Equipment and technology in agriculture. Modern technologies in agriculture

The study of global trends in technology development and evaluation of exhibits at international exhibitions indicate that up to 80% of the developments that have received maximum development in recent years, despite the crisis, are associated with intelligent solutions based on the use of information technology. The strategic vector of innovative development of agricultural production is associated with the widespread use of information technologies, electronics, and automated systems. The intellectual basis for this is fundamental innovative solutions in other areas and industries, which are also successfully used in agriculture.

In crop production, precise, precision, or smart farming (Smart Farming) is formed and implemented. It involves managing the productivity of land, crops, labor and financial resources, and the formation of optimal logistics taking into account market conditions. Electronic maps of fields are created, information databases are formed for each field, including area, yield, agrochemical and agrophysical properties (normative and actual), the state of plants in the corresponding phases of the growing season, etc. Software is being developed for analysis and management decision-making, as well as sending commands to chip cards that are loaded into robotic devices and agricultural units for differentiated agricultural operations.

In livestock farming, unified methods and means of animal identification are used as the intellectual basis of a long-term strategy for the organizational and structural development of a farm, complex, and industry as a whole.

As an example, it is advisable to cite the work of the PigWatc system, which implements innovative technology for managing artificial insemination of pigs.

Three infrared sensors monitor the sow's behavior 24 hours a day, seven days of the week. The observation device is installed directly above the sow in an individual pen. All important information can be read at any time on the LED display, for example regarding emptying, insemination status or the need for insemination. The core of this system is a powerful computer that continuously analyzes incoming information about animal behavior in real time, comparing the results obtained with the original data. Based on these calculations, the exact time for artificial insemination of each sow individually is determined. All information on the course of sexual heat is displayed on a connected PC or laptop in the form of accessible diagrams.

In the processing of agricultural products, the most advanced technology is the technology of contactless reading of information from objects and storing REID (Radio Frequency Identification) data, as well as automated production planning and management systems in conditions of rapid changes in volumes and assortment.

Particularly popular is the effective development of the Russian Dairy Machines Design Bureau - an automated control system for technological processes at a milk processing plant.

Based on the technological log and time schedule of equipment operation, the software creates an operation diagram and process protocol, displaying the specified parameters and the sequence of interactions of both individual pieces of equipment and entire production sections.

In the technical service of agricultural machinery, a system for remote monitoring of the state of transport equipment in the agro-industrial complex is successfully functioning. It was developed by GNU GOSNITI based on the Outrak remote diagnostic system. Signals about the status of the MTP are transmitted via mobile communications to the TELEMATIC5 web server, equipped with a software and hardware complex from the Global Automation Systems (GLOSAV) company with the Agroprom industry application.

The effectiveness of the development of the agro-industrial complex is largely determined by the availability of tools and knowledge management technology obtained on the basis of many years of experience in agricultural production. The intuition of individual representatives of the industry and the large amount of know-how created throughout the world over many years of work are of extreme value for the further development of agriculture. The urgent task is to transform tacit knowledge obtained experimentally into explicit knowledge, recording scientific results, which will ultimately improve the quality and efficiency of agricultural and food production. It is advisable to improve communications and exchange of information and knowledge between experts and agricultural producers. The use of cloud computing is of particular practical interest and has significant prospects, which are successfully used in various fields and have a number of advantages: cost reduction; distribution of information resources on demand, without restrictions; maintenance and software updates performed in the background; rapid innovative development, including collaboration with other systems in the cloud; Great opportunities for global development of the services provided.

The cycle of work performed in the process of agricultural production with active support of the cloud service includes four main stages: production and operation planning; execution of work; monitoring and evaluation of results; adjustment of plans.

For each specific agricultural producer, a cloud service is an innovation that allows solving specific, pressing problems:

• production planning, sales, purchasing;
• operational management of production and sales based on automation of collection, receipt and analysis of information;
• communication support with experts (consultants), instruction and timely provision of guidance based on queries to databases;
• management of all types of data related to the cultivated land, including location, land rights, field maps, etc.

Under the WTO conditions, economic indicators such as profit and the level of profitability of production make it possible to assess the effectiveness of an individual agricultural enterprise or industry. The ultimate goal of introducing new information technologies is to maximize indicators. The following mechanisms contribute to achieving this goal:

• Modeling of the production process (drawing up agrotechnological maps, production and business plans and documents based on knowledge management).
• Assessing the risks of each piece of land, calculating costs and benefits, collecting information and sending data to a 3G server using GPS barcode-reading mobile phones.
• Accounting for cultivated land, using and updating databases with information for each land plot (land rights, site characteristics, soil analysis results, production history, etc.).

By receiving information from the cloud service in accordance with a professional profile and individual data, agricultural producers, depending on their geographic location, type of crops, and weather in their region, are provided with information in real time. Information is provided on methods for identifying pests that can destroy crops. In addition, the cloud-based system can provide information with recommendations on the stages of agricultural work, assist in calculating costs and provide the opportunity to become familiar with the approved regulations in a particular region. For producers exporting their goods, the cloud will report prices for products on agricultural markets and help in making decisions: sell their crops or wait for better prices on the world market.

Schematically, the sequence of collecting, storing and analyzing information can be represented in five stages: data collection - storage - visualization - analysis - instruction. The implementation of a full cycle of data processing will make it possible to provide industry workers with relevant, timely, reliable information to increase the efficiency of production and sales of products.

