Combating the Global Food Crisis with Agricultural Technologies: Potential Research Opportunities

Abstract

The ongoing global food crisis is exacerbated by rising food demand and dwindling natural resources. Combating this crisis requires interventions beyond government subsidies to sustain the agricultural sector. In this article, we discuss various agricultural technologies leveraging AI, drones, blockchain, mobile apps, and solar technology that can help smallholder farmers in developing countries gain access to financial resources, information, and knowledge about crop management, market selection, and fair selling processes. Although these technologies hold great promise, encouraging farmers to invest in and adopt them remains to be a major challenge. This challenge, in turn, creates future research opportunities for operations management researchers to explore.