“The last three to four years, I have not used any money in China,” says Tsui while she explains the biggest difference she sees between China and for instance the Netherlands. “Even a beggar in the metro, I pay with WeChat by scanning his code. WeChat is widespread in China, making it very convenient for all shops to be on this platform.”

SARS (2003) gave a major boost to e-commerce by changing consumer behavior
SARS boosting e-commerce in China
“Delivery in China is huge.” The last mile – closing the cost gap between the store, hub or distribution center and the customer – is not a problem in China, while in the Western world it makes e-tailers loose money. The large scale has cost benefits, as does the large army of cheap labor from the rural areas.” SARS in 2003 was a turning point for delivery in China. Tsui: “SARS was mostly impacting China. Since that moment e-commerce really started to take off due to public safety concerns. SARS gave a major boost to e-commerce by changing consumer behavior. They are now used to paying and buying online. The whole system is so easy to use.” Covid-19 could do the same thing for the Western world 17 years later.

Precision will turn agri into a real industry
Connolly believes that technology provides huge opportunities for food production. More productivity and less waste. “No other industry runs as inprecisely as agriculture does. The gap between what we know and what we should be doing is massive. Precision in being able to measure – for instance in crop fields, in animals, and even in ourselves – is going to create massive changes. Definitely in the next ten years we will see a food production that we have never seen before.”

However, he is disappointed in the pace it is being adopted. “In the West we are embracing new technologies, particularly digital. However the speed of embracing has been slow.” China, Connolly believes, is moving forward much faster. “The speed of technology adaptation in the agri business will take place more rapidly as well.”

No other industry runs as inprecisely as agriculture does. The gap between what we know and what we should be doing is massive
The cost of efficiency
Shelman sees two challenges in doing more with less, as Connolly proposed. “It’s one take to create value, it’s a second piece to capture value. Typically, farmers who are more productive, increase their scale.” Which does not comply with consumer’s needs, believes Shelman. Moreover, “as we see from the Covid impact, an efficient system and supply chain aren’t very resilient.”

“The real world isn’t perfect,” Shelman says. “We have developed all of these efficient systems, but they cannot cope with outside shocks, like Covid or extreme weather conditions. Typically, the farmer bears that cost.”

Connolly responds: “The promise of technology is not simply to make farming more monocrop, cheaper and efficient. It can also be to design new systems that are more sustainable, more robust and antifragile.” Shelman couldn’t agree more. However, she is skeptical: “Naturally technology leads into a push. We need to reinvent the fabric of farming. And maybe this shock [of Covid-19] is it, maybe it isn’t. We need to proactively think about that and support that transition.”