Food businesses, producers, and farmers can leverage SAP technology to drive sustainability in food production and build a resilient supply chain.
The recent virtual event “A Growing ASEAN, A Hungry Population: Building Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply Chains” organised by SAP underscored the critical role of technology in backing the anticipated food security challenges in Southeast Asia on account of the region’s increasing food demand from rapid population growth– on top of the pressing climate change and global supply chain disruptions. The forum’s moderator Simone Pigason, Head of Digital Supply Chain SAP Southeast Asia, was joined by panelists Verena Siow, President and Managing Director of SAP Southeast Asia; Leonardo Rabelo, Chief Finance Officer of Dole Asia; and Nguyen Duy Thuan, Chief Executive Officer of Vietnam’s Loc Troi Group.
The impending food security issues in Southeast Asia are posing a significant hurdle in region’s achievement of its sustainability ambitions. With the region’s economy, GDP, and even the workforce being highly reliant on the agriculture and food industry, Siow emphasised that food producers must utilise the most appropriate solutions to be able to contribute to tackling the increasing food demand as well as wastage. Citing the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) report, she stated that around 1.3 billion tons are wasted annually across the areas of agriculture, manufacturing, distribution, and logistics.
Specifying how technology and digital transformation can deliver change, the SAP SEA MD said:
“As a start, we need to better utilise the food we produce to minimize wastage. Food security and sustainability are more of a resource management challenge, where technology can be a change agent.”
“Given the diverse food industries across the region which spans from production to retail and restaurants, businesses need help in gaining better end-to-end oversight over their operations, forecast demand through big data to deliver food in a timely manner, and improve supply chain efficiency – all of which could greatly contribute to the reduction of food scarcity in a sustainable way”, she further stressed.
SAP Technology Supporting the Agriculture Industry
SAP has been at the forefront of innovation, creating solutions for agribusiness to support sustainable food supply chains and increase farming efficiencies. During the fireside chat, Nguyen and Rabelo shared how their companies embed technology in agriculture processes to accelerate sustainability, enhance efficiency, and drive competitiveness.
In 2020, Loc Troi Group, a Vietnamese manufacturer and supplier of agricultural products and services, embarked on a modernisation journey leveraging SAP S/4HANA. The transformation project enabled the group of companies to:
- Streamline processes following International standards
- Enhance planning capacity
- Track activities across its business
- Increase agriculture competitiveness
Nguyen shared about the company’s achievement of pioneering the world’s first rice sustainability standard with the help of Mekong Delta farmers anticipated to deliver a Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP)-certified rice locally and overseas. He explained:
“Today Loc Troi works with more than 200,000 rice farmers and aims at 1 million farmers in 2024, on top of an annual rice milling capacity of 6 million tonnes. We leverage our foundations in agricultural knowledge in developing new crop varieties and resource-saving farming methods, along with applying technologies like drones and hospital mobile apps to provide consultancies for rice and fruit farmers.”
Meanwhile, Rabelo emphasised how technology enables Dole Asia Holdings’, a global leader and innovator in packaged fruit and healthy snacks production, to work towards zero fruit waste. He said:
“Technology in Agriculture or Agtech is vital in shaping our progressive and proactive waste reduction agenda. The in-farm IoTs, phase tracking, and end-to-end digitalisation will be the new superpowers to enable us to improve our quality and overall product value like never before and remarkably reducing waste.”
SAP has more upcoming innovations for the agriculture industry including new SAP Fiori apps for SAP Agricultural Contract Management to create, maintain, price, and mass-price contracts and integration of SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain with SAP Farm Management by Vistex, among others.
