Only three percent of the Earth’s surface is arable land, and only 18 percent of that can be used for growing food crops. As the world’s population continues to increase, the amount of arable land per person decreases, which makes sustainable farming increasingly important each year that passes.

With such challenges facing the food chain, from the farm level forward, what solutions are available? One of the most promising is that of precision farming.

What is precision farming (and what do drones have to do with it)? Following are two descriptions: The European Agricultural Machinery Industry Association (CEMA) defines precision farming as “the adoption of staggering new technologies: satellites, high precision positioning systems, smart sensors and a range of IT applications combined with high-tech engineering” for the purpose of “managing variations in the field accurately to grow more food using fewer resources and reducing production costs.”

In a shorter version from Wikipedia, digital farming is “a farming management concept based on observing, measuring and responding to inter- and intra-field variability in crops.”

According to Boston Consulting Group, 60 percent of the farmers in France, Germany, Poland, and the UK believe that precision farming will be widely adopted by 2030, and CEMA reported that more than 70 percent of the new farm equipment sold today has a precision agriculture component.

This digitization can help farmers increase their sustainability efforts, reducing pesticide and other resource use while enhancing yields. For example, one of the latest innovations is that developed by Bayer in collaboration with Bosch which applies drone technology to reduce resource use and increase yield.

• The drones generate field maps and deliver aerial infrared photos providing information such as the condition of the crops. Data also can be collected through sensor technology and measuring instruments.
• The collected data is fed to satellite and mobile radio hubs into an analysis platform.
• Commands are sent from the platform or the farmer to highly specialized, automated field machinery.
• The machinery can then use the data to irrigate or apply crop protection to specific parts of the field with millimeter precision.
• The collected data also can be used for other purposes, such as making growth and yield predictions.

The enhanced ability to “read” the field and plants and target resources through precision farming technologies not only reduces the use of pesticides, herbicides, and other such resources, it enables the analysis of their efficacy and recommendations for application dosage, timing, etc., all of which can lead to more environmentally sensitive, sustainable farming.

“Precision farming showed us the data of what was really happening,” said Leon Noordam, executive associate of Novifarm in the Netherlands. “It was a real eye opener; you can’t manage the farm without seeing the plant.”

courtesy of Bayer Crop Science

But, cautioned Damon Knobloch, vice president of operations and partner of Riverview in Morris, Minn., who has tried a lot of technologies — and had a lot fail. “The wow factor gets us really excited as though it would take all the work out. You still have to do the hard work ... you have to go out and validate it.”

MBS Sandhu of Sylvan Harvests in India agreed that farmers have to take a hands-on (or, in this case, a feet-on) approach, stating, “A farmer’s feet are the best fertilizer.”

On the other hand, data is becoming increasingly important for the farmer, and it is the new technologies that can provide that.

“Any company that doesn’t have a data strategy will lose, but it has to provide value,” said Agrilyst CEO and Founder Allison Kopf of New York. “Farmers will invest when the technology is proven to be of value.”

The long-predicted and dire warning of the world’s inability to feed the expected 2050 global population with our current processes and rate of food production is not breaking news, but it also should not be relegated to the archives. Rather the issues need to be continually vocalized and solutions sought. What are the issues of more production, sustainability, yield, and less environmental impact? What other challenges are farmers facing? How are technologies enabling the production of more food with less? How does this impact the entire food chain?

As the first link in the chain, it is critical that farmers around the world focus on sustainability. As GlobalGAP Chairman of the Board Guy Callebaut of Antwerp, Belgium, said, “Sustainability is not a matter of relief, it’s a necessity and a license to produce.” But it comes with challenges.

Just as food processors and manufactures in the U.S. face challenges in meeting the specifications of retailers who are subject to the needs and wants of consumers, so too are farmers around the globe subject to that challenge. But they also are subject to the specifications of their next link in the chain: food processors and manufacturers. Additionally, they are the first link in the chain of sustainability, which is increasingly gaining international focus. As such, it has become more challenging to produce more with less.

