the infographic below. Please share!

Final Draft Urban Pop Shift (1)read more

Big Data in Agriculture

This week we focused on the use of Big Data in agriculture. Big Data is changing the agriculture market and creating sustainable farming. We are always looking for innovation and new start-ups that can lead us to sustainable farming methods.

The Next Big Market for Data and Connected Devices – Agriculture by Stacey Higginbotham on Gigaom

As the local food and sustainable farming movements grow, Big Data is helping farmers grow produce more food at … read more

Food Waste in the World

In this week’s reading we focused on food waste throughout the world. Each year nearly 30% of the world’s farmland is used to grow food that is not eaten, adding up to 4 billion tons of food waste. Food waste contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and cost inefficiencies. We are always looking for innovators and start-ups that can use technology to reduce this waste.

Fixation with food safety means so much of it goes to read more

Agriculture’s Impact on Water

For this week’s reading, we focused on agriculture’s impact on water. By 2020, between 75 to 250 billion people will be exposed to water stress, a result of depleting fresh water resources. Although there are policy-driven efforts to reduce water stress and contamination, we are always looking for new technologies and initiatives that can have a greater impact on these global problems.

EPA ordered to assess fertilizer runoff by Colleen Scherer on AG Professional

Following … read more