Ag Technology Key to Avoiding Food Shortages Says Ag Technology Company

From Agrimoney:

The oldest cultivated grain may, after more than 10,000 years, regain a bit of the limelight it has lost in the last couple of years.

Not since 1997-98, when it was overtaken by corn, has wheat been the world's most produced cereal, a title it held for millennia.

Now, world farmers produce 40% more corn than wheat.

But if corn's advance has really been fuelled by expanded investment and technological innovations, including genetically modified seed, then wheat could be poised for a bit of the action.

While the European Union, the world's biggest wheat producer, frowns on GM technology, the opportunities for technological advances to "give growers more crop options" remain robust, said Mac Marshall, an economist at Monsanto, tells Agrimoney.com.

'Digital ag'

Mr Marshall puts great stress on "digital ag" – the use of data on best practice to promote more efficient use of existing technologies in the likes of seed, fertilizers and agrichemicals, and so supercharge yields.

Sure, the average US corn yield hit a record 175 bushels per acre last year.

"But we have a couple of places in the country where growers have harvested 500 bushels an acre."

Digital ag "is about narrowing the gap between the average, and what you can conceivably achieve."...MORE