Pixie has the ability to travel between the most remote points of the world helping people to solve problems and make better decisions. Are we talking about a new superhero about to debut a serie on a streaming platform? No, Pixie is just one of 45 zetabytes generated globally in 2019, somewhere around 145 billion terabytes.

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Data knows no boundaries and has the capacity to transform lives, regardless of whether they are generated on the mountain or on the plain, or whether they come from the center of a large city or a small rural town. Its effective use can generate new responses to humanity's most urgent challenges, such as the fight against climate change and food insecurity.

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On Earth Day, rethinking the future of agriculture is essential for Latin America and the Caribbean, where agricultural activities occupy more than a third of the total area, consume 75% of freshwater resources and generate almost half of gas emissions greenhouse effect in the region, according to World Bank data.

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Data and agriculture

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A new World Bank report points to the key role that agriculture plays in the region. In addition to feeding a rapidly growing population, it facilitates economic development, generates large exports and helps to reduce hunger and poverty in the region. However, it also faces future challenges, having to reinvent itself to reduce its environmental impact.

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The unprecedented growth of information technologies and the intensive use of data can be one of the central axes for the future of the activity. Quality data can play a key role in minimizing the environmental footprint and, thus, combine productivity with sustainability. Large volumes of information from multiple sources can be captured, analyzed and used to generate predictive analysis in agricultural activities, improving decision making in real time.

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By increasing efficiency and facilitating the traceability of supply chains and production processes, data-based technologies can reduce waste generated, allow for circular solutions, promote sustainable supply of inputs and facilitate responsible decision-making by producers and consumers .

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“Having greater control over knowledge inputs allows the establishment of risk management strategies and these help to smooth revenue fluctuations, as well as improvements in efficiency and access to markets. All of this points to the sustainability of resources and the strengthening of the process of economic and human development ”, says Pablo Valdivia, Senior Agriculture Specialist at the World Bank.

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New ventures

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Innovations in the use and application of data by companies are creating enormous economic value, improving decision making and reducing operating costs.

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Latin American talent is promoting technological tools and generating solutions adapted to local needs. Thus was born Curubatech, a Colombian startup that since 2019 seeks to strengthen the traceability of rural production, and that already offers technical assistance in real time to rural producers in 7 departments in Colombia.

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“The distance and infrastructure problems make it difficult for agronomists and specialists to visit communities, which means that these producers continue to use very old techniques, with low productivity, without modernization and a lot of food waste. We seek to structure projects that enable families to have a steady income and under conditions of fair trade ”, says Paula Aponte, CEO of Curubatech.

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Through technologies that make it possible to connect even in geographic points with little connectivity, Curubatech allows specialized technicians to have georeferenced data, which makes rural producers introduce more ecologically correct practices and improve their productivity. Together with other associated logistical and productive solutions, such as AMACA (Agro Administrative Competitiveness Model by Association), they seek to accompany the production of the seed to the supermarket.

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Like Curubatech, a report by the Inter-American Development Bank identified in 2018 more than 450 private companies whose main objective was technological innovation in the rural sector, allowing the development of new solutions and the improvement of the environmental impact.

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In addition to the environmental impact, the projects have the potential to train small and medium-sized rural producers, who with more information, knowledge and visibility can enter and compete better in the markets.