Agriculture digitalization might be a future answer to feeding a rapidly rising population. The use of big data is a critical instrument for digitalizing the agriculture sector. 

Despite the increased demand for data analytics in Bangladesh, the country confronts many challenges in realizing its full potential. One key challenge is the shortage of a skilled workforce with the necessary knowledge and abilities to analyze and interpret data correctly. This talent shortage is a major hindrance to the country’s widespread adoption of data analytics.

Agriculture has been crucial to Bangladesh’s development and progress. Despite accounting for 16% of the gross domestic product (GDP), it employs over half the working population (about 47%). It is critical for food security and poverty alleviation. 

The population of Bangladesh is expected to reach 230-250 million by 2050. According to a UNDP estimate, two million people are added to the population yearly, while the country loses 1% of its agricultural land. As a result, the significance of increasing the production and supply of a nutrient-rich diet is clear. 

While high-yielding cultivars and sound agronomic practices are important, new technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things), machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and big data can produce a dynamic movement toward modernizing agriculture. Big data management may be utilized to forecast agricultural situations better, and cloud computing and data mining give enough capabilities and solutions for sustaining, storing, and analyzing massive amounts of data created by various computer equipment. 

The rationale for data-driven agriculture is the same. Smallholder farmers and other stakeholders in the agricultural value chain sometimes lack the information and foresight required to make data-driven choices, which is important to competing and succeeding in an ever-changing commercial climate. This apparent issue is merely a symptom of a greater issue across the agricultural value chain. This is because data is not being collected digitally, resulting in several inefficiencies. 

Farmers require timely market information and Agri inputs; Agri entrepreneurs and distributors struggle with timely cash collection and inventory optimization; and processing companies require robust customer and farmer profiling to ensure greater transparency and continuously improve the end consumer experience. As a result, everyone has a vested stake in the outcome. 

Over 500 million smallholder farms globally contribute significantly to food production and genetic diversity in the food supply. Until now, getting information to or from smallholder farmers has been challenging, complicating fundamental infrastructure issues like access to inputs, markets, funding, and training. The proliferation of mobile technology, remote sensing data, and distributed computing and storage capacities is creating new options for smallholder farmers to be integrated into the larger agri-food system. 

The magnitude of these changes suggests the possibility of another agricultural revolution. As mobile phone usage grows and improves in rural regions, the paradigm shifts for how smallholder farmers are profiled, their requirements are identified and addressed, the effect of agricultural services is monitored, and how farmers are supported and how a global body of knowledge can be built by drawing on typically siloed expertise and data.

Technology can help bridge the gap between the demand for increased food production and availability. Blockchain technology, for example, might be used to construct a digital and verified identification basis for all farmers and their transactional history, connecting them in an accessible network with important stakeholders such as banks and insurance firms. It can enable a decentralized and secure transaction procedure for farmers and business people. It is useful to trace transactions and keep farmers in the loop with other platforms, such as crowdsourcing ones that provide cash opportunities for farmers and entrepreneurs since it is a write once-append only, distributed, and decentralized system. A more transparent agricultural supply chain will enable us to identify regions vulnerable to unsustainable practices, and farmers will be able to openly exchange information about their goods with consumers and other businesses. 

Artificial intelligence has a major impression on agriculture as it has in other industries. Artificial intelligence is anticipated to improve the flexibility of self-driving tractors, irrigation systems, and even drones outfitted with sensors, radars, and GPS systems. In addition to the benefits of artificial intelligence, machine learning is advantageous to the global food chain.

Due to their widespread use, social media and mobile phone use continue to be the most accessible modes of communication in the agricultural area. 

Thanks to technological advances, irrigation systems may now be managed by a phone or other electronic device. Long travels to the field are no longer necessary. Apps like ‘Foursquare’ and cameras installed around the farm may be used to monitor staff. A complete database and automated technologies in agriculture may be used to increase food production and security, acting as a godsend if more situations of looming worry arise in the future, along with collaboration between the public and commercial sectors. 

In 2017, the government increased the subsidy to cultivators for acquiring farm machinery from 30% to 50% to boost mechanized sowing, transplanting, and harvesting so that farmers may produce more food at a lower cost. 

Several gaps in the Bangladeshi agro-industry include access to market knowledge, finance, weather/soil, and input information. As a result, each gap filling in reality creates new services and adds to the financial sustainability of 4IR activities. In this region, 70% of farmers are smallholders with no bank accounts. Access to finance is often costly for farmers. Peer-to-peer lending platforms and crowd-funding platforms can offer low-cost financing opportunities for farmers.

Saume Saptaparna Nath is a Research Associate at the KRF Center for Bangladesh and Global Affairs (CBGA)

saptaparna.cbga@gmail.com