Advances in Crop Science and Technology
Open Access

Abstract

Due to the increase in world population, estimates indicate that food production must increase by 50% by 2030 and by 100% by 2050. As water becomes increasingly scarce due to groundwater and surface water overexploitation, agriculture will need to invest in new productivity and efficiency measures with mechanized irrigation that will enable yield increases of 100- 400%. Farming has moved away from being a “craft” to being a science. The adoption phase of technology and in recent years, digitalization has taken a long time. However, with increasing demand for food, decreasing availability of water, lower hardware prices and rising labor costs, more and more farmers are adopting new innovations and technologies. This paper considers technologies available for “Smart Irrigation” collected from Grundfos’s global data and knowledge bases with more than 70 years of experience in the supply of pumping technology to the agricultural industry. It references active global innovation projects from the Americas to Europe and Africa.

Biography

Jonathan Hamp Adams has been involved in the water industry since 1994. In addition to his first-rate BSc, he is the holder of the MDP gold medal from the University of South Africa, SBL and has an MBA from Henley Business School (UK). Early in his career, he managed an agriculture irrigation and equipment engineering supply house in South Africa. In 2008, he joined Grundfos as the General Manager and later Area Managing Director for sub-Saharan Africa, where he was involved in many major private and public water projects across the continent. During his time in Africa, he was involved in pioneering the annual Grundfos MegaFarmer Forum, which brought leading Farmers and Industry stakeholders (private and public) on the continent together to discuss the use of energy and water in agriculture. He relocated to the USA in 2015 along with his wife Robyn and two children, Nicholas and Sarah. He is currently the President of Grundfos USA, Grundfos’s single largest global sales organization, with sales exceeding $550m annually.

E-mail: jhadams@grundfos.com