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Add to Preferred SourcesDigital agriculture has the potential to deliver significant economic, social and environmental benefits and, if promoted in an inclusive manner, it can contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said.
“Information and communications technology has the potential to reshape not only the way we work in agriculture but also our food systems, the way we will eat in the future,” he said.
Digital innovation is also linked to emerging precision agriculture capacities, which allow for farmers to reduce their use of chemical inputs, machinery and water for irrigation, he said, noting that climate change and natural resource constraints require new approaches to provide food security and adequate nutrition for all.
The FAO chief consequently called for a “gradual” shift” away from a reliance on Green Revolution techniques.
“The future of agriculture is not input-intensive but technology-intensive,” he said in his introduction to FAO’s inaugural International Seminar on Digital Agriculture Transformation.
Avoiding a wider digital divide and using a multi-stakeholder and systemic approach to assure an accessible, adaptive and agile digital ecosystem open to participation by all, is also the core recommendation of “The age of digital interdependence“, a report by the UN Secretary General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation released earlier this week, to which FAO contributed.
Original source: FAO
Published on 12 June 2019