Why you need to invest in Agrotech
There is a significant connection between agriculture and technology in the modern world. Whatever its form, modern agriculture has greatly profited from the use of technology.
Although agro-tech is still quite young, it is beginning to take off. With so many new start-ups appearing on the landscape, it is starting to make itself known.
The way agriculture is practiced in the modern world is now impacted by technology.
Technology has reshaped and recreated the globe. What we currently refer to as agro-tech, which means the employment of technology in farming and other agricultural operations, is a result of how technology has affected agriculture.
The need for food has increased due to the country’s and the world’s expanding populations and technology is now being employed to mass-produce food items.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) states in its most recent report that “by 2050, there will be 9.1 billion people on the planet, and to feed them, food production would need to increase globally by 70%. In order to prevent more widespread famine, agricultural production must increase faster than the world average in Africa, where the population is expected to reach about 2 billion by then.
According to PlugAndPlay’s analysis on “Agtech Trends in 2020,” “In the last 10 years, agriculture technology has seen a huge growth in investment, with $6.7 billion invested in the previous five years, including $1.9 billion in just the last year.” Professor Temitope Aduloju, an expert said, there is no way we can do without agrotech since it has become a revolution in the agricultural sector, attesting to the fact that agro-tech has become a significant component of contemporary farming.
But these companies employ a wide range of agricultural technologies, such as indoor vertical farming, precision agriculture, drone technology, livestock technology, contemporary greenhouse techniques, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. It goes without saying that there are requirements to join it.
Crowd-farming
Crowdfunding is one of the most popular types of agro-tech in Nigeria. Small firms create investment alternatives and packages using fintech applications so that regular people may invest a portion of their money at certain interest rates and specified tenures. These businesses then employ investment capital and economies of scale to carry out their agricultural procedures before sharing the profits with the investors. Many of these businesses are not at all sophisticated.
Remember that there are no restrictions on the amount of financing that investors can provide to these platforms. There are several instances of businesses that one may invest in utilizing this platform. This applies to E-Farms Nigeria, PorkMoney, Farmkart, and Farmcrowdy.
According to Hallmark’s research, contemporary agriculture is increasingly investing more in farm automation and precision farming.
Even with the application of about 2 million tonnes of pesticide, the FAO estimates that between 20 and 40 percent of the world’s agricultural output are lost annually to pests and diseases.
In particular, this is what is intended by technologies like agricultural automation and precision farming. It entails increasing farming productivity (also known as smart farming), which includes employing autonomous tractors, robotic harvesters, autonomous harvesters, robotic harvesters, automated watering, and even planting robots.
One may even start their own agrotech company at any point along the value chain, from finance to tech-based production to even logistics technology. However, given that COVID-19 produces uncertainty in the stock market and the economy as a whole, there are some agritech investments to take into account.
Agritech firms may have changed from being riskier alternatives for investors due to the uncertainty we are currently facing as a result of the epidemic and the constraints. There are several agritech firms in the nation that have increased farming’s profitability by reducing risk exposure and providing ROI to investors who do not have to purchase property, pay employees, or even spend money on pest control and maintenance.
Agritech firms have genuinely altered how farming is practiced and run as a company.
More people are examining their investing possibilities and becoming digital farmers in the nation, particularly blue-collar employees. It’s said that several of these agritech businesses provide high-yield investment prospects via internet/mobile app-farming.
