INTHEBLACK May 2026 - Magazine - Page 22
F E AT U R E
“The fundamental role of a farmer is to farm. So, when
supermarkets begin asking for information from them around
what their Scope 1 and 2 emissions are, that is something that
I think accounting professionals should be doing.”
PATRICK VILJOEN FCPA, CPA AUSTRALIA
A greenhouse at SuniTAFE,
Victoria, Australia.
a problem and deliver an outcome to help
the grower become viable and then maintain
that viability”.
The emphasis on viability is critical,
he says. Technology must help the farmer
to overcome a real problem, rather than
being an end in itself.
“The first question I ask is, ‘What is the
problem that [the technology] is trying
to solve?’,” Kachenko says. “Then, how can
I integrate it into what I am doing, and will
it return a net benefit to my business in an
economically challenging environment
to help me maintain viability and grow?”
Suriyan Vichitlekarn, executive director
at Mekong Institute, separates the smart
farming concept into three layers.
22 INTHEBLACK May 2026
“The first layer means it should make
livelihoods and economic viability possible
for farmers,” he says. “Otherwise, it will
not be ‘smart’. But at the same time,
by providing this, we need to ensure that
it has some sort of positive contribution
to the environment, climate change
and social inclusion.”
The second layer, he says, is how
stakeholders can call on the optimisation
of technology, including the Internet
of Things and artificial intelligence (AI),
to enhance that first layer.
The third layer is inclusion.
“We should be able to bring in other
people, particularly the consumer,”
Vichitlekarn says. “The consumer should
