Working Towards a Sustainable Future for Agriculture

This week, Airbus announced the Aeolus initiative to obtain vital data to improve weather forecasts and better understand the dynamics of Earth’s atmosphere. Global organizations emphasized the importance of water management and the long-term repercussions of its misuse. Mexico’s SENASICA will establish a Type Federal Inspection (TIF) unit in Tabasco to help further the production of Mexican livestock. Finally, Mexico and New Zealand started sharing technologies to boost the agri-food sector. 

 Interested in more? Here are the week’s major headlines in Agribusiness & Food!

• Airbus’s Aeolus initiative makes weather forecasting take a new meaning. This is the first-ever satellite to use the Doppler effect to determine wind speed. This technology is now used in daily weather forecasting and global wind profiling. The data obtained by Aeolus has been vital for meteorologists and climatologists to improve weather forecasts and better understand the dynamics of Earth’s atmosphere and climate variations. This tool becomes essential as countries, including Mexico, steep up their fight against climate change, which has ravaged agricultural sectors that depend on the climate to have better production. Although technology such as Aeolus can help to predict environmental challenges better, if continuous measures are not taken to limit the effects of climate change, they will only worsen.

• Climate change is leading to natural disasters, rising temperatures, food shortages and poor water supply. Mexico, for example, continues to deal with a large-scale drought affecting several states, while others deal with the devastating effects of hurricanes. A new FAO report highlights the urgent need to use water efficiently considering the current levels of water stress across the globe. The report on water stress mentions that around a third of the world’s population lives in countries with stress caused by lack of water, while 10 percent live in countries with a high or critical level of stress for the same reason. Problems with water supply could also affect large cities such as Beijing, London, Mumbai or Tokyo, which could face a water crisis by 2050, reads the report. Poor water supply strongly affects farmers, who may experience greater inequalities when trying to access water resources in situations of water stress, highlighting the need to promote the management and governance of different water sources. Mexico continues carrying out programs to protect crops from the lack of water. To reduce the impact of the drought in the north of the country, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER) launched the Banderita Boutelova curtipendula grass establishment program in arid and semi-arid areas of Mexico.

• The Director-in-chief of the National Service for Agri-food Health, Safety and Quality (SENASICA), Francisco Javier Trujillo Arriaga, met with representatives of the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) to discuss the support of agriculture practices through the installation of a Type Federal Inspection (TIF) unit in Tabasco. During the online meeting, participants assured that the TIF establishment is a firm investment for the development of Mexican livestock, which increasingly demands certified meat products both for domestic consumption and for export. Once the engineering and equipment of the establishment is installed, the technicians of the agriculture agency will assist the slaughterhouse operators to delineate the professional capabilities that the workers must have. 

• Mexico and New Zealand will participate in matters of technological cooperation and commercial exchange to promote technological collaboration in the agri-food sector. The management of technologies in the agri-food sector is essential, so it is necessary to provide small and medium-scale producers the mechanisms and innovations that link them with productivity and health standards to strengthen the export of vegetables, fruits, meat, seafood and strawberries, among other products.