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Welcome to the School of Business and Entrepreneurship

Professor Kanes K RajahDEAN

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

'With all this technological development, what is its impact on business?'

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

Context•Technology has to be relevant to the human condition

•Throughout the world, and particularly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, many of the poorest people are farmers.

• Nearly 75 percent of those subsisting on $1 a day live in rural areas,

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Estimates show that majority of the poor will remain rural until 2040 (Ravallion et al. 2007)

•At the same time, agriculture is a major source of income and employment in these regions: •It accounts for 34 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and •64 percent of the labour force in sub-Saharan Africa.

Poverty alleviation is therefore directly linked to agriculture. Whether in the form of new crops, improved breeds of animal, or changes in agricultural practices and crop choice, technology has the potential to sharply increase yields, reduce spoilage and risk, and improve the nutritional quality of food.

Jack, B. Kelsey. 2013. “Constraints on the adoption of agricultural technologies in developing countries.” Literature review, Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative, J-PAL (MIT) and CEGA (UC Berkeley).

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Decade Technology

Post 2WW Rebuilding of economies

50s Automation

60s Robotics/Genetics

70s Computerisation

80s Information Technology

90s Cloning technology

2000 Genome mapping

Future Convergence

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Technologies that are changing agriculture•Mobile computing •Portable computers and smartphones are destined to widely populate farm tractor cabs, pickups and offices in the future.

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

Technologies that are changing agriculture•4G networks •Farmers frustrated by lack of access to higher-speed Internet services could find themselves in the Internet fast lane in the next couple of years, because of 4G (fourth generation) cellular communications networks.

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Technologies that are changing agriculture•Telematics •Imagine pulling up on your mobile computer a map that shows where all your vehicles are operating and their fuel levels, how much product has been applied or how much crop harvested, and even if a piece of equipment is ready to break down

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Technologies that are changing agriculture•Nitrogen utilization •The extreme price fluctuations of nitrogen fertilizer have not been lost on seed companies. They currently are developing corn hybrids with the ability to better use available nitrogen.

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Technologies that are changing agriculture

•Herbicide-tolerance traits •Herbicide-tolerance trait technology will be a big player in corn and soybean production for many years, especially with the appearance of two new traits coming to the market soon. Dicamba- and 2,4-D-tolerant traits are in the final stages of development and will offer producers an alternative to Roundup Ready and Liberty Link.

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Technologies that are changing agriculture•Mini-chromosome technology •Corn trait technology could be in for a revolution, and it’s coming in a small package. Mini-chromosome technology promises to deliver multiple stacked traits in a single corn hybrid faster and more efficiently than today’s stacking technologies. The technology, developed by Syngenta and Chromatin, constructs in the lab a new mini-chromosome that contains a given trait or traits.

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Technologies that are changing agriculture•Highly efficient ethanol production •“Ethanol biorefineries operate in a constant state of change,” states the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA). With technologies such as fractionation and biomass gasification, ethanol producers have greatly reduced the amount of fossil fuel energy needed to produce ethanol and distillers grains.

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Technologies that are changing agriculture•Drought-resistance traits •The decades of work to develop drought-resistant plants are finally producing results. The first corn hybrids marketed for drought conditions are now being sold. These hybrids use natural gene selection and are targeted to the western Corn Belt where water is a key limiting factor. Companies promise yields will be more stable with these hybrids.

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

Technologies that are changing agriculture•Biologicals •Expect to see more biological pest control and growth enhancements as farmers look for more environmentally friendly and cost-efficient crop inputs. Advanced technologies, such as high-throughput screening, are also helping companies to quickly multiply beneficial organisms, thus driving development of new biologicals.

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

Technologies that are changing agriculture•RFID technology •Radio frequency identification, or RFID, has been widely used in livestock to identify animals. But global futurist Jack Uldrich says use of the tagging technology will expand to crops as the technology gets exponentially better, faster and cheaper.

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

Technologies that are changing agriculture•Soil and crop sensors •More farm equipment today is being outfitted with smart sensors that can read everything from plant health and water needs in the crop to nitrogen levels in the soil. The sensors then enable on-the-go application of inputs based on real-time field conditions

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

Technologies that are changing agriculture•Electric drive systems •Someday farmers will see tractors, sprayers and other farm vehicles generate electric power to run auxiliaries and attachments. This move will occur as farm vehicles become larger and more complex. It takes extra engine power to operate all these extra features.

