The future of farming depends not only on the new solutions being developed, but also on whether farmers can afford to use them. That is the view of Kristelle Schepens, CMO at Letavis AB, who will speak at Nordic Agro Summit. In this interview, she discusses how digital technology and biological solutions meet the realities of life on the farm.
For Kristelle Schepens, profitability is the most pressing issue facing farming today. A farm operating at a loss struggles to invest in new technology or give the next generation the opportunity to take over. She therefore sees profitability as essential to sustainability, resilience and a secure food supply.
“A farm that gets more out of every hectare and every input is better placed to cope when the season is difficult,” she says.
Decisions driven by data
Schepens believes digitalisation will profoundly change farming over the next five to ten years, not least through a new generation of farmers. At the innovation arena at Elmia Lantbruk, she saw examples of AI, sensors and automation beginning to become practical tools rather than visions of the future.
She describes a farming sector in which data helps growers decide where and when an intervention will have the greatest impact. Combined with biological solutions such as Letavis’s product Amoravis, she sees opportunities to use resources more efficiently.
Sustainability must pay
Schepens also wants to challenge the idea that sustainability necessarily comes at a cost. An input that delivers no benefit means, in her view, both wasted money and unnecessary environmental impact. For sustainable practices to be adopted widely, they must therefore make financial sense on the farm.
Working with Amoravis has also taught her that the path from research to practical use is not straightforward. Although the product is backed by decades of research, it was through working with growers that Letavis gained important insights into how it should be used. The biggest barrier to trying something new is often not a lack of interest, she says, but the risk borne by the individual farmer. Companies developing new technology therefore also need business models that make it easier to try.
Inspiring confidence in the future
When Kristelle Schepens meets participants at Nordic Agro Summit, she hopes above all to inspire confidence in the future. She sees a period of rapid development ahead, with much of the innovation taking place in the Nordic region. As a young woman in the industry, she also hopes to inspire more young people to choose a career in farming – a sector where, as she sees it, their work can make a real difference to society as a whole.
