Agriculture
Restore productive and sustainable ecosystems
Agriculture is essential to our daily lives, yet it is often overlooked. Agriculture is both the only source of food for us all and the main factor in the disruption of our ecosystems: we simply cannot be satisfied with a deadlock that does not reconcile ecology and economic robustness. We need to test and deploy scalable solutions for future generations.
What are the biggest challenges in this sector for the next decade ?
Climate disruption combined with changing expectations of both consumers and stakeholders in the agricultural world pose numerous challenges for maintaining a qualitative, resilient and attractive production. We have identified 5 major challenges in particular:
- Water resource management, which will require rethinking both uses and storage methods in order to rebalance the water cycle in the soil
- Adapting crops, rotations and technical itineraries in the face of climate change in order to maintain yields while gaining agility for farms
- The scarcity of agricultural labor and the need to offer more attractive jobs
- The management of complex production and biodiversity ecosystems because they are more diverse and intertwined, requiring farms to master a multitude of very diverse skills to maintain their competitiveness by building systems perfectly adapted to their territory
- The correlation of food production and fossil fuels needs which exposes all stakeholders from producer to consumer to too much uncertainty in the economic equation, paralyzing the long-term investments necessary for the agro-ecological transition
Why we believe deeptech can solve the biggest challenges ?
Fast Solutions for a Rapidly Evolving Agricultural Sector
In a specialized sector where every test often takes a full crop year, speedy solutions are crucial. On average, a farmer may only get 40 opportunities in their lifetime to try different techniques, while maintaining a stable business. Advanced technologies can significantly shorten these natural learning cycles, accelerate varietal improvements, and streamline testing. This allows for faster identification and scaling of successful strategies to maximize their impact.
Simultaneously, innovative technologies can drive the transition to more sustainable farming methods. By reducing the impact of traditional practices, farmers can confidently replace outdated techniques with new, risk-free solutions.
Key areas of promising research include plant breeding advancements, farm automation, AI-driven farm management, enhanced knowledge sharing, and innovative technologies that support natural cycles of water, carbon, and nitrogen. These groundbreaking innovations are setting the stage for a more efficient, resilient, and sustainable future in agriculture.
What kind of project do we want to create there ?
The projects that we create and support must allow a significant scale-up in the long term, have the potential to be replicated throughout the world on top crops, and be consistent with the modes of consumption, distribution and more generally the organization of the agribusiness.