U.S. Agriculture Tom Vilsack speaks at the AIM for Climate conference at the Dubai Expo.
A global initiative led by the U.S. and the U.A.E to make farming cleaner has announced plans to invest $8 billion into agriculture technology (agritech).
Chairing the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate’s (AIM for Climate) first ministerial meeting in Dubai on Monday (21 February), U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, said much of the funding will go towards cutting edge areas of “agritech” such as “nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, robotics and AI.”
“Some of this may go into emerging technologies. The notion of precision agriculture, everything from sensors and drones to understanding specifically each acre or hectare of land and what it needs and what it doesn’t need can, in turn, reduce inputs and the carbon footprint of those inputs,” Vilsack told Forbes.
In addition to doubling the funding commitment from $4 billion to $8 billion, AIM announced that another six countries (Chile, Costa Rica, Egypt, Guyana, Mozambique, and Turkey) have joined the initiative that already boasts 140 government and non-government partners, making it the world’s leading effort to clean up agriculture.
Farming contributes 8.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions, and 40% of global methane emissions every year. AIM wants to cut those emissions by addressing the most harmful areas of agriculture.
The Sustainability Pavilion at the Dubai Expo.
Aside from methane emissions, there are three main areas of agriculture that AIM wants to clean up, says David Livingston, senior advisor to John Kerry, the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. These include emerging technologies, smallholder farmer innovations, and agroecological research, “or what some people call regenerative agriculture.”
The program will run for five years (2021-2025). “I think one thing that makes this initiative quite unique is that it’s not an open ended initiative. It’s not a new institution that exists just for the sake of creating a new institution,” says Livingston. “I think by setting that timeline on it, you actually do create an extra sense of urgency, an extra sense of focus.”
Kerry visited Egypt this week to discuss the upcoming COP27 summit in November, which is where AIM for Climate hopes to launch innovation sprints in four focal areas: smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries, methane reduction, emerging technologies, and agroecological research.
Some “sprints” are already underway. IBM IBM , for example, has pledged $10 million to organizations that promote sustainable farming.
One organization, Plan21, helps smallholder farms in Latin America. IBM has already supplied the organization with both funding and it’s powerful weather forecast data. “By providing these weather forecasts, we can increase the productivity, the crop yield and the income of those smallholder farmers,” says Justina Nixon-Saintil, vice president and global head of Corporate Social Responsibility at IBM.
“In addition to that, the farmers will be able to showcase their sustainability certifications and credentials for their crops.”
In another sprint, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has earmarked $40 million to fund gene banks, and farmers’ access to seeds that have built-in resilience to a changing climate.
“Farmers they have to be changing the variants they use from time to time,” says Enock Chikava, interim director of agricultural development at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The UAE’s al-Badia Farms in Dubai, an indoor vertical farm using hydroponic technology to grow … [+]
Absent from the AIM for Climate initiative are some of Asia’s biggest food producers: Russia, India, and China. Many of AIM’s signatories are net importers of food, including the UAE, which spent over $1.1 billion on produce from U.S. farmers in 2021.
“When you are importing 80% of your food and climate jeopardizes the ability of that 80% to be produced you’re very interested in making sure that supply continues,” says Vilsack.
But the U.A.E wants to secure its food supplies in other ways. The country is currently investing vast amounts into agritech and aquaculture, says James Lewis, managing director of Knight Frank in the Middle East and Africa.
Dubai-based Fish Farm, launched in 2013, produced 600 tonnes of salmon in 2020, rising to 1,000 tonnes in 2021. Nearby, Abu Dhabi is investing $100 million in four agritech companies, the first stage of a larger $272 million agritech support program.
It is unlikely that the U.A.E will ever be self-sufficient in food, but by turbo-charging its agritech industry it might be able to get some of the way there, and reduce its emissions in the process. “It really does take everybody doing something, doing what they’re capable of doing,” says Vilsack.
Agritech Gets $8 Billion Boost As U.S. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack Addresses Dubai Climate Summit – Forbes