Grower Wilbert van Wijk of Van Wijk Fruit in Utrecht, Netherlands, said that about 50% of his farm’s produce is sold to retailers. While it is necessary that he use pesticides for crop protection, he said, “Some retailers have started to give us secondary rules,” such as allowing for only one-third of the maximum residue limit (MRL) that is permitted by law. However, they also want the produce to be of high quality and maintain shelf-life. So, it’s always a balancing act to fulfill specifications of both shelf-life and low MRLs of these perishable products while maintaining a focus on sustainability and reducing food waste.

Illustration: courtesy of bayer

Adding to the challenge, said Food Safety Manager and Agronomist Ben Burgers of Roveg Fruit in Waddinxveen, Netherlands, is that growers must always think a year ahead, while remembering that “just because we make an agreement doesn’t mean we have the order from a retailer,” he said.

“The expectations of the stakeholders have changed,” agreed Andreas Lenz, managing director of DHL Logistics in Cologne, Germany. “Producers are asking for new supply-chain solutions for storage and transportation traceability,” he said. In addition to protecting perishable produce, all products must meet clearance in harbors and customs for export. “We cannot speed up the ship or the plane, but we can connect those in the supply chain to reduce time.” To make it as short as possible, the farmer must understand the needs of the market: of the producer and consumer, then develop the right mix and control the frequency of delivery. “One-third of worldwide production goes to waste, so whatever we can do to reduce that helps the entire world,” Lenz said.

It’s not that farmers don’t want to reduce pesticides, but they do need to have options and resources to protect their crops. However, too often, actions are taken and messages put out without enough thought behind them, which causes pesticides to be pulled and farmers to have to find other alternatives, added van Wijk. When that happens, it takes more to control the pest or disease, which can have a significant impact on production. “We, as farmers, must do much more about our storytelling,” he said. “It’s good to be open, to invite people to our farms.”

“It’s not news that consumers want more information about their food origins than ever before, and those values are incredibly important to farmers as well. But, ultimately, they want the freshest, safety, highest quality food that can be sustainably produced,” said Karen Buch, president and founder of Nutrition Connections in Harrisburg, Pa. “Consumers do effect change,” she said. Their feedback to companies, opinions on social media, and “voting with their food dollars” impact the entire food chain.

Customers also request new products Burger said. But that, he said, “is an easy question with a difficult answer.” It takes time, at least a year, to develop new products, and in that time, the customer may go to a competitor and you don’t get the contract at the end.

Thus, farmers are getting and spreading the same message as processors: We need to do more to educate suppliers, customers, and consumers on what is being done in these areas throughout the global food chain.

“Phew” you say, returning to your office and sitting down at your desk after spending several long, grueling days in the office conference room being grilled, questioned, and challenged by the investigator across the table.

As you let out a sigh of relief that the audit is completed, you reflect on the process and the closing meeting, thinking about the comments shared by the auditor. Detailed thoughts go through your head about what you and your team could have done better to be more prepared, and the procedures, processes, and systems that the auditor overlooked — that might have changed the outcome. But you also think about what you, your team, and facility personnel did well during, and in advance of the audit.

You take the auditor’s closing comments to heart and you realize that, because of the past several days, you, your team, and the facility as a whole, will be more prepared, more compliant, more disciplined, and more ready than ever for your next audit.

Regardless of the audit outcome, at that point in time, one should always say to oneself and to the organization, we are only as good as our next audit!

Every audit is a learning opportunity. Many factors play into the outcome: the investigator, the internal team chemistry, knowledge of regulations, upper management support, auditor/auditee relationship, employee preparedness — to name just a few of the tangible and intangible aspects of any audit.

