COVID-19 Accelerates Adoption of Digital Agriculture

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

2021 has been a huge year for investment into agricultural innovation. According to Pitchbook, venture funding for agtech startups hit a quarterly record of $3.2 billion in the third quarter. Agtech investor Francisco Jardim of SP Ventures in Brazil said in many ways COVID has accelerated the adoption of digital agriculture.

Jardim… “There's an old cliche phrase in our industry, which is 'being early and being wrong is the same thing'. We were definitely wrong in a lot of our investments until March 2020. We were, let's say offered a second and third chance in many of our investments because of COVID as things accelerated, as digitalization accelerated. And the speed of the intertia of the acceleration, I mean when I look at 2022, I only see these things going clear blue skies above. Whether it's carbon, whether it's fintech, whether it's marketplace, whether it's digitalization inside the farm place, whether it's a digitalization of the logistics challenges. When we started the business way back when this was an exotic boutique, you know, asset class, marginalized asset class. I feel like (in) 2020 I started to become a popular kid on the block, (and) in 2021, we became one of the most popular kids in high school.”

Jardim said the outlook is bright for continued investment into agricultural technologies headed into 2022.