The use of cloud computing allows you to flexibly link together various industry systems, can become one of the fundamental approaches in innovative development and integrate entire information systems:

• business management system;
• a system for performing financial analysis and filing tax reports with the support of tax consultants;
• production history monitoring system, which provides tracking of food movement records, which is safer and more reliable;
• a system of agricultural practices and operational support that effectively manages the safety and quality of agricultural products while maintaining proper levels of farm performance.

The cloud service allows you to provide technical support to millions of users by simply making changes and additions to the program on one system in the center of the cloud. Moreover, in cloud computing there is no difference in the version of software used by different users, resulting in increased usability in addition to reduced operating costs. The benefits of virtualization include optimizing management, increasing data storage security, reducing operating costs, and increasing staff efficiency, which leads to significant savings in time and financial costs.

It becomes practical to connect core authentication and billing functions to process and intelligently analyze GPS data, mapping images, speech and other information, allowing the entire production process to be optimized and executed daily based on accurate and verified data.

Weather information and soil data, GPS data, worker observations, land data can be used to obtain advice and recommendations based on the analysis of these stored data, the formation and development of a knowledge system stored in the cloud.

The process of accumulating and sharing knowledge in the agricultural sector leads to an improvement in overall production efficiency. Agriculture is a generator of a large amount of knowledge and technology and must be ready for further innovative development and improvement. Cloud computing can support this process. The cloud computing mechanism purposefully solves the problem of transferring knowledge to working agricultural producers and subsequent generations of agricultural workers.

Thus, in order to ensure the implementation of the tasks and parameters defined by the State Program for the Development of Agriculture and Regulation of Markets for Agricultural Products, Raw Materials and Food for 2013-2020, it is necessary to intensify work in this direction. They are the intellectual basis for the formation of the fourth and fifth technological structures in Russian agricultural production.

Based on the materials of the article: Fedosenko, V.F. Information technologies in agricultural production / V.F. Fedosenko. - Scientific and technological progress in agricultural production: materials of the International. scientific-technical conf. (Minsk, October 22-23, 2014). In 3 volumes. T. 1. - Minsk: NPC NAS of Belarus for agricultural mechanization, 2014. - 257 p.

Summer is the most important time of the year for those who live off the land, for farmers and summer residents. But before, they had to work in the field from morning to evening, without straightening their backs. Nowadays, most of even the most complex actions can be performed by electronics. And today we will tell you about the 5 best examples in the world modern technologies for agriculture.

"Smart" garden and vegetable garden Edyn

Every day, smartphones open up more and more new opportunities for us that were previously unimaginable in this context. For example, with the help of a mobile phone you can now become a successful farmer without leaving your home. True, for this you will also need the Edyn smart garden system.

Edyn is a network of interconnected sensors powered by small solar panels built into them. These sensors can monitor a variety of agriculturally important data, such as soil and air temperature, rainfall and sunlight levels, the amount of nutrients in the soil, and even the health of plants.

All this data is processed by a computer and transmitted in real time to the user’s phone, so that he can use a special application to perform the necessary actions, for example, watering plants and fertilizing the soil. And for this, the modern farmer doesn’t even need to get off the couch.

Moreover, the Edyn smart gardening system can also give qualified advice on what actions need to be taken to ultimately obtain the maximum possible harvest. Edyn is connected to a cloud service that stores information about more than a hundred different plants and how to care for them.

Rosphere - a robot hamster to help agriculture

Engineers from the Polytechnic Institute of Madrid, who developed the robot with the name, gave it the nickname “hamster” for its small size, nimbleness and spherical shape, reminiscent of this rodent’s favorite toy. But, in fact, the device was not created to destroy farmers’ crops, but, on the contrary, to promote a good harvest in every possible way.

Rosphere is the “eyes” of the farmer. The spherical robot can autonomously move around gardens and vegetable gardens, controlling them. He does not care about the features of the relief and what kind of agricultural crop grows in the “entrusted territory.”

The Rosphere robot hamster, moving through the beds, collects information about the condition of plants and soil, the presence of pests and thieves, the ripeness of fruits and many other factors that can ultimately affect the harvest. The farmer can only monitor the latest information using a computer and take certain measures when necessary.

Advertising is the engine of trade, and modern technologies are the key to business success. This simple rule applies even to agriculture. After all, it would seem, why do cows need QR codes painted on their sides? So that their owners earn more money!

Farmers from Wales came up with this simple idea. They noticed that tourists passing by their property often stopped to take photographs of cows grazing in the fields. So why not make the cows act as a living advertisement for the products of this farm?

QR codes painted on the sides of these cows lead to the farm's website, where you can learn about the history of the enterprise, as well as the technologies that are used there. And lovers of “green” tourism can book on this page several days of rural holidays, far from the bustle of big cities.

However, in order to visit the farm, you don’t need to leave your home anywhere, because even in the smallest apartment you can plant your own vegetable garden, which will produce fresh vegetables all year round. We are talking about the Niwa system - a compact home farm controlled by a smartphone.

Niwa is a system independent of the external climate that can be installed both outdoors and indoors. Inside it, the best conditions for certain plants are artificially created.