SIX STEPS TO SUCCESS. To that end, following are six steps which can help you achieve the desired audit outcome of little to no observations or compliance discrepancies:

1. Understand the requirements. One thing is constant in the preparation for and undergoing of an audit; that is, knowledge of the standards against which you are being audited or inspected. Be it a federal, state, or local inspection or a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) audit, the regulations, code, or guidelines are available for you to read and understand the expectations. Thus, the regulations for a government inspection or code for a GFSI inspection should be well known and thoroughly understood in advance, so that receiving a less than satisfactory audit outcome should and can be avoided.

As a person who has had food facility compliance responsibility and has been the agent in charge during many government inspections, responsible for answering the questions or obtaining the requested information, I completely understand that a successful audit outcome does not “just happen.” Success requires significant effort from the full quality assurance team — as well as from all plant personnel along with support from senior management.

The same is true for a GFSI audit, for which all employees should participate in the preparation and execution. GFSI schemes are well documented, and the criteria is objectively defined with clearly stated expectations in the scheme requirements. The requirements are not secretive nor difficult to understand or interpret, so everyone at the site should be able to contribute successfully.

2. Put it in writing. Convert the requirements into policy, procedures, or other quality control documents that provide direction for successful compliance. Once the compliance requirements are known and understood by management, it becomes critically important that those published compliance requirements are transferred into useful documents so employees can reference, review, and understand their assigned responsibilities.
3. Train appropriate personnel on the documents. For employees to fully comprehend what is expected of them, you must also implement a good document training program. This should be instructor led or computer guided to include tests or quizzes for which the employee must correctly answer an applicable number of questions to assure a level of comprehension is obtained. Reading the documents alone without any questions requiring correct answers for comprehension should not be considered adequate training.

Effective training is a key activity that provides an outstanding fundamental practice enabling a facility to have a much better chance for sustainable compliance than those with very weak or non-existent training programs.

4. Execute the documented instructions. At this point, the requirements are well understood and transferred to the appropriate documents, and thorough training is delivered for complete comprehension.

The compliance process is now at the pinnacle that will help determine if a facility and its employees will have the wherewithal, discipline, and trained knowledge to execute the instructions as described in the quality document to satisfy the regulatory judgment of the on-site FDA inspector or GFIS auditor.

Having the preliminary steps of the audit readiness process implemented flawlessly enables employees to execute the regulatory requirements within their job responsibilities in the most complaint manner. This compliant employee performance will satisfy nearly any inspector or auditor who is inspecting for non-compliance activities.

5. Monitor for compliance. The flawless employee execution described in the previous paragraph is the utopia of compliance readiness and most likely does not reflect real-world experience. It can be real world, but the many variables outside the theoretical environment make it very difficult to have everyday compliance success with all employees at every task.

Therefore, it is important to periodically monitor employee activity to assure it follows the prescribed instructions on the quality document and/or process. Conversely, monitoring the procedure to assure it describes the employee practice is equally important.

6. Modify as needed. After the procedure-performance monitoring is completed, it is necessary to make the correct modification, where necessary. Regardless of whether it is the employee practice or the procedure that requires modification, it must be addressed to assure sustainable compliance for future regulatory inspections or GFSI audits.

IN SUMMARY. The actions that provide guidance toward achieving a successful audit outcome include having full knowledge and understanding of the regulations or audit expectations. Convert that regulatory knowledge into policy, procedures, or other quality control documentation that provides direction and instructions for employees to be compliant with the intended regulations.

Thorough training on the quality documents is a critically important step in the compliance development process. Without effective training, that communication chain can be broken so that the information from the documentation does not get transferred adequately to the employee, and there is a lesser chance of proper execution.

The subsequent monitoring and verification of practices for compliant execution are then important to reinforce appropriate behavior.

Lastly, if corrections are necessary, you must modify the procedure or the employee practice as needed.

Naturally, a successful audit outcome takes a great amount of effort and hard work. But if you stick to the process, you can sit back in your office chair and exhale a sigh of relief knowing you prepared well, performed well, and can be satisfied with your audit outcome.

And … you will be ready for your next audit.