HxGN BlogArticle

The Potential for More with Less

Have you ever paused for a moment to think about the demands being placed on the agriculture industry?

I have. In fact, I think about it every day.

Think about it. We will need to produce more food in the next 50 years than we have in the last 10,000 years!

If that isn’t challenging enough, the amount of farmable land is diminishing, water for irrigation is drying up at an alarming rate, climate change is creating new uncertainties and the farm labor force is migrating to urban areas.

This industry has been challenged before and risen to the challenge – a series of technology and farming advances that took place decades ago proved that the industry could meet the demands of food scarcity, and rapid productivity gains saved millions of lives after WWII.

But agricultural productivity growth has since slowed significantly. And in some ways, it has been the victim of its own success. Increased water use for irrigation, soil degradation and chemical runoff are just some of the unintended consequences impacting the environment.

So can the agriculture industry once again rise to meet the unprecedented demands being placed on it?

Yes. UnequivocalIy, yes. I truly believe that today, agriculture is ripe for a digital transformation that will harness the industry’s capacity to put an end to food scarcity.

At Hexagon, we are convinced that this transformation will unleash the full potential of agricultural assets, driving big gains in efficiency, productivity and sustainability. We are committed to empowering the industry to convert data into intelligent, actionable information that enables smart planning, efficient field execution, precise machine controls and automated workflows that optimise operations and increase productivity.

Our aim is to accelerate innovation within the agriculture sector with solutions that challenge the status quo – the what is – and point our customers towards what should be– the digital transformation of agriculture.

So next time you bite into a piece of bread or enjoy another spoonful of your favorite breakfast cereal, stop and take a moment to think about this: today, 240,000 mouths to feed were added. And tomorrow we expect the same.

At Hexagon, we are both motivated and optimistic that we can meet these demands today and tomorrow by a digital transformation of the agriculture industry so that we can do more with less.

This is the shape of potential. This is shaping smart change.

Regards,

Bernardo de Castro

Bernardo de Castro is president of Hexagon Agriculture and has more than 10 years of experience with technology companies. He has an automation engineering background and is a co-founder and former CEO of Arvus Tecnologia, a Brazil-based leader in precision agriculture software and hardware acquired by Hexagon in 2014.