Abstract
The fourth agricultural revolution has resulted in technologies that could significantly support global efforts toward food security and environmental sustainability. A potential means for accelerating the development of these technologies is through business accelerator and incubator (BAI) programs. Using Canada as a case study, this study examines considerations around building agritech BAI capacity for supporting transitions to sustainable, resilient food systems. The research employs expert stakeholder interview and thematic coding methodology to identify opportunities, success factors, challenges/barriers, and actions/approaches for increasing agritech BAIs in a region/country. The study also identifies findings that are broadly applicable to BAIs in general and those that are specific to sectoral (i.e., agritech) and place-specific (i.e., Canada) contexts. The analysis identified four opportunities themes, seven success factors themes, eight challenges/barriers themes, and eight actions/approaches themes. Of the four thematic areas, success factors were the most broadly applicable to different sectoral and place contexts, and challenges/barriers were most specific to the agritech and (to a lesser degree) Canadian contexts. The study elucidates roles, challenges, and ways forward for building agritech BAI capacity in regions and countries for harnessing the opportunities presented by the fourth agricultural revolution and transitioning to sustainable and resilient food systems.
Highlights
A series of technologies has emerged through the so-called ‘fourth agricultural revolution’, which have the potential to reshape food production and distribution across the world
It is clear that new paradigms and agricultural approaches are needed to transition toward sustainable food production systems in the Anthropocene
The technologies and innovations of the fourth agricultural revolution could potentially help in this pursuit, which presents a potential role for agritech business accelerator and incubator (BAI)
Summary
A series of technologies has emerged (and is emerging) through the so-called ‘fourth agricultural revolution’, which have the potential to reshape food production and distribution across the world Such technologies include those that support new approaches to farming such as digital, precision, vertical, and cellular agriculture, and involve advancements in tools and techniques in multiple fields such as robotics, blockchain, gene editing, drones, and synthetic proteins [1,2,3]. The use of robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning in controlled indoor agriculture can be implemented to optimize farm management and crop harvesting, while minimizing land and water use [5,6] As another example, new cellular agriculture methods for manufacturing animal proteins using tissue culturing and fermentation techniques have garnered attention for their potential to produce foods that are equivalent or near-equivalent to their animal counterparts, but with a much lower environmental footprints [7,8]. Such technologies could form essential components of efforts toward optimizing food security and environmental sustainability objectives worldwide
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