At the same time, Niwa can be controlled using a smartphone or tablet. The user of a mobile device will regularly receive up-to-date information about his home garden, even when he is far from it. Using your phone, you can care for plants - water them and fertilize them, as well as change the light and humidity inside Niwa.
Incubed has developed a useful application for farmers, gardeners and gardeners called Plant Diagnostic Sample Submission. It allows you to fight pests - both insects and viral plant diseases.

If a farmer discovers a problem with the foliage of plants on his plot, he can take a photo of it on his phone and send the photo through the Plant Diagnostic Sample Submission application to a special expert center, where professionals will identify the pest and give advice on how to combat it.

Incubed invited scientists from the University of Illinois as experts. At first, the Plant Diagnostic Sample Submission application will work for free, but over time, farmers will either have to pay for each consultation or buy a subscription for a certain period - a month or a year.

Global agriculture will face a number of constraints until 2050

How to feed ten billion people in the 21st century? A review of trends and some ways to solve the problems of providing the growing population of the Earth with food is presented by Gazeta.Ru together with the Institute of World Ideas.

The number of people in the world is growing by about 70-80 million people per year. Never before have so many people lived on the planet at the same time. If you look at agriculture and food supply, each person strives to increase consumption - accordingly, along with absolute consumption, relative consumption also increases due to population growth.

The question arises: “Will there be enough food to satisfy the growing appetites of a growing population, given that about 1 billion people are already hungry?”

Therefore, from a food point of view, the world faces a triple challenge in the 21st century: a) to feed the growing demand for food from a growing and richer population; b) do it in an environmentally sustainable way; c) cope with the problem of hunger.

World agriculture will face the following global constraints over the next 50 years.

1. Lack of available new land.

2. Changes in climatic conditions in traditional crop growing areas. Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns.

3. Soil degradation.

4. Growing regional fresh water deficit.

5. Decrease in the rate of yield growth even with an increase in the volume of fertilizers.

6. Increased dependence on fossil fuels (logistics, raw materials).

7. Lack of new fish resources.

8. Population growth.

9. Dietary transition due to increased prosperity.

In the past, the main ways to combat food shortages were through agricultural development of new land and the use of new fish stocks.

However, over the past five decades, while grain production has more than doubled, the amount of land devoted to arable farming worldwide has increased by only a few percent.

Of course, some new land could be brought into cultivation, but competition for land from other human activities makes this an increasingly unlikely and costly solution, especially with greater emphasis on biodiversity conservation. In recent decades, certain agricultural areas that were previously productive have been lost due to urbanization and other human activities, as well as due to desertification, salinization, soil erosion and other consequences of unsustainable land use. Further losses are likely, which could be exacerbated by climate change. The production of first-generation biofuels on quality agricultural land also puts competitive pressure on food production. Freshwater scarcity is already causing significant problems in China and India. Human influence on the nitrogen and phosphate cycles has disrupted the natural systems for recycling these elements - this influence will not weaken, since fertilizers are responsible for half of the crop, and the use of fertilizers will only increase.

However, Gazeta.Ru spoke in more detail about the limits of agriculture in the 21st century, with an emphasis on fresh water, nutrients and hydrocarbons, in the article “Pitfalls of Fresh Water and Acid Rain.”

Accordingly, at the global level in the 21st century, more food will need to be produced on the same amount of land (or even less). Recent studies of future demand show that the world will need 70-100% more food by 2050.

It is obvious that humanity will actively solve these problems in the coming decades. Different countries will have different challenges. For example, in China, the main challenge for agriculture will be the rapid dietary transition due to rising incomes: the transition from a predominantly vegetarian diet to a diet containing a large proportion of meat products requires a several-fold increase in the use of nutrients, fresh water, soils, etc., which significantly will increase the burden on agriculture and have a negative impact on the environment. African countries are characterized by other problems - low yields and the negative impact of expanding acreage on the environment (deforestation and desertification).

In Russia the problems are of a completely different nature. We are dependent on food imports, the country does not provide itself with meat products - accordingly, Russia is dependent on international markets for meat products, which is an unsustainable long-term strategy.

Each region can have its own problems, but if we consider agriculture as a single global industry over a long period of time, then the limits and trends listed at the beginning of this article will play a crucial role, although global agricultural problems will be solved locally.

Below is an overview of trends and some ways to solve the emerging problems of providing food to a growing population. These solutions are the scientific and practical mainstream. But it is far from certain that these solutions, even if implemented, will be able to improve the situation and not drive it into an even greater dead end.

Method 1: Increasing yields using traditional practices

There are significant differences in crop and livestock productivity even in regions with similar climates. The difference between actual productivity and the best productivity that can be achieved using current genetic material, available technology and management is called the “yield gap”. Achieving the best local yields depends on the ability of farmers/peasants to access and use seeds, water, nutrients, soil, soil pest control, benefits from biodiversity, and also depends on access to advanced knowledge and management systems.

Closing yield gaps could dramatically increase food supplies, but also increase negative environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions (especially methane and nitrous oxide, which have a larger greenhouse effect than CO2 and are largely produced by agriculture), soil erosion, depletion of fresh water horizons, increased eutrophication, destruction of biodiversity due to the conversion of land to agricultural use.

Method 2: Increasing food production using genetic modification

Today, the speed and cost of sequencing and resequencing genomes is such that improved breeding and genetic modification techniques can be easily applied to the development of crop varieties that produce high yields even under challenging conditions. This primarily applies to crops such as sorghum, millet, cassava, and banana, which are staple foods for many of the world's poorest communities.

