Agriculture is the most important occupation in Philippines. As a growing market, many investors invested approximately 1.5 billion between 2000 and 2016. This trend is expected to grow in 2018, as many technologies in the farming sector are being introduced.
Technology has always played a key role in different sectors. Due to that, many emerging start-ups are trying to introduce unique technologies in agricultural field which enhances the productivity with minimum human interference.
Big Data. In today’s world, data is everything. Data can provide a meaningful insight that helps many businesses for their growth. In the case of agriculture, studies have shown that by year 2050 the population will grow to 9.7 billion. This means that we need to find ways to produce the food and distribute it at the double the current rate. This becomes extremely important as about 40% of the earth’s surface is being used for agriculture. One-third of the food produced goes waste during the entire production process as it majorly impacts the global economy. Therefore, data should be used in agriculture industries. Big Data analytics helps analyse valuable insights from the data gathered from the fields, weather, and climatic conditions. It can help in yield production, as the insights can provide the information like what to plant and where to plant a particular crop for maximum production. Also, the data gathered from humidity, temperature and chemicals can provide useful insights like which fields are prone to contamination and presence of microbes.
Biotechnology. It is an emerging field in the agriculture sector. It is an area of agricultural science involving the use of various scientific techniques like molecular diagnostics, genetic engineering and tissues culture to modify the living organisms: plants, animals and microorganisms to increase the crop productivity. Genetic Engineering is the process of transferring a useful characteristic from a gene constituting the particular trait to another organism. This process is used to increase the crop productivity and providing resistance to weeds and bad weather conditions.
Tissue culture is the field of producing a plant that is disease-free. A disease-free plant can thereby generate types which are disease-free.
By: Julie Fe S. De Alca | Teacher II | BNHS – SHS
