Agricultural technology as a driver of sustainable intensification: insights from the diffusion and focus of patents

Patents can provide an important yet underexplored lens on agricultural innovation and development. Based on more than one million patents issued during the period 1970–2022, we explored the degree to which agricultural patents have related to sustainability targets over time. Only 4% of all patents related to sustainability targets, yet this has increased to 8% in recent years.

Li, Y., Herzog, F., Levers, C. et al. Agricultural technology as a driver of sustainable intensification: insights from the diffusion and focus of patents. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 44, 14 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-024-00949-5

Valuating big data provided by crop trials

Picture copyright Bioversity International/L. Machida

Crop scientists spend much of their time and resources on field trials, growing and measuring crop plants. But these expensive data are often used only once and then forgotten. A review by Brown et al. identifies a number of constraints, including heterogeneous data formats and a lack of standardized methods across trials. They outline how new methods could help data synthesis and gain new insights about patterns of variety suitability and interactions with growing environments.