The role of technology-driven agriculture in food security

On 22 February 2026, the Bengali daily Jagonews24 published a feature arguing that technology-driven or “smart” agriculture has become an essential path to food security for a farming country like Bangladesh. Population growth, climate change, shrinking farmland, labour shortages and rising production costs, the report said, now press on agriculture all at once, and in that reality the combined use of artificial intelligence (AI), drones, the Internet of Things (IoT), sensors, mobile apps and digital supply chains is no longer merely one option among many but a necessary direction. The report noted that the government had already taken steps to bring modern technology into farming, steps it said would help make the farming system more efficient, more profitable and more sustainable. This article sets out what the feature argued and places it against what food security means, how precision farming works and where Bangladesh's agriculture stood when the piece was written.

Food security, as the feature pointed out, is not only about whether food is available; it is also about nutrition, safety and whether people can actually get the food they need. The most widely accepted definition comes from the World Food Summit of 1996, quoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO): food security “exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” FAO draws out four dimensions from that definition, and each of them is relevant to why technology matters in farming.

• Availability: enough food of appropriate quality, supplied through domestic production or imports, including food aid.
• Access: the resources and entitlements that let individuals and households obtain appropriate food for a nutritious diet.
• Utilization: making use of food through an adequate diet, clean water, sanitation and health care to reach real nutritional well-being, which shows the importance of non-food inputs.
• Stability: having access to adequate food at all times, without the risk of losing it to sudden shocks such as an economic or climatic crisis, or to cyclical events such as a lean season.

The idea has shifted over time. FAO records that the term emerged in the mid-1970s, when the World Food Conference of 1974 framed food security in terms of supply, that is, assuring the availability and price stability of basic foodstuffs. In 1983 FAO analysis turned to access, balancing the demand and supply sides and bringing the household and the individual into view alongside the national level. The 1996 Summit definition then drew these strands together into the multidimensional idea still used today. The ethical side was recognised early too: the right to food appeared in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Right to Adequate Food was formally adopted at the 1996 Summit.

Technology bears on all four dimensions at once. Raising yields on the same land adds to availability; cutting costs and waste helps keep food affordable, which is access; better quality and safer handling support utilization; and steadier production against floods, drought and pests supports stability. That is the frame within which the feature placed smart agriculture, rather than treating gadgets as an end in themselves.

Bangladesh is one of the most densely settled large countries in the world. The 2022 census counted a population of about 165.16 million, a 14.4 per cent rise over the 2011 count, and all of those people must be fed from a land area that is not growing. Feeding such a population from a limited and shrinking resource base is precisely the pressure the feature described.

Agriculture remains central to the economy even as its share has fallen with development. The sector accounted for more than 12 per cent of gross domestic product in the 2022-23 financial year and, by a 2017 estimate, employed about 42.7 per cent of the workforce, so a large part of the population still depends on farming for a living. Rice is the staple and the single most important crop; national production was around 39.1 million tonnes in 2023, and Bangladesh has ranked as the world's third-largest rice producer since 2019. According to Banglapedia, rice alone covers roughly three-quarters of the cropped area.

The structure of farming helps explain why cost, labour and fair prices loom so large in the feature. Bangladesh is a country of very small farms: the agricultural census summarised by Banglapedia records on the order of nineteen million holdings averaging only about half a hectare, worked so intensively that cropping intensity exceeds 176 per cent, meaning most land carries more than one crop a year. Of a total land area of about 14.3 million hectares, close to 60 per cent is available for cultivation, and that cultivable area has been eroded over the years as towns, roads and industry expand. Against this, climate change adds floods, cyclones, drought and the slow creep of salinity into coastal soils, all of which threaten the stability dimension of food security. These are the conditions under which the feature argued that technology is not a luxury.

Smart agriculture, in the feature's words, is a system in which information technology, AI, IoT, sensors, drones and data analysis are used to manage farming. In the wider literature this is usually called precision agriculture: a farm-management strategy that collects and analyses data about fields, plants and animals, combines it with other information, and uses it to guide decisions, with the stated aim of better resource efficiency, productivity, quality, profitability and sustainability. It applies to both crop and livestock production.

Several tools sit under that umbrella. Satellite positioning (GPS or GNSS) lets a farmer pinpoint locations in a field and map how yield, moisture, soil nitrogen and pH vary from one spot to another. Variable-rate technology then lets seeders and sprayers adjust how much seed, fertiliser or chemical they put down in each place, following the map rather than treating the whole field the same. Decision-support models and big-data analysis guide the choices, and machine learning and AI are used more and more, though, as the precision-agriculture literature stresses, the farmer still makes the final call.

The common thread, and the point the feature returned to, is that the farmer works from measured data instead of guesswork. Information-based decisions, more precise management, higher output, lower cost and more environmentally friendly farming are the features it listed for the approach, and they match the benefits described for precision agriculture generally.

Artificial intelligence, the feature said, is changing farming by letting growers decide ahead of time rather than react. Its main uses it set out were three. First, disease and pest detection: AI can read a photograph taken on an ordinary mobile phone and identify a crop disease, so treatment can begin quickly and losses stay small. Second, yield forecasting: by analysing data, AI can estimate how much a crop is likely to produce, which makes market planning easier. Third, weather analysis: AI-based weather information helps a farmer choose the right time to sow, to apply fertiliser and to irrigate.