Today, genetic modification is used mainly in the production of soybeans (70% of the total area under the crop), cotton (49%), corn (26%), canola/canola (21%). The area under GM crops accounts for 9% of the world's crop area, mainly in the USA, Brazil, Argentina, India, Canada and China. According to Sygenta, about 90% of farmers growing GM seeds are farmers in developing countries, mainly cotton farmers.

Currently, the main commercial genetically modified crops are created by relatively simple manipulations, such as introducing a herbicide resistance gene or a gene to produce a toxin against insect pests. The next decade is likely to see the development of combinations of desirable traits and the introduction of new traits, such as drought tolerance. By mid-century, much more radical options may be possible.

EXAMPLES OF EXISTING AND POTENTIAL FUTURE APPLICATIONS OF GM TECHNOLOGIES FOR GENETIC IMPROVEMENT OF CROPS. SOURCE: SCIENCE

Currently	Tolerance to broad spectrum herbicides	Corn, soybeans, cabbage oilseeds
	Resistance to chewing insect pests	Corn, cotton, cabbage oilseeds
Short term (5-10 years)	Nutritional Strengthening	Main grains, sweet potatoes
	Resistance to fungus and viral pathogens	Potatoes, wheat, rice, bananas, fruits, vegetables
	Resistance to sucking insect pests	Rice, fruits, vegetables
	Improved processing and storage	Wheat, potatoes, fruits, vegetables
	Drought resistance
Medium term (10-20 years)	Tolerance to excess salt	Common grains and roots
	Increasing nitrogen use efficiency	Common grains and roots
	High temperature resistance	Common grains and roots
Long-term period (more than 20 years)	Apomixis	Common grains and roots
	Nitrogen fixation	Common grains and roots
	Production and denitrophification	Common grains and roots
	Transition to perennialism	Common grains and roots
	Increased photosynthetic efficiency	Common grains and roots Read in full: http://www.gazeta.ru/science/2012/04/28_a_4566861.shtml

Most likely, in pursuit of the goal of increasing productivity in a limited area while simultaneously being resistant to climate change, humanity will actively use the genetic transformation of plants.

For example, Bill Gates is already investing in Monsanto (this company, founded in 1901 as a purely chemical company, has now evolved into a concern specializing in high technology in agriculture; the main products currently are genetically modified corn and soybean seeds , cotton and the world's most widely used herbicide, Roundup). Gates believes that genetically modified plants will save the world from hunger.

Although there are many arguments against the widespread use of GM products. Since genetic modifications involve changes to the germ line of an organism and its introduction into the environment and food chain, the problem with GM technology is that the long-term effects of genetically modified crops on the human body, the environment, and biodiversity are unknown. That is why there is significant and completely understandable resistance to genetically modified products in the world, especially in countries such as India, where the huge population and growing demand from the wealthy middle class are forcing them to look for such radical ways as GM technologies to providing the population with food. Suman Sahai, professor of genetics and recipient of the Norman Borlaug Award for Excellence in Agriculture and the Environment, notes in the article “Why is there distrust of GM foods” that the production of GM seeds is controlled by only six companies in the world, which causes a significant lack of open information and a corresponding lack of trust on the part of consumers, regulators and non-profit organizations.

Method 3: Reduce waste

To the question “what needs to be done to provide 10 billion people with food,” Ida Kubiszewski, a professor at the University of Portland and managing editor of The Solutions magazine, reasonably answers that today the world produces an absolutely sufficient amount of food, but only about 30% up to 50% of food in both developed and developing countries is wasted, although for very different reasons.

In developing countries, losses are mainly due to the lack of infrastructure in the production chain, such as technologies for storing produced food on farms, during transportation, during storage before sale. Huge losses during storage are typical in developing countries, such as India, where 35-40% of fresh produce is lost because neither wholesale nor retail outlets are equipped with refrigeration equipment.

In Southeast Asia, there is significant loss even of rice, which can be stored without special equipment. As a result, after harvesting, up to a third of the crop is lost due to pests and spoilage.

In developed countries, losses before the retail stage are much lower, but losses arising at the stages of retail trade, public catering and individual consumption are significant. For example, consumers are accustomed to buying products that look cosmetically good - hence, retailers throw away a lot of edible but slightly damaged products. Food is also relatively cheap for consumers in developed countries, reducing incentives to reduce waste.

Structure of agricultural waste in developed and developing countries

Accordingly, one of the main strategies for sufficient food supply for humanity will be to reduce losses throughout the entire production and consumer chain. At the same time, food waste will be more widely used in agriculture for fattening livestock, since it is necessary to reduce the load of livestock farming on arable land, and also as fertilizer, since such use does not require the direct use of inexhaustible resources and additional significant energy costs (except for transportation).

Method 4: Changing your diet

The efficiency of converting plant energy into animal energy is about 10%, so more people could feed on the same amount of land if they became vegetarians. Currently, about one-third of global grain production is used to feed livestock, and one of the main drivers of increasing pressure on the food system is the rapidly growing demand for meat and dairy products. Demand is growing as a result of general development, which is accompanied by rising incomes.

The surprising feedback is that global population will continue to grow until a likely plateau of 9-10 billion people is reached by 2050.