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Technology type Specific examplesHigher yields Improved varieties

Micro-irrigationLower risk Drought-resistant crops

Weather insuranceBetter quality Certification schemes

Storage technologiesLower costs Animal-driven plowing

Nitrogen-fixing cropsReduce externalities Reduced till agriculture

Terracing

Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative, ATAISelected examples (2013) Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

EXAMPLES FROM THE

AGE OF DATA

• Technologies the Royal Agricultural University is familiar with and working on.

Robotic Milking

First attempts 1989Prototyped 1991

Licensed 1993- 1995First sales 1998

10% of market 2012

Breath Sensing Milk Progesterone

Analyser Lameness Detection Calving Detection Rumen pH Monitoring

Rumen pH BolusInvented in 2003 in UK

First publication: Mottram et al., 2008Low pH means high digestible energy

Risk reduction by measuring sub-clinical problemsImproves milk yields AND cow health

Commercialised by 5 companies worldwideRevising the diagnosis of SARA and ketosis

Rumen pH BolusInserted by mouthRetained in Reticulo-rumenData downloaded by radioUploaded to internetAnalysed and interpreted

A high yielding herd

Low pH but regular feed pattern with cows not eating at night

Same herd after a feed change

After a feed change, pH is higher and cows eat more at night

Temperature Measurement

Each drop in temperature is caused by a drinking event, five a day is good, something was wrong here, it seems the cows did not have close access to water at grass.

Lameness detection

Best indicator of mobility score is the time to walk at own pace between two points when not impeded

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Challenges - external

1. Soil management2. Precision agriculture 3. Nutrient retention (pollution prevention)4. Precision livestock farming 5. Animal health and welfare with increased

yield6. Managing Biodiversity7. Technology uptake

How to get ideas implemented and used

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Challenges in Dairying•Management

Sensors and controls

•Housing Re-engineer concrete Lighting and ventilationRe-group cows

•SilageHarvesting is outperforming storageAnalysis is inaccurateStorage and extraction is poor

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Challenges - internal1. Complexity of the external challenges2. Low impact of engineers in policy and

funding3. Recruitment and retention of staff4. Lack of major UK players in Ag Eng5. Keeping up with changes in technology -

CPD6. Routes to market uptake

• 7 years from conception to launch• 20 years from launch to product

maturity

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So what does this mean? Farming has moved on….

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

What are our skills needs

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

CYBERNATICS“control of any system using technology”

•Cybernetics is relevant to the study of systems, such as mechanical, physical, biological, cognitive, and social systems.

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

CYBERNATICS

•Management decision making

•Decisions are being made by robots

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

CYBERNATICS

•Management decision making

•Decisions are being made by robots

•Cows in milking parlours are a fine example.•Cows coming into the milking parlour are detected, milked and sent on their way by robots!

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Role of Business SchoolsIn Agri Tech Strategy

Royal Agricultural University facing the challenge with:

I. MBA in International Food and Agribusiness

II. MBA in Advanced Farm Management

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The skills -

• there are myriad skills and knowledge involved in producing food, and managing land and the environment

• a mixture of traditional ‘further’ and ‘higher’ education

• a balance between broad and specialised education

• innovation, entrepreneurship, diversification, knowledge exchange are key skills

Have we got the mixture and delivery of knowledge and skills training right?

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

The people-

•the perception is that the industry will need significant numbers of new entrants

•they will need to come from non-traditional and traditional backgrounds

•but it must be attractive and deemed by the entrant to meet their needs and career aspirations

•there would appear to be increasing numbers of applicantsNew entrants to farming are needed and will come from a range of backgrounds

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"that part of the holding of a farmer or landowner which pays best for cultivation is the small estate within the ring fence of his skull"

Charles Dickens, 1868, in 'All The Year Round', following a visit to the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

THANK YOU

School of Business and Entrepreneurship

Professor Dr Kanes K RajahBSc. MSc PhD PGCAP, FHEA, CMgr FCMI

RAU Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation