Automation is a tool for transforming agrifood systems
On 15 December, the FAO Moscow Office and the Russian FAO’s depositary library – Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution "Central Scientific Agricultural Library" presented two flagship publications of the Organization in Russian. “The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2022. The geography of food and agricultural trade: policy approaches for sustainable development (SOCO 2022)” and “The State of Food and Agriculture 2022. Leveraging automation in agriculture for transforming agrifood systems (SOFA 2022)”.
The SOFA 2022 report, prepared by FAO experts, “presents commodity market issues in an objective and accessible way for policy makers, commodity observers and anyone interested in trends in agricultural markets and their impact on countries at different levels of economic development,” Mikhail Bunin, Director of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution "Central Scientific Agricultural Library", said in his opening remarks.
“The SOFA 22 report aims at bringing a wider audience balanced, scientifically based assessments of the state of key aspects in the field of food and agriculture. Traditionally, this publication provides a comprehensive, accessible overview of issues relevant to rural development and agriculture”, Mikhail Bunin continued.
Opening the forum, the discussion moderator, Aghasi Harutyunyan, Deputy-Director of the FAO Moscow Office, expressed his gratitude to Mikhail Bunin and his Deputy-Director, Lidia Perumova, “for many years of cooperation and the tradition of holding presentations of FAO flagship publications in the library on New Year's Eve."
“FAO experts have done a thorough job, which resulted in the reports presented today, SOCO 2022 and SOFA 2022,” Aghasi Harutyunyan continued. FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu, on the occasion of the publication of the SOCO 2022 report, said: “Efficient trade can help improve food security and improve nutrition throughout the world. Trade enables global agri-food systems to make more efficient and sustainable use of scarce natural resources, including land and water, and stimulates the diffusion of modern technologies.”
Introducing SOCO 2022, George Rapsomanikis, Senior Economist, Markets and Trade Division (FAO Headquarters, Rome), noted, “Today, more countries trade with each other, Low-income countries are better integrated into global markets. Globalization stalled in 2008 but the global food and agricultural market has become less concentrated. The number of large traders increased, while their dominance weakened – the market has become more balanced.”
“On the aggregate, the global market has become more resilient to shocks. Since 1995, the distribution of trade links has become more balanced and symmetric,” Rapsomanikis pointed out. “For individual foods, market can be vulnerable to shocks. Trade links at the product level are unevenly distributed. For many countries, there is need to further diversify trade sources.”
One of the prevailing market trends is regional integration, stressed FAO expert. “Trade intensity is higher within rather than across regions. Geographic proximity, similar preferences and trade agreements shape regional trade clusters. There is a distinct regionalization of trade in all regions with the exception of Africa.”
Moreover, “trade is costly – tariffs, transport costs, insurance, documentation procedures, delays at border and compliance with standards adds to trade costs. Poor transport infrastructure and inefficient legal procedures raise the bill further. Low-income countries face high trade costs, especially in Africa, where intraregional trade costs are extremely high.” To make trade less expensive, the FAO economist suggested to implement “regional trade agreements and the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement.”
Apart from these issues, there is the concern over protection of the environment. “Trade policies alone cannot mitigate environmental extremes,” Rapsomanikis emphasized. “At the multilateral level, WTO rules allow countries to adopt trade-related measures and protect the environment. Regional agreements became ‘deeper’ and include environment-related provisions. However, to be effective these provisions should be made legally binding with well-developed institutions to oversee implementation.”
Moreover, “only multilateral approaches can effectively address global environmental challenges, such as greenhouse gases emissions and climate change. Carbon taxes and border tax adjustments serve an example of a mechanism in which trade can help expand the reach of mitigation policies.”
In conclusion, the FAO expert underlined that “there is need for diversifying import sources. Trade promotes food security and helps countries overcome natural resources constraints – it has also an efficiency-enhancing effect on natural resource use. But production for export can have negative environmental impacts. Multilateral rules and increasingly regional trade agreements can address localized environmental extremes… Global challenges need global solutions that could be reached only through multilateralism.”
Russian co-rapporteur Dmitry Bulatov, President of the National Union of Food Exporters, said the report touches on "key issues in global food markets." He commented on current political approaches to achieving sustainable development goals, describing in detail such a term as “food diplomacy”.
According to the speaker, this concept can be considered "as the use of measures and means by the state for food imports and exports in order to protect national interests, including the development of economic interests, ensuring both foreign economic interests and foreign policy ones. Secondly, there is another definition,” the expert noted. “That is taking into account the foreign policy interests of the country in the implementation of foreign economic relations in the agro-industrial complex.”
