Agritech: Shaping Agriculture in Emerging Economies, Today and Tomorrow

The report argues that agritech can address global food security challenges by optimizing resources and reducing costs across the agricultural value chain. It categorizes innovations into intelligent crop planning, smart farming, farmgate-to-fork, and data infrastructure, while emphasizing that scaling these tools requires addressing the low adoption rates among smallholders and women farmers through public-private collaborations and 'phygital' delivery channels.

• The global agrifood sector must increase food production by 70% by 2050 to feed a predicted population of 9.1 billion, while facing challenges such as climate change, soil degradation, and geopolitical supply chain disruptions.
• Agritech adoption is significantly lower in Asia (9%) compared to Europe (62%), with a global average of 39%. The primary barriers to adoption are the high cost of technology and an unclear return on investment (RoI), with 30% of farmers citing unclear RoI as a top reason for non-adoption.
• Women farmers produce approximately 80% of food in developing countries and make up 43% of the global agricultural workforce, yet they face systemic exclusion from agritech due to limited land-holding rights and restricted access to smartphones.
• Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for agriculture is a critical enabler consisting of three components: platforms for consented data exchange, policies to protect individuals and promote innovation, and protocols to standardize agricultural nomenclature for interoperability.
• The report identifies four key agritech categories: intelligent crop planning (e.g., AI-based soil testing and gene editing), smart farming (e.g., robotics and AI weather prediction), farmgate-to-fork (e.g., blockchain traceability and IoT warehouses), and data as an enabler.
• To drive last-mile adoption, the report advocates for a 'phygital' approach that combines digital tools with physical human channels, such as rural entrepreneurs and cooperatives, to build trust and validate digital data.
• Public-private collaborations (PPC) are essential for scaling agritech, with governments acting as enablers by providing financial and non-financial incentives, such as agritech sandboxes and access to quality data, rather than acting solely as procurers.

APA

World Economic Forum (2024). Agritech: Shaping Agriculture in Emerging Economies, Today and Tomorrow. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Agritech_2024.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Agritech: Shaping Agriculture in Emerging Economies, Today and Tomorrow. 2024. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Agritech_2024.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Agritech: Shaping Agriculture in Emerging Economies, Today and Tomorrow |date=April 2024 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Agritech_2024.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2024agritech, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Agritech: Shaping Agriculture in Emerging Economies, Today and Tomorrow}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2024}, month = apr, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Agritech_2024.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }