Global hunger is rising. The United Nations just reported that food insecurity has topped 29% worldwide, with more than a billion people facing moderate to severe food insecurity. And the demand for food is only going to grow, with the global population expected to hit 10 billion by 2050.
The sustainable use of land resources is key to mitigating climate change and biodiversity loss, but we are already using almost 40% of the world’s land surface for agriculture. How can the world attempt to solve this equation?
While advances in equipment and seed technology have historically been used to improve crop yields, we must look for new ways to improve efficiency and boost production. The answer may lie in space. Farmers now have a new tool at their disposal: satellites, unlocking an array of real-time data, can put farmers at the cutting edge of technology to help solve food insecurity.
Based on current estimates from Northern Sky Research, roughly 35,000 satellites will be launched in the next decade. This compares to 3,000 operational satellites in 2020. Driven by lower launch costs and improved access to space, this influx of new satellites will have a profound impact on terrestrial life, ranging from connectivity to mobility to environmental monitoring.
One area positioned to benefit is ‘precision agriculture,’ where satellites can facilitate enhanced autonomy, monitoring and data management. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers estimates that the adoption of precision agriculture could enable a 6% increase in crop yields, a 14% decrease in fertilizers and 21% decrease in water usage.
These are powerful incentives for farmers. With large agriculture enterprises like John Deere, Bayer AG and NASA Harvest adopting satellite technology, we expect meaningful change in the coming five to 10 years.
John Deere: Switching on Earthbound Tech
John Deere, the world’s largest agricultural equipment manufacturer, is actively seeking to incorporate satellite technologies into its tractors. Most agricultural locations have limited terrestrial connectivity because they are too far away from cell towers. Brazil, for example, is estimated to have only 20% of arable land ‘connected’ compared to more than 70% in North America.
Without full connectivity across all parts of the farm, autonomous tractors, precision seed planting, crop data and other efficiency-boosting advancements John Deere has made cannot be fully utilized. Getting data from the field to the cloud simply involves too much friction in rural areas.
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites will play a pivotal role by supporting connectivity and enabling the creation of a geospatial map that farmers can use to better track productivity and the performance of crops.
Planet Labs: Satellite-enabled ‘digital farming’
Enhancing connectivity isn’t the only satellite application to address food insecurity. Bayer AG, a multinational pharmaceutical and nutrition company and one of the world’s most important players in the agricultural industry, is leveraging data from earth observation satellites. Bayer has turned to earth-imaging company Planet Labs.
Planet Labs is one of the world’s largest Earth Observation companies with around 200 satellites in orbit. The company’s goal is to “map” the earth’s surface daily, to provide data and analytics to monitor changes and detect trends.
The data (and pictures) have potential applications across agriculture, insurance, energy, defence and other sectors. We believe Planet Labs is well positioned, particularly with its space-based software as a service (SaaS) business model, as more industries and companies seek to use earth observation.
Additionally, the ability to leverage existing data sets and images across multiple customers provides attractive returns. With a history (and data sets and images) dating back to 2010 and the acquisition of Google’s Terra Bella satellite business in 2017, we believe Planet Labs has an attractive market position.
Bayer AG partners with Planet Labs to come up with creative digital solutions that empower farmers and support sustainable agriculture. For example, with a footprint of farmland that stretches across the globe, Bayer’s scale limits its ability to physically inspect crops to determine their health, but instead of relying on estimates, it can now monitor all its land via detailed satellite imagery and address any issues immediately, prior to harvest.
It can also monitor plant and soil health using different spectrums, helping it to use water and fertilizer more efficiently. Daily crop monitoring also helps the company determine appropriate planting and harvesting seasons and identify the best-performing crops. All of this supports greater production in increasingly limited farmland.
With food supply chains under increasing pressure, we need to begin to start thinking about agriculture outside the box (or better yet, outside our planet).
Space’s contribution to agriculture is still in its infancy, but with improving access, advancements in satellite technology and pressure to do more with less, we see a runway for the continued proliferation of this technology. While it might be “one small step” in addressing food security, its importance and potential should not be underestimated.
Michael Barr is manager of the Neuberger Berman Next Generation Space Economy fund. The views expressed above should not be taken as investment advice.