The main factor in slowing the rate of population growth, and, accordingly, the means of combating hunger, is the elimination of illiteracy. It also leads to increased wealth and income, and with higher purchasing power comes higher levels of consumption, as well as increased demand for processed food, meat, dairy and fish. As a result, this trend to combat hunger in the long term only adds stress to the food supply system. Growing demand has led over the past 50 years to a 1.5-fold increase in the number of cattle, sheep and goats in the world, as well as a 2.5- and 4.5-fold increase in the number of pigs and chickens, respectively. A new round of this growth in the coming decades will be triggered by an increase in the prosperity and size of the middle class in countries such as China and India.

Reducing meat consumption has other benefits besides feeding more people.

Well-balanced diets rich in grains and other plant-based foods are considered healthier than those containing a high proportion of meat and dairy products. But breaking current trends and switching to plant-based diets in the medium term is impossible. The command-driven and centralized approaches that can be used to change diets, even if they work in individual countries, cannot be implemented on a global scale. Only through long-term cultural change is it possible to achieve a “reverse dietary transition” from higher-calorie, animal-dominated diets to plant-based diets. It is absolutely clear that the process of such a transition will take more than one generation (if you do not take into account unpredictable events that can significantly accelerate the transition, for example, possible epidemics of livestock diseases such as rabies).

Method 5. Expansion of aquaculture

Fish, shellfish and crustaceans play an important role in the food system, providing approximately 15% of the animal protein consumed by humans. Peter Drucker, one of the founders of management as a science, suggested in his book The Age of Discontinuity that industries related to the world's oceans, in particular fisheries, will be the basis of human activity in the 21st century.

Today we can already say that Drucker was wrong, at least with fishing.

Since 1990, approximately a quarter of wild fisheries have been seriously overfished, with some fish stocks being completely depleted. A typical example: last year, a bluefin tuna carcass was sold at auction in Japan for $730,000 - the cost of one roll of this fish turned out to be more than $100. Of course, some people may say that it is “very high status” to eat such expensive products. We can say that the cost of one fish has become this way because there are no more bluefin tuna left in the ocean.

It is due to overfishing and depletion of wild fish resources that the world will switch to aquaculture in the future. Aquaculture is now growing rapidly in Southeast Asia, where cheap labor and a favorable climate contribute to such growth rates. Extending this experience to regions such as Africa could be of great benefit in solving the problem of hunger.

In the future, aquaculture could achieve even greater productivity through improved selection of products grown, larger production scales, open water and large inland aquaculture, and the cultivation of a wider range of species.

Greater choice of production conditions (tolerance of temperature and salinity fluctuations, disease resistance) and cheaper feeds (e.g., plant materials with increased nutritional value) may become available using GM technologies, but problems associated with the long-term impact of GM will need to be addressed. technologies on the fish body, humans and the environment in general. Aquaculture can cause harm to the environment, firstly, due to the release of organic waste or medicinal chemicals into water bodies, and secondly, as a source of disease or genetic contamination of wild species.

New technologies may be a dead end

Despite the wide range of technological possibilities, new technologies from the point of view of energy costs will most likely turn out to be a dead-end branch of agricultural development. If we systematically consider the process of creation, development, implementation and use of new technologies from a cost point of view, then today much more energy is spent on food production than we receive in return. This was not always the case, and it is obvious that “traditional” agriculture is much more advantageous from this point of view.

It is easier to explain this statement using the example of oil production. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was necessary to spend 1 barrel of oil to produce 100 barrels of oil. The EROI (Energy Return on Investments) ratio was 1:100. Today it is about 1:15, and shale gas production technologies will reduce it to 1:2-3. Similar trends are developing in agriculture. Whereas traditional agriculture used 1 kilocalorie of energy to produce 5 to 10 kilocalories of energy contained in a food product, today it takes 10 or more (up to 500) kilocalories of energy to produce 1 kilocalorie of food (see chart).

It’s clear about non-renewable resources. When a readily available resource is depleted, the cost of extracting the less accessible resource increases, and the EROI ratio, in turn, decreases. In the case of agriculture, with a growing population and growing demand, any move away from natural, and therefore “free” resources (natural provision of fresh water, soil productivity, biodiversity) significantly reduces EROI and similar coefficients.

Take aquaculture for example. In the case of natural sea fishing for wild species, the main costs are directed towards catching fish - there are no costs for feeding the fish, since the fish feed in the open ocean. Today, aquaculture needs to be grown, fed, and treated. This requires labor, territory, equipment and much, much more. This accordingly increases resource costs, and the grown fish, in principle, has less energy value.

Now let's take the latest projects to build super-efficient vertical farms in megacities. It is obvious that these projects have exorbitant resource and energy efficiency coefficients; approximately more than 500 kilocalories are spent in these projects to obtain one kilocalorie.

Separately, it is worth noting the important economic consequences of the development of such trends. In traditional economics, the cost of a product never included the “cost of a resource.” There is no such thing as “resource cost” at all. For example, the cost of a barrel of oil is determined only by the costs of production, labor, transportation, rental of offices, tanks and other similar costs. The very volume of oil contained in the rock has always been and is considered free. But today, when we no longer have enough traditional resources, a “resource replacement cost” appears. The emergence of a replacement cost makes new technologies, when compared with traditional technologies based on a free resource, economically unprofitable.

Accordingly, humanity is switching to more costly and less efficient methods of obtaining energy and food.

