As the world population continues to grow, recent estimates indicate that there could be almost 10 billion people by 2050, which would cause a 70% increase in global caloric needs, which will require an equal increase in production of food and fiber.
Latin America is actively preparing to lead the way to meet future demand. Brazil, in particular, is already a regional agricultural leader, and next week the team from Pavo is heading to the Blockspot Conference of the country in São Paulo to present its blockchain and IoT technology solution that aims to revolutionize the world of production and distribution food.
A recent report by the Global Harvest Initiative on the future of food production in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) points out that the LAC region is the basket of future "bread" ideal for the world. It is already a world leader in food production, in addition to being home to a third of the world's freshwater resources and a quarter of the world's medium to high potential fertile land.
In the report, the president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Luis Alberto Moreno, argues that:
"The export skill of the region is already being demonstrated in real terms, from the vast rains in Brazil to the packing plants in Argentina and Uruguay, and in the small coffee plantations in Central America, the asparagus fields in Peru and the corn fields of Mexico. Despite all this, LAC has simply scratched the surface of its ability to produce food for its own people and the world at large. "
Population growth puts pressure on land use and the environment in general, so countries like Brazil are turning to AgTech solutions to address environmental concerns while seeking to become the world's leading food producers.
Brazil is currently one of the world's leading exporters of food products such as sugar, coffee, cashew nuts, soybeans and chicken, but they also want to be world leaders in environmental and social sustainability. The country is ready to take the lead in the adoption of innovative technology, and Pavo believes that they have the ideal solution that will catapult the Brazilian agricultural industry in the future.
The company has already implemented its solution on hazelnut and almond farms in Europe, and is expanding to tree farms in California, a state that imposes restrictive irrigation regulations. Tree nuts are notoriously sensitive to when irrigated and even to precise harvest conditions.
Obtaining these errors can be expensive for producers, therefore, advanced analytical capabilities, such as those integrated in the Pavo software, can have a positive impact on the increase in yields.
The initial product of Pavo collects data directly from the field and processes it, to guide the decisions of the farmers on the optimum conditions of cultivation, from the seed to the irrigation until the ideal conditions of harvest.
They have even developed a method that uses software to predict the total yield of hazelnut by modeling the responses of each individual tree to its local environmental conditions. The predictions of the model are compared with historical performance values collected over a 10-year period.
These predictions offer an alternative to the use of retrospective analysis only and provide a method of estimating crops that incorporates the impact of current climate conditions. For LAC countries such as Brazil, which have drastically different regional climatic and climatic conditions, this type of precise analysis could be a factor of change.
What sets Pavo apart from other farm management systems is that its platform integrates blockchain technology, which means it can now offer a complete solution for the entire growth and distribution supply chain.