Information and communication technologies (ICTs) from Industry 5.0 have significant potential to improve food security and mitigate the vulnerability of the food system, providing that production processes can be modified and the digital divide between countries closed, say experts.

Apart from natural hazards, there are several factors that threaten food security, such as changes in food preferences, political unrest, and food fraud. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), about 108 million people were facing a severe global food security crisis in 2017. Rising alongside the rapid growth of the world’s human population, this number is expected to exceed 10 billion by 2050​.

The expanding population’s greater demand for food supply is likely to compound the lack of food security with poor food quality, food wastage, and sub-par monitoring and testing throughout the food supply chain. A more sustainable, measurable and digitally visible food system is therefore needed to increase and maintain food security.

For this purpose, ICTs can be used to support collaboration, prevent fraud, and offer remote real-time monitoring. ICT tools such as the have transformed nearly every industry and “currently represent one of the most vivid transformation processes in global agriculture and food systems”.​

In a review led by the KPR Institute of Engineering and Technology, researchers in India sought to summarize how various ICT tools could help to “sense and quantify” the food system, and to highlight the possible enhancements Industry 5.0 technologies could bring to the food industry.

Industry 5.0: DT, data analytics and AI

While many businesses are still focused on Industry 4.0 — essentially, the fourth industrial revolution brought about by IT developments — and Industry 5.0 is a somewhat novel concept, the review pointed to the latter as what the food system should focus on to address food insecurity.

The EU defines Industry 5.0 as one that “provides a vision of (an) industry that aims beyond efficiency and productivity as the sole goals”​ and “uses new technologies to provide prosperity beyond jobs and growth while respecting the production limits of the planet”.​ In other words, technology should be harnessed to improve the well-being of society.

Industry 5.0’s key drivers are artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Everything (IoE), 6G communication tech, blockchain tech, digital twin (DT), big data analytics, cloud computing (CC) and collaborative robots (cobots). These drivers have tremendous potential to improve processes throughout the entire food supply chain, from the agricultural production process to the food distribution and retail stage.

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