The reason is clear: to develop and replicate new technologies, it is necessary to expend a huge amount of effort, time, and energy. Personnel costs, new construction and other activities significantly increase energy costs. Accordingly, the risks of declining and negative ratios similar to EROI must be financed by someone. In the case of agriculture, they are funded by governments that subsidize the industry and international organizations that provide financial assistance to those in need. This leads to a situation where humanity is and will continue to spend money on maintaining an absolutely inefficient production system, agriculture in particular.

That is why, with the depletion of non-renewable resources and the use of renewable resources beyond natural balances, the world enters “dangerous territory”, which at first will at least be characterized by an increase in the price of all types of resources, and ultimately can lead to catastrophic situations.

For sustainable food production in a strategic perspective, agriculture, as an industry that operates on natural renewable resources and geochemical cycles (soil, nitrogen, fresh water, carbon, phosphorus), will have to return to using resources at levels no greater than what is possible in the natural cycle . Otherwise, we will have (and in fact already have) production that is absolutely inefficient in terms of resource and energy consumption, since we spend more than we receive. In the long term, this strategy does not work.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, there are no simple solutions to feeding 9 billion people sustainably, especially as wealth increases and large parts of the population shift to rich-country consumption patterns. Growing food production will be really important, but it will be more limited than ever by the finite resources of the land, oceans and atmosphere, and will also need to take into account climate change, increasing pollution, growing populations, changing diets and the impact of food on human health.

It is obvious that changes in agriculture in the 21st century will be no less - rather more radical - than the changes that occurred during the “green revolution” in the 20th century.

Setting goals and developing these changes will be one of the main tasks of science in the 21st century. But hopes for future scientific and technological innovations in food supply cannot be an excuse for postponing difficult decisions that are needed today, and any optimism must be tempered by the enormity of the challenges.

With a billion hungry people in the world, it is necessary to think outside the box.

When preparing the article, materials from Science, The Solutions, books and articles by Vaclav Smil, “Limits to Growth. 30 years later”, reports FAO, The International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA), Water Resource Group, UN Water.

The Russian Federation has enormous development potential for the agricultural sector of the economy in almost all its sectors. Until recently, its growth was small due to the limited use of innovative agricultural technologies and advanced management methods.

Since 2014, when the government decision launched industry vectors for import substitution, the agricultural sector of the economy has come out on top in terms of production growth rates, giving a 3.5% increase in gross output of agricultural products. By the end of 2015, food imports had fallen to less than a quarter of a billion dollars. Back in 2012, it was about fifty billion.

Problems and difficulties

However, not everything is as rosy as we would like to see. The period of agricultural import substitution is quite a long process and requires protective assistance from the state and huge investments from domestic investors.

And if everything is more or less in order with state protection, then with investments there is significant sluggishness, which is explained by the less attractiveness of the agricultural industry in comparison with other sectors of import substitution. The most popular sectors among investors in the Russian Federation, as before, are trade, raw materials processing and the construction sector.

Indeed, despite the optimistic indicators, the share of the population employed in agriculture is only 10-12%, and the domestic food and vegetable market in winter still includes up to 80-90% of the products of near and far abroad countries. What can we say about products, if even the defense department seriously depends on the import of components.

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Underwater rocks

Of course, this situation undoubtedly needs to be leveled out, and the import substitution policy plays a constructive role in this. But we should not forget about the pitfalls of this course. After all, this path is not at all new to world economic experience: it was used by a number of countries in the South Latin American region in the third quarter of the twentieth century.

The experience of these countries must be taken into account. And it shows that long-term government protection and inflexible import substitution policies can do a disservice. Yes, at first these countries experienced good domestic growth with a proportional decrease in unemployment.

But then growth slowed down significantly, foreign trade advantageous specializations were lost, and the stimulating influence of entrepreneurial risks was reduced to nothing. Ultimately, this led to the same thing we started with: high unemployment and economic depression.

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What to do?

What then should be done in the case of domestic import substitution in agricultural production in order to avoid the scenario that other countries have gone through? Is it really necessary to curtail this program, in which very large investments have already been made?

Not at all. There is a modern effective method for optimizing import substitution. This is a parallel mandatory introduction of advanced and innovative components into import substitution projects. Here we need to take successful and avant-garde world achievements as a basis, refine and adapt them to Russian models of farming. Then there will be no loss of specialization, no decrease in efficiency and output. Here we can very usefully borrow some ideas from the experience of successful countries in the South-Eastern region.

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Avant-garde and innovation

What specific agricultural advanced and innovative technologies that are suitable for adaptation in Russia can be cited as an example for future widespread implementation? A lot of them. Once you've seen just a few, you'll realize the power of technological innovation that borders on the fantastic, allowing you to raise fish in deserts and water potatoes with seawater. Let's look at the most typical ones:

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Examples of successful implementations

Advanced projects and innovations should become a priority for the development of Russian agriculture in the near and medium term and play a key role in the import substitution policy.

But we can list a number of successful implementations today. Of course, in terms of their innovative component, these projects are far from fish in the desert, but they are also quite fresh and show confidence in their activities.

