The second UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) is ending hunger. Industrial agriculture has been widely promoted as a means to achieving that goal, but despite increases in global productivity and crop yields, hunger has not been eradicated. At the same time, the negative environmental and social consequences of this system are impossible to ignore.
One way to counter the negative impacts is through regenerative agriculture, a holistic approach that restores ecosystems, improves soil health, and enhances biodiversity.
Last week, industry experts, representatives of NGOs, and policymakers gathered at the Regenerative Agriculture Summit Europe to join forces for accelerating the transition.
The role of data
“You may wonder what SAP is doing at a conference on regenerative agricultural practices,” said Anja Strothkaemper, vice president of agribusiness and commodity management at SAP. She was speaking on a panel on harnessing data for regenerative agriculture.
Strothkaemper explained that SAP has numerous customers in the “farm-to-consume” ecosystem. Many large companies like Nestlé, Unilever and Louis Dreyfus Company, all present at the conference, rely on SAP to manage their core business from finance to manufacturing to logistics. “We have access to large volumes of data that can help organizations better understand their needs on their journey to sustainability,” she said.
Strothkaemper said that the challenge is accessing and processing data from multiple sources without losing meaning and then integrating it for mapping, visualization, and analysis. By digitalizing farming processes and services with SAP Intelligent Agriculture, for example, agribusiness companies can sustainably increase farming efficiency, improve data quality and connect existing data sets to gain valuable insights.
Along with SAP on the panel, Agmatix is another company addressing the challenge of interoperability. The company equips agriculture professionals with AI-powered solutions for agronomic field trials, agriculture analytics, and advancing regenerative agriculture. Many Agmatix customers have been using SAP for years. The question is how to collect agronomic and scientific data in an easy way from the farmer and scale that to help the food and beverage companies.
The discussion emphasized the importance of aligning the data for reporting on frameworks such as SAI Platform, the nonprofit network for sustainable agriculture. The point of collecting data is to actually help the farmer or the agronomist make a decision to drive outcomes in their local environment.
For example, if you are growing coffee in Nicaragua, the system can identify the types of things you should be thinking about and the types of data that you should be collecting. If you’re growing potatoes in Poland, the data will be slightly different. The goal is to bring all the outcomes back into a system where they can be analyzed at a high level and then fed back into a reporting system, such as the SAP Sustainability Control Tower solution.
Addressing regulations
Louise Cooke, member of the executive board for msg global solutions, an SAP software and implementation partner, raised the issue of compliance. “In the food business, companies cannot just focus on cost effectiveness. They must be compliant,” said Cooke. “Companies are making commitments toward net zero by 2050. We help them figure out the right IT transformation to make sure they get there and can deliver concrete proof.”
Cooke commented on the fact that the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is complicated and explicit in terms of the amount of detail and rigor that it expects of companies. She said data is not needed just for optimizing the supply chain. With the advent of regulations, all stakeholders including banks, insurance companies, and other parties need data proof points for reporting. The question is how to make the same data available to everyone.
“Ultimately, data is needed for the purpose of sustainability reporting, especially in financial services,” said Cooke. “But there’s also the risk management aspect, which should benefit the farmers. Everyone is interested in reducing that risk.”
The conversation ended with the elephant in the room; namely, can data harmonization happen without government intervention? Adhering to regulation must be made easier. Farmers already have so much to deal just to deliver their produce; making them struggle with complex regulations is simply increasing their burden.
Collaborating for success
The shift to regenerative agriculture requires the massive transformation of an entire industry, involving producers, suppliers, corporations, consumers, and government entities. The panel concluded that the agricultural industry could learn from others that have established cross-industry consortiums bringing together skills and resources to benefit all parties.
Strothkaemper mentioned the Catena-X automotive network, a collaborative, decentralized data and service ecosystem along the entire automotive value chain aimed at transforming the entire industry through digitalization. Together with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, founders include BMW AG, Deutsche Telekom AG, Robert Bosch GmbH, SAP SE, Siemens AG and ZF Friedrichshafen. Meanwhile, many more players have joined the network.
“Catena-X aims to improve automotive processes around traceability, sustainability and quality management through standardization and access to information and data,” said Strothkaemper. “Companies can benefit from data-based management – from manufacturers, through SME suppliers and on to recycling businesses. Ultimately, this data space is the springboard for an entire industry to boost productivity and improve sustainability along future value chains.”
If the stakeholders in the agricultural industry are truly committed to more regenerative and sustainable practices, a data-based collaborative alliance could be a starting point.
