Carbon Footprint reduction by using Smart Analytics in Agrochemical Business
The challenges arising in the agrochemical sphere with the need to increase the food supply and reduce carbon footprint are now helping agricultural sustainability, also ensuring food security. Demand for efficient global yield management practices, like smart analytic tools, that take into account the aspect of sustainability is essential.
Where does Carbon Footprint come from?
Agriculture’s emissions include fossil fuel use in farm operations, the production of agrochemicals, and the transformation of land to agriculture.
According to the World Bank, the contribution of the agricultural sector in the world economy in 2018 accounted for 4 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP). At the same time, it is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions between 17 and 32% of all global emissions.
The production of agrochemicals is another significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. The production of fertilizers is energy-intensive and adds a noticeable amount between 0.6–1.2% of the world’s emissions.
Carbon footprint considers all processes in the manufacturing of a product: raw materials, intermediate products, transportation, and waste control.
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On a land basis, heavily fertilized crops are more likely to have a higher carbon footprint rather than one’s that can fix nitrogen and are not fertilized.
Current Challenges in Agrochemical Industries
Modern AgroChemical Companies faced with the following challenges:
- Genetically modified and resistant to pests crops might completely deny the need for using pesticides in the fields. That is already a challenge for the agrochemical companies, and in the future, this could impact the associated businesses.
- Careless mixing and filling procedures can easily harm our environment. Such areas where mixing takes place have significant potential to poison groundwater and surface water in case of the supplements spillage.
- Risk of supplements spillage during transportation. A serious spill could even involve fire and the explosion of leaking containers.
- Storing large quantities of pesticides also may cause the risk of chemical fires, explosions, or spills that contaminate freshwater, surface water, or soils.
All of these problems are directly detrimental to our environment. And the major issues facing the whole Agriculture Sector: how to feed billions without harming our environment?
How to manage Carbon Footprint using Data Analytics.
The usage of pesticides in agriculture has incredible benefits for increasing crop production. However, data analytics allows managing the pesticides, when they are applied, how much is applied, and where they are applied, as well. By using data analytics for monitoring all aspects of pesticide use, farmers can observe government regulations and avoid the overuse of chemicals in the production process.
Data analytics tool also delivers current time and historical crop yield information, crucial for the supply chain operation of Agrochemical companies. SoilMate delivers necessary analytics, as well as a forecast for supplements demand for the next season. An exact estimate of crop production and risk helps these companies in planning supply chain systems.
Companies from the pesticides, fertilizer, agrochemical and many more agrochemical industries prepare their products based on crop production estimates, and it reduces the risk of the long-term storage of chemicals.
Most of the previously mentioned cases are already studied by SoilMate.
If not — our team is always ready to run into a new field of research.
Conclusion
Decision-making tools can suggest optimal decision paths by simplifying all decision-making processes or may work more as information sources to improve the database for further decisions. Despite the wide range of abilities of these tools, the usability rate is disappointingly low.
However, the proper agricultural management practices that include implementing new farming techniques may have an impact that led to decreasing the climate crisis in carbon emissions and maintaining regenerative agriculture.
