Forty years represents a special birthday, even for a company
Forty years represents a special birthday, even for a company. Usually it’s the opportunity to look back and retrace the most important steps, achieved objectives and challenges faced since 1980, when the adventure of Valagro began.
We’ll have the time and opportunity to do that, but because entrepreneurs must always look ahead, now my thoughts turn to how we’ll be in the next forty years, in 2060. The big challenge will be to feed over 10 billion people, 3 billion more than today. A task that in theory implies an extension of agricultural land equivalent to twice the area of India. The problem is that further deforestation isn’t possible, as all the reports of the IPCC (the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) explain, we’ll end up destroying our planet. So, what can we do?
There’s a solution and only one, enclosed in a word that is simple and complex at the same time: innovation, which takes the shape of an impulse or driver for technology. A joint study from the World Bank and the United Nations (“World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future”) recently put it down on paper, confirming that scientific research is decisive to succeeding in feeding 10 billion people without destroying the planet. We at Valagro have always supported this research: through technology and innovation, united with a strong sense of ethics and a long-term vision, we can meet the challenge that will accompany us in the next forty years.
For our sector, one of the most important technological revolutions is represented by precision agriculture. Since 1944, the innovation of farming techniques and the green revolution have brought many advantages: just think that we were able to show the fallacy of the prophecy of Malthus. The fallacy of prophecy, according to which the increase in demand for food tied to demographic growth, was to exceed the supply on the market, with the means of production unable to keep pace with demographic growth – so much so as to succeed in producing food using less soil. But, what is the other side of the coin? We have not sufficiently considered climate change, ocean dead zones, the reduction of biodiversity and the enlargement of the hole in the ozone. Today, however, precision agriculture, thanks to the ability for detailed soil analysis, carried out with advanced technology (including satellites), allows to distribute in every single square meter of soil the exact quantity of fertilizer necessary, reducing losses and achieving an agronomic efficiency that was unthinkable just a few years ago.
And then there are products, increasingly sustainable and with a low environmental impact. Think for example of Talete, the new biostimulant created by Valagro to improve crop water productivity. Talete guarantees an increase in the productivity or economic yield for every unit of water used in agricultural production. It’s a valid solution for farmers around the world to obtain the most from their harvests, optimizing the use of an increasingly precious resource: water. To satisfy the growing needs of the global population we must radically change the way in which “blue gold” is used, managed and shared, especially in agriculture, which alone is responsible for 70% of global freshwater withdrawals.
All this – the 40th anniversary year of Valagro joined with scientific advances – leads me to a reflection. I clearly remember the faces and the passion of those who in 1980, when our adventure began, were twenty years old. And my thoughts immediately go to who is twenty today. Young people of the third millennium must rediscover an agriculture that has become the real junction of their future, at the crossroads of technology and nature. We must teach our children that innovation doesn’t only mean social networks, smartphones and selfies, but also the possibility to create a sustainable future for people and the environment and, therefore, for themselves.
I would advise any young person to look closely at agriculture, forgetting the “old” figure of the farmer with a pitchfork and straw hat. Professions tied to the world of agriculture are modern, innovative, and can provide big economic and personal satisfaction to who is able to transmit fresh energy and new technological lymph to one of the only professions in man’s history. Agritech will be one of the driving sectors of the twenty-first century: it needs the creativity and passion of young people to grow and project itself into the future.
I close with a personal note. Do you know what the best thing agriculture has given me in forty years of activity (and that it can give to a young person today)? Not only success, but personal fulfilment and economic satisfaction, which are also important. It taught me to love nature. To make me feel part of a wonderful world in which our oldest and deepest roots lie.