Dmitry Bulatov noted that the SOCO 2022 report refers to the supply of food to countries in need, and in this case, "the interests of economics, politics and morality are closely connected here." In this regard, the speaker defined the term "food diplomacy" as "the relationship between the agrarian economy, foreign policy and public morality."
Sara Vaz from the Agrifood Division (FAO Headquarters, Rome) presented "The state of Food and Agriculture 2022" and outlined “the main challenges hindering our capability to sustainably nourish a continuously growing population. Basically, it boils down to four factors: “shrinking agricultural workforce; limited agricultural land; unsustainable water use and accelerating climate change.”
To meet these challenges, explained FAO expert, the global community should “evolve towards a new paradigm which is agricultural automation.” Going through the period of “motorized mechanization in the 1910s, moving subsequently to “digital equipment” in the 1980s, now, beginning with the 2000s, we should now embrace “robotics with artificial intelligence (AI).”
Sara Vaz provided the definition of agricultural automation: “The use of machinery and equipment in agricultural operations to improve their diagnosis, decision-making or performing, reducing the drudgery of agricultural work and/or improving the timeliness, and potentially the precision, of agricultural operations.” Consecutively, agricultural automation would result in “more productive, more efficient, more environmentally sustainable, more resilient and more safe” agricultural operations.
One of the key risks rests with the alleged danger of growing unemployment. However, FAO expert noted that “common fears that automation leads to unemployment are not supported by historical realities; automation is a gradual process.”
“In situation of rising wages and labour scarcity, agricultural automation can benefit both employers and workers,” Sara Vaz stressed. “Automation can lead to unemployment if subsidies make automation artificially cheap or sudden technological breakthroughs bring automation costs down very rapidly. When this happens there is a need for immediate inclusive social policies to help unskilled workers find employment elsewhere.”
FAO expert also dismissed another popular concern based on the assumption that automation leads to growing social inequalities: “Evidence from 27 case studies shows that agricultural automation technologies are mostly accessible to large-scale producers in high-income countries.”
The key measure to address that challenge would be “to provide public or collective goods that contribute to enabling environment (e.g. developing communications infrastructure).” No less important would be “tailoring solutions to local conditions through technological and institutional innovations (such as promoting small-sized machinery and hire services).” To follow suit: it would be essential also to “build human capacity, including investments to scale digital skills.”
Co-speaker from the Russian side Denis Maksimkin, Deputy Director of the Rosspetsmash Association, spoke about the prospects for the development of the production of agricultural machinery and the digitalization of the agro-industrial complex in Russia.
“Russian manufacturers produce a wide range of machines for agriculture,” the specialist said. Among these products there are grain and forage harvesters (self-propelled and trailed), wheeled and caterpillar tractors, sprayers, fertilizer spreaders, seeders, disc harrows, cultivators, forage equipment (mowers, balers), equipment for post-harvest processing of crops, and so on. In total, more than 50 types of agricultural machinery.
The emphasis is placed on increasing the level of intellectualization, accuracy and productivity of agricultural machinery. Russian engineers have created systems of driving and night vision, yield mapping, identification, monitoring and control of agricultural machinery. At the moment, the Rosspetsmash specialist said, research is underway for choosing the optimal trajectory of agricultural machinery and its auto-tuning, as well as online communication with a cloud-based telematics infrastructure.
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Among the participants of the webinar – more than 50 in total – there were representatives of Russian relevant departments, leading Russian universities, the press and public organizations.
BACKGROUND
About FAO flagship publications
The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets (SOCO 2022) presents commodity market issues in an objective and accessible way to policy-makers, commodity market observers and stakeholders interested in agricultural commodity market developments and their impacts on countries at different levels of economic development.
This edition of the report examines how trade policies based on multilateral and regional approaches can help address today's sustainable development challenges. The publication discusses the geography of trade and analyzes food and agricultural trade, its patterns across countries and regions, its drivers, and trade policies. Factors shaping food and agricultural trade patterns include comparative advantage, trade policies and trade costs.
The annual State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA 2022) report aims at bringing a wider audience a balanced science-based assessments of the state of key aspects in the field of food and agriculture. Each edition provides a comprehensive, accessible overview of the most relevant topics for rural development and agriculture.
The 2022 report looks at the drivers of agricultural automation, including the latest digital technologies. Drawn from 27 case studies, the report analyses the business case for implementing digital automation technologies in various agricultural production systems around the world. It identifies some of the barriers to inclusive adoption of these technologies, especially by small producers.