Digital Agriculture Digital Agriculture How do consumers, society or politicians reward farmers who reap lower yields or produce more expensive crops but in return tackle climate change or protect species? to market prices, climatic conditions and protection aspects. Throughout the year, the app will provide him with suggestions and decision-making aids for optimizing cultivation – after all, it will also be using real-time measurements that are continuously fed into the system. The concepts of organic and conventional cultivation will no longer play a role in the world of Farmer Meyer. Because for him and his colleagues, farming that protects ecosystem services in his fields and in the environment is a matter of course. And for his customers it is also a matter of course to reward him for this. Experts refer to “ecosystem services” as the benefits that humanity derives from its environment, if it is intact. These include clean drinking water filtered through the soil, the pollination of fruit trees and vegetable crops, and protection against flooding. Without these services, human life on Earth would not be possible. In a 1997 study, scientists valued ecosystem services at 33 trillion US dollars per year – a 14-digit figure. In their vision of the agriculture of the future, the research team is also looking at how existing land can be used even more efficiently. “It’s not about turning whole fields into flower beds”, smiles Bellingrath-Kimura. Having grown up in Japan, the scientist also knows another type of agriculture in which smaller fields are cultivated more intensively. Sustainable intensification is the keyword for the future. This includes small autonomous agricultural machines that fertilize, water or weed as needed, as well as adapted cultivars and new crop rotations. AGRICULTURE WITH APPS AND ROBOTS Before the vision of a new agriculture can take shape, there is still a lot for science to do. But one thing is clear: In 30 years’ time, Farmer Meyer will farm very differently than his father today. He will probably plan his cultivation by app, based on sensor technology that measures his fields down to the tiniest detail and on analyses that mathematically determine the best cultivation concept according It’s not about turning whole fields into flower beds. PROF. DR. SONOKO DOROTHEA PROF. DR. SONOKO DOROTHEA BELLINGRATH-KIMURA BELLINGRATH-KIMURA studied agriculture at the University of Agriculture and Technology in Tokyo (Japan). She has been working at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research since 2015 and is Co-Head of Research Area 2 “Land Use and Governance”. Additionally, she is Professor of Land Use Systems at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. www.zalf.de/feld/en 08 09
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