Smart agriculture industry creates roadmap for sustainable future through ESG investments - Astra ESG Solutions

Stakeholders are establishing ethos to bolster environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in the smart agriculture industry. Forward-looking players are enriching the lives of producers and consumers through sustainable innovation to minimize environmental footprint. State-of-the-art technologies, including precision farming, automation, sensors and cloud computing, have become the next big thing in the agriculture industry. ESG investors are expected to drive capital flows to help farmers overcome livelihood and other barriers to adopting environmentally friendly smart technologies.

Governing bodies and watchdogs have vouched for building resilience for people, agriculture food system and sustainability to augment agricultural productivity and incomes. An unprecedented spike in the global population and shifting diets have spurred the demand for smart agriculture to manage cropland, forests and livestock.

A feature story on the World Bank website claimed that acute food insecurity in 2023 could overtake the food crisis witnessed in 2007-2008. With agriculture being prone to climate change, weather variability, soaring temperature and invasive crops have elicited challenges and opportunities for investors and other stakeholders. The World Bank infers that agriculture produces around 19–29% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Learn more about the practices & strategies being implemented by industry participants from the Smart Agriculture Industry ESG Thematic Report, 2023, published by Astra ESG Solutions

Environmental Perspective

The agriculture sector is witnessing a seismic shift with an increased focus on minimizing emissions, preventing deforestation and bolstering productivity. Climate-smart agriculture has become paramount to avoid or reduce GHG emissions, reflecting expectations from stakeholders that businesses should deliver not only profits & revenue but also ESG performance. Extreme weather events showed the repercussions of climate change on agriculture.

Farms are expected to count on bespoke solutions to foster their sustainability strategies. For instance, Argus Controls uses a proprietary control algorithm to automate the growing process and forecast specific needs, including watering, lighting and feeding cycles. With sustainable production gaining a stronghold, the North American cannabis cultivation and manufacturing experts unveiled Sustainable Cannabis Coalition (SCC) in January 2021 to propel sustainability practices in the cannabis industry.

Social Perspective

Farmers and investors are responding to the need for sustainable agricultural practices to underpin economic and nutrition livelihoods, employee safety & well-being and reinforce diversity, equity and inclusion. AGCO Corporation initiated the FOCUS 2.0 program with a 40-step blueprint to create a robust safety culture. It reduced its total case incident rate (TCIR) by 14% in 2022 vis-à-vis the preceding year, the company mentioned in the 2022 Sustainability Report.

The American agricultural machinery manufacturer underscored employee engagement through programs, including Voices. Predominantly in 2022, almost 20,000 employees shared their voices in the annual Voices Survey. The company noted that its engagement score stood at 69% and is on course to take the tally to the 75% target by 2025. The U.S.-based company collaborated with the Faça Um Bem Incrível" (Make a Great Good) social project in Brazil that redirects fresh produce which would otherwise go to waste. The initiative fostered over 150 rural workers and 20 local food producers.

Governance Perspective

The need for the Board to provide sustainability strategy, goals and policies has fueled the significance of sound governance, transparency, ethics & compliance, diversity and good corporate behavior. For instance, Cargill formed an ESG Committee to underscore governance and accountability. It has teamed up with the World Economic Forum, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA) to undergird operation and stakeholders' engagement.

The company has strengthened its ethics & compliance portfolio to set a foundation for sustainable growth. Cargill completed over 80,000 hours of mandatory online compliance training in 2022 on bribery and corruption, monitoring government donations & gifts and entertainment expenses. In January 2022, the company celebrated Ethics Week to foster employee ethics.

ESG investors expect farmers to overcome hurdles to adopt smart farming strategies. Accordingly, organic and inorganic strategies will be pronounced in the near terms. For instance, farmers in Sri Lanka augmented land under irrigation by 15% during the dry season, largely due to their training in the alternate wetting and drying (AWD) techniques. These dynamics validate Grand View Research's valuation of the global smart agriculture market at USD 14.44 billion in 2021 which could witness a double-digit CAGR of 10.8% between 2022 and 2030.