Regenerative agriculture
“Regenerative Agriculture” is a holistic practice of farming that can reverse climate change through rebuilding soil organic matter, restoring degraded soil biodiversity, increasing carbon sequestration, and improving the water cycle.
Two emerging markets need scalable monitoring of sustainable farms;
1- Voluntarily Carbon market; The global carbon market was valued at $3.3 billion in 2021, and is projected to grow into $50.0 billion by 2030 (15 times increase). Sustainable agriculture sequesters carbon in the soil and offers high quality carbon credit to carbon buyers.
2- Regenerative agriculture product market which is a niche market but is expanding enormously. There is a growing trend among consumers to eat products with low carbon foot print. There are big names such as Nestle, General Mills, and Pepsico that are committed to net zero and adapting regenerative farming to their value chain.
While traditional methods of monitoring sustainable farm management is labor, capital and time intensive, new technologies such as remote sensing and AI provide scalable solutions.
Grain Data Solutions offers scalable monitoring of regenerative agriculture aspects including cover crops, agroforestry, no-tillage, and crop rotation.
Satellite imageries assess cover crops and count the number of days the farm had green vegetation.
Machine learning models can differ between no-till and soil disturbance through conventional ploughing.
Crop classification models distinguish between mono-cropping (like planting corn every year) vs crop rotation (e.g., corn, soy, wheat) over years.
Aerial photos demonstrate the adoption of agroforestry at farm level.
Remote sensing, image processing, and AI monitor regenerative farms cheaper, faster, and highly scalable both currently and historically. Scalable monitoring of farm management provides premium for sustainable farmers and makes traceability at food value chain achievable.
