Farming trends in 2024 - Where is the future heading?
Farming may be one of the oldest organised human activities in existence, but that doesn't mean that it’s not still constantly evolving. With more and more mouths to feed and increasingly challenging environmental conditions, farming trends are having to develop at a breakneck pace.
Today, we explore some of the future trends we can expect to see in farming, from climate-resilient crops to increasing levels of automation.
Climate resilience
If like us you have been hooked on Clarkson's Farm and follow Jeremy Clarkson's adventures into farming, you are probably beginning to understand the intricacies of farming and how the weather can affect crops and yield.
For a lot of people, climate change remains a relatively abstract and political concept. For farmers, the increasing unpredictability of seasonal patterns is a far more pressing problem, and we can expect it to have a significant effect on future farming trends.
A real-life example here is the increase in price of certain products like olive oil (also known as liquid gold) which this year skyrocketed because of poor weather conditions that resulted in the lowest production rates in recent years.
Due to the rapid changes in weather conditions, we will likely see a range of tactics intended to increase climate resilience in farming practices. Whether this takes the form of more resilient crops or infrastructure to limit the risk of flooding will depend on the kind of environmental changes you need to deal with.
High tech clothing
While a lot has changed in the farming world over the past decades, one thing has remained largely the same: farmers still need to spend time out in the elements, often in quite harsh conditions.
What we do have nowadays is access to high-tech farming clothing from suppliers like Stormline that makes working in these environments a whole lot more pleasant.
In 2024, we can expect to see new designs and fabrics hitting the market, some of which could be game-changing. It’s important to keep an eye on what’s available, so that you don’t miss out on anything that could transform your daily work into a more pleasant experience.
Digital management systems
Farmers will always need to maintain a certain level of intuition about their crops and livestock, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t get digital assistance in a range of different areas.
Increasingly, we can expect to see digital farm management systems help farmers keep track of the countless variables that go into running a successful farm. These will take a substantial amount of pressure off of the need to keep mental tabs on everything, allowing you to relax just a tiny bit more.
Digital farming is not just about automating some of the processes with a touch of a button. it is also about collecting valuable data that can inform key decisions in large size farms - for example, the soil conditions over a period of time can help farmers decide when to invest in fertilizers and when to change the type of crops altogether.
Automation
If you regularly use smart home features around your house, like automatic watering while you are out of town, or security systems, you can understand the value that such elements can add to your daily life. Similar systems are used up and down the country in farms of all sizes, to protect, secure, help feed livestock and more.
While we’ve seen unprecedented levels of automation in farming over the past hundred years or so, with ongoing advances in robotics and AI we can only expect to see that automation increase. from seeding machinery to using drones to identify irregularities in crops, automation is the way forward.
What that means practically is that farmers can expect to be able to automate a lot of the more menial labour necessary to run a farm, allowing them to focus more on planning and other critical logistical concerns.
Last thoughts
There are clearly a number of serious challenges that farmers will need to face in the coming years, but as the trends listed above illustrate, there are also a number of promising solutions to those challenges.
It’s crucial that everyone in the farming industry stays up to date with these trends, to ensure that they’re getting all the help they can get to navigate these proverbial - and literal - storms.
Jenny Kakoudakis likes to blog about interiors. She launched the award-winning Seasons in Colour in 2014. When she is not chasing criminals out of the financial system (her day job), she gets creative by redecorating her own home.
Download her free bathroom renovation guide here.