These uses fit what the precision-agriculture literature describes, where machine learning increasingly drives decision-support systems while leaving the final judgement to the farmer. The feature reported that public research bodies, including the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council, the apex body that coordinates the country's agricultural research, together with private agri-tech firms, had already begun to take up AI in agriculture. The promise, as the report framed it, is earlier and better-informed action, which in turn protects both yield and the quality of what reaches the market.

Drones, the feature argued, are one of the most important recent innovations in farming. For spraying, it listed clear advantages: the work is done quickly, it needs far less labour, more land can be covered in less time, the farmer is exposed to fewer health risks from handling chemicals, and the right amount of pesticide can be applied. In a country facing labour shortages during peak seasons, the report called drone spraying especially useful and predicted that drones would become indispensable on larger farms.

Beyond spraying, precision agriculture uses relatively inexpensive drones fitted with ordinary or multispectral cameras to take many overlapping images, which are stitched into orthophotos and into vegetation maps such as the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI); elevation data from the same flights supports topographic maps that link crop health to the lie of the land. Whatever the method, exact pesticide types and doses should follow the guidance of the Department of Agricultural Extension and the research institutes, which a farmer can obtain through the local upazila agriculture officer, rather than being set by the equipment alone.

Soil health, the feature noted, is the foundation of farming, and soil-sensor technology lets a farmer measure the moisture, pH and nutrient content of the ground. With those readings, fertiliser can be applied in the correct amount, water is not wasted, output rises and costs fall; the report described smart irrigation as making farming more environmentally friendly.

The precision-agriculture record bears this out and adds detail. Connected sensors and farm software collect data continuously: soil-moisture sensors can time irrigation so water is given only when the soil needs it, and spectroscopic measurement of nutrients lets fertiliser be placed only where it is required, which in one cited case cut fertiliser use by up to 30 per cent. Newer in-soil sensors can even transmit their readings wirelessly without anyone having to be present. For a country where both water and fertiliser carry real cost and environmental consequences, these savings are not trivial.

Most farmers now have a smartphone in hand, the feature observed, and that makes it possible to deliver farm services through digital platforms. Through a mobile app, it said, a farmer can receive weather information, help with diagnosing a disease, market prices, farming advice and training videos. The report said the Department of Agricultural Extension, the main public agency that carries advice and technology to farmers under the Ministry of Agriculture, together with some private firms, had already launched a range of digital farm services. The value is reach: information that once depended on a visit from an extension worker can be put in front of millions of farmers at once.

One of the oldest problems in Bangladeshi farming, the feature argued, is that farmers do not get a fair price for what they grow. Production and demand are poorly matched, and a chain of middlemen stands between the farmer and the buyer, so the grower loses out. A digital supply chain, the report said, can address this. Its advantages, as the feature listed them, are that the farmer can connect directly with the buyer, price transparency improves, the market becomes easier to oversee and the farmer's profit rises. E-commerce platforms, it added, have opened new possibilities for marketing farm produce. In terms of the food-security dimensions, this is mainly about access and stability: a steadier, fairer market keeps farming viable and keeps food flowing.

The economic case the feature made was broad. Using technology, it said, lowers production costs, raises yields, increases farmers' incomes, creates employment, improves export potential and can strengthen the rural economy as a whole. It pointed in particular to new kinds of work in operating farm machinery, in data analysis and in agri-services, and argued that digital supply chains help secure fair prices for farmers while reducing the role of middlemen. Mechanisation sits at the heart of this: machines such as power tillers, transplanters and harvesters are already how much of Bangladesh's land is prepared and cropped, and they are the first answer to the labour shortage the report described.

The feature was candid about the obstacles. The high up-front cost of the technology, farmers' limited familiarity with it, a lack of training, problems with internet connectivity, weak coordination of policy and gaps in the data needed to run these systems all remain serious barriers, it said, especially in a developing country. Without government backing to solve these problems, it warned, the technology will not actually reach the farmer. With the right policy support, training and easy access to credit, by contrast, it argued that technology in farming could become a powerful driver of economic growth.

The feature closed with a set of policy recommendations. It called for subsidies on farm technology to encourage uptake; for farmer training delivered down to the village level; for public-private partnership so that the private sector helps technology spread faster; for more investment in agricultural research and innovation; and for the build-out of digital infrastructure, including internet access in villages. The Ministry of Agriculture, it said, has an important role to play across all of these.

Looking to the future it described a farming that is data-driven, environmentally friendly, labour-saving and profitable, integrating AI, drones, sensors and robotics, so that agriculture is reshaped into a modern industry. Securing food for a limited land area under a changing climate, the report concluded, depends on choosing the right technology, framing the right policy and carrying it out properly; implementing spray drones, soil sensors, AI disease detection, mobile apps and digital supply chains together, it argued, is the most effective way to safeguard the food security of the generations to come.

Photo: Vis M / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO Policy Brief, Food Security, June 2006); Wikipedia (Precision agriculture; Agriculture in Bangladesh; 2022 Bangladesh census); Banglapedia.