1. The Penza agricultural company Razdolie has successfully mastered European technologies for cultivating strawberries. The company sells several varieties of these berries to the domestic market, of excellent quality and at a much lower cost compared to foreign ones. The project is developing rapidly and its profit two years ago was 500 thousand rubles.
2. The Leningrad company Ostrich Farm placed its bet on exotic poultry farming and was right. This is not the first successful example of ostrich farming in Russia. The company's products (meat, feathers, eggs, leather) are highly profitable, and there is even a waiting list to purchase meat and eggs, despite their very high cost. They also sell young animals, souvenirs and organize excursions.
3. The Russian Parmesan cheese factory near Moscow is organized using pre-revolutionary Russian-Swiss technology. The cheeses of this company, according to its owner, will have to be equal in quality to their European counterparts. In addition to cheese making, the company produces a number of high-demand fermented milk products.
4. The Krasnodar company "Adler Tea" traces its history back to the Soviet period. Its assortment includes excellent tea of ​​its own production. The company also deals with other crops: bay leaves, persimmons, hazelnuts and many other spices, fruits and vegetables. The company is confidently standing on its feet and plans to further develop production.
5. The Mokshansky “Greenhouse Complex” in the Penza region grows natural roses from Dutch material with European quality of finished products. Its sites operate an extensive greenhouse system that produces up to a quarter of a million units of roses per year. About a hundred varieties of this beautiful plant are cultivated, a progressive technical base is used, and the company’s employees regularly improve their skills in Holland.

It also makes sense to add that last year the Ministry of Agriculture identified the main priorities in agricultural development.

Semilyakova Kristina Vladimirovna

student, Department of Modeling, Informatics and Statistics, Faculty of Economics, Don State Agrarian University, village. Persianovsky, Rostov region, Russia

Abstract: the most acute problem in agriculture is the technical and technological lag, as a result of which the development of the Russian agro-industrial complex is hampered and competition from Europe is increasing. This article outlines the state of provision of information technologies in Russia, outlines the ways of introducing information technologies and ways of their implementation.

Key words: agro-industrial complex, information technology, agriculture, production automation

Application of information technology in agriculture

Semilyakova Kristina Vladimirovna

Student Department of Modeling, Informatics and Statistics, Faculty of Economics Don State Agrarian University pos. Persianovsky Rostov region, Russia

Abstract: The most acute problem of agriculture are technical and technological backwardness, so that hinders the development of the agro-industrial complex of Russia and increased competition from Europe. This article described sostonyaie security of information technologies in Russia, the ways of introduction of information technologies and ways of their implementation.

Keywords: agriculture, information technology, agriculture, manufacturing automation

Today there is no sphere of production and management in which information technology is not used. With the help of information technology, many companies that produce various products successfully operate.

Information technology and computerization make it possible to improve and facilitate the production process, and its full or partial automation makes it possible to alleviate labor associated with life-threatening work activities.

New information technologies significantly expand the possibilities of using information resources in various sectors of agriculture.

So what is information technology?

Information technology is a complex of interrelated scientific, technological, and engineering disciplines that study methods for effectively organizing the work of people involved in processing and storing information; computer technology and methods of organizing and interacting with people and production equipment, their practical applications, as well as social, economic and cultural problems associated with all this.

In developed countries of the world, the development of intensive and efficient agricultural production is ensured today both by introducing new technological production processes and by improving the information and technological base for managing these processes. As a rule, the main factor in the efficiency of agricultural production is modern information technology.

The basic elements of new information technologies are computer programs. These programs display advanced modern methods of agricultural production in the form of mathematical models and information processing methods, as well as the knowledge of leading specialists and scientists in the relevant fields of agriculture.

Economic indicators such as profit and the level of profitability of production make it possible to assess the effectiveness of a single agricultural industry in a market economy. The ultimate goal of introducing new information technologies is to maximize these indicators.

In livestock farming, production efficiency directly depends on the competent use of technological processes, the most important of which is animal feeding. In this regard, feed procurement technologies, technologies for keeping and breeding poultry, livestock and exotic animals are being developed, which can increase productivity, reduce production costs, and also improve product quality. In modern agriculture, several areas of technology development and the use of innovation can be distinguished:

• soil cultivation technologies;
• technologies for the production of agricultural machinery and equipment;
• technologies for raising and keeping livestock;
• soil drainage and irrigation technologies;
• technologies for collecting and preserving products;
• technologies for transportation and sales of products.

In the modern world, it would be very important to support the development of the market for environmentally friendly and safe products and technologies, the most competitive ones, promoting the development of innovative technologies. Issues of producing environmentally friendly products are coming to the fore today. In this regard, technologies that improve the purity of products are in great demand today. The use of modern technology also helps to improve product quality. And, of course, undoubtedly, one of the priority areas was and is everything related to increasing product productivity. Innovations that make it possible to collect several harvests of agricultural products per year successfully complement waste-free production technologies and technologies for competent harvesting and preservation.

In the modern information society, any farmer can access the global Internet from anywhere in the area using powerful wireless communication devices.

The innovative development of the agro-industrial complex in Russia is slowing down, including due to the low level of technological equipment, largely determined by the technical and technological level of the industry and insufficient qualifications of workers. While the world and European experience in conducting agricultural work is already directly related to information technology, in Russia this direction is practically not open.

According to expert estimates, the general level of informatization of agricultural enterprises in modern conditions seems insufficient, which is explained by the following reasons:

• low efficiency of economic entities in conditions of insufficient government influence on the processes of formation of the material and technical base and the organizational and economic situation of system informatization;
• the lack of a developed infrastructure for informatization of the domestic agro-industrial complex;
• low interest of business entities in the development of information technology systems and the use of its products due to insufficient incentives for the production of information technology systems.

