Agtuary harnesses satellite and climate data to help transform the Agri+Food sector

Olivia Utharntharm

Jul 15, 2022

2

min read

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Industry Report Partner Spotlight - Agtuary is an AI and data science company that works with farmers, investors, banks and agricultural consultants to build a better, long-term understanding of agricultural land use and production and the risks facing farming businesses.

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Angus Muffatti, Co-founder and CEO of Agtuary, explores the importance of the Agri+Food sector of climate tech and how sustainable food systems can create a huge environmental impact:

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"Agriculture is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse emissions. Recent studies estimate that our food system is responsible for 35% of our global greenhouse emissions, equivalent to 17.3 Billion tonnes of CO2 annually.

Despite this, Agriculture is a fundamental industry for supporting our growing human civilisation. At the moment, food production requires approximately 31% of the Earth’s land area not covered by snow or ice, a lot of natural resources and is highly dependent on weather and climate systems to produce reliably. It is therefore at the nexus of, and is disrupted by, many global challenges from climate change, food security, global supply chain disruption and geopolitical instability.

But the agricultural industry is one of the greatest examples of how science and technology, working in harmony with nature, can produce better outcomes for people and the planet. Over the past several decades new understandings in agricultural practices have shown that increased productive output of land can be driven through more sustainable farming practices. New technologies have been created to aid farmers in optimising their on farm operations while also producing a new insight into the long-term effects of their practices. And the output of this new perspective? It is that in agriculture, the best outcomes for people, profits and environment are not in conflict but are strongly aligned. Environmentally sustainable farming practices create economically sustainable farming businesses.

In fact, agriculture may turn out to be one of the biggest industries that can have a positive effect on the climate. It is estimated that through changes in practices, policy incentives and technology adoption, agriculture can become a carbon neutral or even negative industry by 2030. Global agriculture runs on debt. Globally there is over $3 trillion USD in agricultural debt and nearly $80 billion here in Australia. That debt is issued with a certain understanding of the risk underlying that business and today that understanding of risk is largely based on a P&L.

Agtuary builds a long-term perspective over farmland using satellite and climate data to deeply understand the risks facing food producers from climate change, the health of that land and how it’s managed.Building the data, infrastructure and connection to the land will link changes in farming practice toward sustainable and climate resilient management to financial incentives.

Agtuary’s mission is to change how financial risk is calculated in agriculture and to bring a data driven approach to incentivising changes and rewarding the implementation of sustainable farming practices through lowering the cost of capital. Ultimately, leveraging the trillions of dollars of capital that supports our food production for a more environmentally sustainable and resilient food production system."

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