* By Joaquim Campos
On October 16, we celebrate World Food Day. The date came to remember the creation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in 1945, with the aim of achieving food security for all and ensuring that people have regular access to high quality food sufficient for a healthy life.
According to FAO, Latin America is one of the largest food exporters in the world, which makes the food industry a key sector for the region's growth (1). Currently, the industry is going through a transformation moment, due to the globalization and digitalization of processes and services; something that was further intensified by COVID-19. And this is where cutting-edge technologies, such as Cloud, AI and Blockchain, can help you along this path, strengthening food chains from beginning to end and addressing 3 main challenges derived from this transformation: 1. Sustainability; 2. Efficiency and 3. New forms of consumption.
- Sustainability: Having a sustainable agricultural and food chain implies the rational use of resources such as soil, water and supplies, to improve the environmental quality and the lives of producers and society. This leads us to examine three fundamental pillars for the sustainability of the food industry: climate change, scarcity of resources and loss of food.
For example, the agricultural sector, and especially irrigated agriculture, uses most of the water, with 70% of withdrawal (2). Therefore, technologies such as artificial intelligence are transforming the industry, assisting in soil assessment, irrigation planning and chemical control, making the use of resources more efficient and reducing the environmental impact.
- Efficiency: The food industry is a sector that has many actors that are part of the ecosystem, with associated processes that multiply as the network expands. The challenge would be to optimize these processes taking into account three main factors: good demand planning for a growing population, food security and economic impact.
For example, it is estimated that 30 to 40% of crops are lost each year for several reasons, including: crop diseases, non-optimization of production and insufficient supply estimates (3). All of this, with the consequent economic impact. The use of the cloud and its APIs can help organizations better plan their production, optimize the use of resources and scale solutions in an agile and fast way, reducing the associated costs.
- New forms of consumption: consumption trends for the coming decades will require greater flexibility to adapt to users, and even more so, in the 'new reality', with hyperconnected users; with an increase in 'ecofriendly' purchases; and the new purchase modalities derived from the impact of COVID-19, among others.
9 out of 10 Latin American millennials have environmental impact in mind in at least some of their purchasing decisions (4). Blockchain technology can help companies and organizations to digitize and increase confidence levels across the ecosystem. This is achieved through real-time transparency of transactions; showing the route that food takes from the field to the table and giving visibility to information about the sustainability practices of the brands.
Several companies in Latin America are already using IBM's disruptive technologies to accelerate their reinvention and transform the food chain from farm to fork, to be better prepared for what tomorrow will bring.
(1) http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4738s.pdf
(2) http://www.bancomundial.org/es/topic/water-in-agriculture
(3) http://www.fao.org/news/story/es/item/469315/icode/
(4) http://dev-latinspots-com.sa-east-1.elasticbeanstalk.com/sp/noticia/mercado-libre-lanza-su-seccin-exclusiva-de-productos-sustentables/51746
* Joaquim Campos, vice president of Cloud & Cognitive Software at IBM Brazil
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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