This is confirmed by the degree of use of information technology, which largely depends on the size of enterprises. Thus, as of 2011, in the country’s agro-industrial complex, information technologies are used in only 10% of agricultural enterprises, mainly large ones, whose land area is 20 thousand hectares.

Conducting modern agriculture in a developed information society involves constantly receiving information from various external sources (via the global Internet) from anywhere in the area at a convenient time. For example, constant data on forecasts from weather forecasters can be available to farmers throughout the day. This allows for more effective use of chemical plant protection products and also reduces the risk of environmental pollution. There are developments of information systems to warn farmers about the appearance of pests and plant diseases.

Expansion of information databases is an important, but not sufficient condition for their effective use on farms. The initial information should be convenient for assessing biological and physical systems in order to develop useful knowledge about the current state of farms, as well as predicting the results of various scenarios. The accumulated knowledge in agricultural research over the years must be applied to obtain practically useful information by processing databases. This means that IT is an indispensable source for the implementation of research and development.

One of the signs of the use of information technology on farms is the presence of computers, as well as their connection to the Internet (Table 1).

Table 1. Use of information technology by farmers

	Number of full-time farmers	Number of farmers using computers		Number of farmers working on the Internet
Finland
Germany
Holland
Norway
Great Britain

An example of the intensive use of information technologies is the countries of the European Union. At the same time, the number of computers in these countries connected to the Internet practically does not exceed 50%. A number of scientists in the field of information technology believe that the current level of use of computer and communication technology in the countries studied is extremely low for the effective use of information technology.

Recently, in the field of agriculture, conditions have increasingly appeared and significant efforts have been made to introduce information technology. The most well-known technologies are implemented within the framework of applied computer programs. These are, first of all, programs for optimizing the placement of agricultural crops in zonal crop rotation systems and animal feeding rations; by calculating doses of fertilizers; carrying out a complex of land management works and land resource management; maintaining the state cadastre of field history and developing technological maps for cultivating agricultural crops; regulation of plant nutrition and microclimate in greenhouses; control of the storage process of potatoes and vegetables, the quality of grown products and feed, soil pollution; assessing the economic efficiency of production; management of technological processes in poultry houses, production processes in poultry meat processing and storage of products and much more.

In Russia, a technical project ARIS (“Agrarian Russian Information System”) has been developed in the field of agriculture. According to this project, a single corporate network of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture is being created in the regions, which will connect local networks of agricultural management bodies at all levels - from district to federal. The core of the federal level structure is the computer network of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of the Russian Federation and its Main Computing Center. This network includes a server group that provides information and technological integration of the entire computer system of the agro-industrial complex into the federal data bank. The basis for the dissemination of ARIS information is the global computer network Internet. The ARIS project will allow the Russian Ministry of Agriculture and regional authorities to more effectively perform the functions of planning, control, forecasting, and organizing production activities.

A positive example of the integration of information resources on agricultural topics is, of course, the UN FAO (The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is the food and agricultural organization of the UN. This is an international, intergovernmental organization dealing with issues of food resources and agricultural development in different countries, was created in October 1945 with the aim of coordinating and implementing efforts aimed at combating hunger, improving the quality of nutrition, and developing agriculture at the global, regional and national levels.FAO's activities cover the entire range of problems of the agro-industrial complex, incl. collecting and disseminating information, assisting countries in developing agricultural policies, promoting international cooperation. FAO is the custodian and source of information on agriculture, fisheries and forestry, and actively publishes its research and promotes its wide dissemination. FAO has 190 member countries peace. In February 2006, Russia restored its membership in FAO. FAO's information resources are a collection created by all members of the organization, and each member becomes an equal user and creator. Such information systems allow solving many problems associated with obtaining and distributing information resources.

Having the necessary information, the manager can monitor the economic activities of the enterprise, quickly receive information about new production technologies and innovations in scientific and technical progress, and will also have access to various information and statistical information.

In Russia, the most widely used software package is from the Consultant Plus company. This package allows you to receive all the necessary legal information in the shortest possible time. In addition, it provides the opportunity to receive comments from experts who will help to correctly understand the adopted law.

Agriculture needs such an information system that will describe farming methods, provide advice and comments. To increase the efficiency of its use, division by region should be introduced.

Input information should come directly from agricultural organizations themselves and should include key indicators of the organization, information about the equipment used and new products. Then, the input information goes to the analytical department to experts, who must check the received information for reliability and relevance, as well as for feasibility in a given region. The analytical department should include experts of different professions and titles. Then, after verification, the information enters the information system itself in the public domain, and anyone can use it.

Creating effective modern information systems requires a creative approach. Information and consulting systems solve many problems of commodity producers by implementing agricultural support programs; become an objectively necessary condition for increasing the efficiency of management activities, both in the agro-industrial complex and in other sectors of the national economy.

Bibliography:

1. Menyaykin D.V. Information systems and their application in the agro-industrial complex / D.V. Menyaykin, A.O. Talanova // Young scientist. - 2014. - No. 3. - P. 485 - 487.
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4. Matveev D. M. The role of consulting activities in the technical and technological re-equipment of agriculture / A. T. Stadnik, D. M. Matveev, M. G. Krokhta, P. P. Kholodov; Novosib. state agrarian univ. - Novosibirsk: NSAU Publishing House, 2013. - 200 p.
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