Kevin Price, head of Corporate Marketing and Communications at Certis Europe, has used the New Year to set out some of the challenges and trends that the company foresees in global food production.

He said that the crop protection company needed to understand the complex challenges facing ‘the long-term future of food production.’ Certis has been working with Forum for the Future to address these issues and inform its long-term strategies, and this has resulted in a project that has helped Certis understand how its future context may change.

“It seems likely that the size of the market for conventional crop protection products will reduce substantially,” said Kevin. “This will be due not only to regulatory developments but also to advances in precision agriculture and the increasing use of biological solutions alongside chemical solutions. We shall probably see a shift towards prevention rather than cure and a significant shift towards highly-targeted precision application where appropriately adapted formulations and alternative technologies replace spraying to a great extent. With such relatively dramatic changes in the tools available to growers, we anticipate a need for greater service support alongside the products.”

He also indicated a belief that high-tech physical crop protection, such as mechanical weeding carried out by drones and autonomous robots, will become mainstream. “It is clear that farm data is growing in importance in terms of the development of technologies and the provision of crop protection solutions. Farmers will have information at their fingertips from the technology involved in every aspect of the farming operation so that they know exactly when, where and how to target pests and diseases before they take hold. The application of chemicals will be highly targeted and thus quantities used will be vastly reduced.”

Photo Credit: Certis

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