According to United Nations, SDG-9 focuses on the three most significant facets of sustainable development, i.e., infrastructure, industrialization & innovation. The infrastructure delivers the fundamental physical systems and the structures essential for any enterprise (poultry/livestock) or society. Whereas, industrialization operates economic growth, generates employment opportunities, and ultimately reduces poverty. Industrialization is blessed by innovation which strengthens the technological competencies of the industrialization sectors. Moreover, sustainable and inclusive industrialization is the primary source of earnings for the people. It also ensures environmentally friendly industrialization with the provisions of technological solutions. These infrastructural developments and technological solutions have paved the way for sustainable livestock/poultry production. It assures improved animal welfare and food safety, and enables a new industry, an industry that we at YieldX aspire to.
It is well documented that the livestock/poultry sector is a rapidly growing agricultural sector. It provides the best opportunity for jobs worldwide and agribusiness via the livestock supply chain. However, if this supply chain is not managed appropriately, it creates a sustainability issue that negatively influences public health, animal health, and the environment. Therefore, the infrastructural modifications provide an opportunity to make the livestock/poultry sector more sustainably developed efficient. But before we move on, let's understand the deep meanings of the whole issue of SDG-9 and its derived implications.
..YieldX through its technology plays an important role in unlocking significant global economic value, and allows any integration to adapt to the best practices of an innovative industry that is at the forefront of Industry 4.0 and beyond...
Build resilient infrastructure
It is a matter of the fact that the infrastructure development needs to be systemized and long-term planning interconnected with the political, cultural, and geographical boundaries. The incidence of various animal/human diseases necessitates establishing a resilient infrastructure. According to USAID, resilience is a capability of a system to reduce, adopt or track down the various environmental/diseased stresses. It is well documented that establishing the disaster or climatic resistant infrastructure requires more investments. It is a way forward to upgrade inclusive and sustainable industrialization, which is the key driver of growth and economic development.
Promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization
Industrialization is considered a potent tool of growth that facilitates rapid social and economic development. Industrialization plays a significant role in emerging and developing economies. It transfers the resources and labor from the less productive and labor-intensive activities to the higher capital and intensive technologies. It provides the opportunities to involve in the latest global value chains aimed to fast-track economic growth. Thus, it dispenses resources to attain a sustainable environment and socially inclusive economic growth. Moreover, the principal target of the SDG is to tackle inequality concerning sustainable and inclusive industrialization. However, it necessitates investments in developing resilient infrastructure, research, and innovation. Therefore, it is evident that sustainable industrialization synergizes agricultural productivity, which is linked with the performance of the livestock industry.
Interaction of Industrialization with livestock/poultry Industry
The livestock/poultry sector is flourishing very rapidly. It provides attractive opportunities for industrialization and occupies a higher contribution to the national economy of any country. Moreover, the animal products processing industry is leading (@ 3%+ per annum growth) in emerging economies. The comprehensive development of the industrial infrastructure capability, research, and innovation assist the livestock and poultry sector in adding value to the short supply. Thus, inclusive industrialization significantly develops the livestock and poultry sector and brings out opportunities.
Therefore, inclusive and sustainable industrialization and resilient infrastructure and innovation can unleash the competitive and effective economic forces that produce job opportunities. Hence, they play a significant role in introducing and promoting technological advances. Thus, it fosters innovation, which aims to efficiently use the available resources for optimum productivity or profitability in the agriculture or livestock industry.
Foster Innovation (through enhanced connectivity)
It is evidenced that the absence of any innovation in the infrastructure, industrialization and technologies may lead to developing the unsustainable path exhibiting the compromised economies or job opportunities. Therefore, innovation and technological progression are the key drivers that provide the optimum solutions to environmental and economic challenges. Ultimately, they enhance energy and resource efficiency. However, the innovation urges the countries to invest in research and development.
In perspective of the innovation, the agricultural and livestock industries mainly centered on the environmental impacts, biosecurity, and animal welfare. Thus, these innovations may result in higher outputs and improved revenue. As the comprehensive report authored by McKinsey & Company, better monitoring of animal health and growth conditions could produce $70 billion to $90 billion in value by 2030. Significantly, the adoption of these technologies by the livestock/poultry integrations adds value to the local/global economy.
Innovative technologies in the livestock/poultry industry
It is reported that the food industry is using various technological advances to tackle the major constraints associated with resilient and sustainable food security. Following are the essential precision agricultural/livestock technologies,
Precision Agriculture Technologies
These technologies assist the sowing, along with the growing and harvesting.
Decreases cost of production
Increases the crop productivity
Decreases the freshwater withdrawals
Big Data and analytics
It is an innovative technology that involves the use of both hardware and software
Decreases cost of production
Increases the crop productivity
Sensor or IoT-based technologies
These technologies, which are at the core of YieldX's value proposition, provide the real-time traceability and transparency of supply chain management. Thus, ensuring traceability, quality, and safety. They reduce the wastage of resources, and position as the new frontier to precision livestock/poultry farming in general and biosecurity in particuler. The main objective of these technologies is the continuous monitoring of the animal health and welfare aspects, understanding the production environment and getting early signs of critical events that cannot be seen with the naked eye. These activities are interlinked with the health status of the birds. Hence, they anticipate the disease status of the birds. Thus, it enables the farmer pro-active to take prompt action at the initial stage of the disease to restrict it. Therefore, it is concluded that the technological advancements which may detect the poultry production diseases contribute to SDG-9.
Contribution of the early disease detection and prevention to SDG-9
As it has already been described that SDG-9 aimed to build a resilient infrastructure that is directly linked with industrialization and innovation. In practice this is a transformation of a rather traditional and conservative industry into an advanced industry while applying all the elements of Industry 4.0 and beyond. It is concluded that industrialization and innovations are the key drivers for resiliency. Whereas, the advanced technologies aimed to detect and predict the poultry production diseases direct the farmers to take robust preventive measures. Hence, this robustness is the key feature of the improved surveillance systems. This system necessitates resilient measures according to the prevailing situation in poultry production farms. These measures synergize the sustainable production of poultry. Building a resilient infrastructure advances the productivity and profitability of poultry production. Thus, it has paved the way for poultry production to pursue SDG-9.
To sum up
According to United Nations, SDG 9 focuses on the three most significant facets of sustainable development, i.e., infrastructure, industrialization & innovation. The infrastructure development needs to be systemized and long-term planning, which is interconnected with the political, cultural, and geographical boundaries. The incidence of various animal/human diseases necessitates establishing a resilient infrastructure. Industrialization plays a significant role in emerging and developing economies. It provides the opportunities to involve in the latest global value chains, which aim to fast-track economic growth. However, the innovation urges the countries to invest in research and development. Building a resilient infrastructure advances the productivity and profitability of poultry production. Whereas, the advanced technologies, such as YieldX aimed to detect and predict the poultry production diseases direct the farmers to take robust preventive measures. It necessitates resilient measures according to the prevailing situation in poultry production farms. Thus, it has paved the way for poultry production to pursue SDG-9. Ultimately, YieldX through its technology plays an important role in unlocking significant global economic value, and allows any integration to adapt to the best practices of an innovative industry that is at the forefront of Industry 4.0 and beyond.