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Understanding how IoT is influencing the future of connected agriculture.
In present times, farmers are leaning towards using modern technologies to maximize their production with minimal efforts and resources while also meet the demand of global hunger. While the agricultural revolution of the 1800s brought about grain elevators, chemical fertilizers, and the first gas-powered tractor and the 1960s saw the usage of satellites in farm planning, to feed the projected 9.6 billion human population of 2050, farmers and agricultural researchers need to think of new innovative solutions. Other challenges in agriculture include extreme weather conditions and rising climate change and environmental impact resulting from intensive farming practices. This is why the agriculture industry needs to embrace IoT (Internet of Things).
Why?
Agricultural IoT applications make it possible for ranchers and farmers to collect meaningful data. IoT sensors can collect information about natural conditions like light, humidity, soil moisture, and more. Sensors can also help in crop health status determination, seed monitoring, detection of microorganisms and pest management, yield estimation, and prediction. The main objectives to employ IoT in agricultural practices are boosting operational efficiency, lowering costs, waste reduction, and augmenting the quality of per yield and also bring us closer to achieving sustainable development.
Business Insider Intelligence projects there are going to be nearly 12 million agricultural sensors installed globally by 2023. At the same time, the global smart agriculture market size is expected to triple by 2025, reaching US$15.3 billion, compared to around US$5 billion in 2016.
Benefits
The inclusion of IoT in agriculture can pave the way to what experts call as smart farming. While it aims to transform conventional agricultural practices, smart farming can also help improve the methods of organic farming, which is the latest fad in this industry. It can also help inefficient water usage, optimization of inputs and treatments, monitoring the field in real-time. Furthermore, many farm-based business processes become automated with an uptick in their efficiency and without system-to-system or system-to-human interventions. Meanwhile, using sensors, farmers can also have better control over the internal processes and, as a result, lower production risks and better planning of farm activities.
Applications
One of the most popular applications of IoT in agriculture is Agriculture 4.0. Started in the last decade, Agriculture 4.0 is backed by low-cost and improved sensors, actuators, microprocessors, nanotechnology, high-bandwidth cellular communication, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence (AI). This new approach towards farm management encompasses various new settings like precision farming, livestock monitoring, smart irrigation, GPS precision-guided tractors, and much more. Here, precision farming makes the farming practice more precise and controlled by realizing smart farming applications and focuses on the analysis of the data generated via sensors, to react accordingly. Besides Cloud-based data storage and an end-to-end IoT Platform can contribute to better data analytics management and processing. Additionally, precision farming involves the usage of soil moisture probes, VRI optimization, virtual optimizer PRO, and so on. VRI (Variable Rate Irrigation) optimization is a process that maximizes the profitability on irrigated crop fields with soil variability, thereby improving yields and increasing water use efficiency. E.g., SoilCares is a portable soil scanner that provides real-time soil diagnostics and instant advice on ground fertilizing and treatment. The scanner’s sensors send information to the data processing center, which sends the insights right to the farmer’s phone.
Next, through livestock monitoring via sensors and wearables, farmers can check the location of cows, hen, goats, and so on, monitor their health. This can help farmers predict diseases and isolate an animal from other brethren to avoid a breakout. E.g. Cowlar is a provider of advanced cow monitoring systems that collect information like health, temperature, activity, and so on using collars and then send it to a server.
Just like monitoring assets, agricultural IoT can assist in remote equipment management. This means remote equipment can be controlled via centralized data centers, or smartphones and wireless devices, to reduce travel time and costs. For instance, remote power throttling can minimize electricity usage on equipment like generators, wind machines, pumps, and valves located throughout the property.
Apart from these, farmers can also use drones in agriculture too. The agricultural drones are an excellent example of IoT applications in Agriculture. Here two types of drones are used, i.e., ground-based and aerial-based drones. These drones help in crop health assessment, irrigation, crop monitoring, crop spraying, planting, and soil and field analysis. Next, farmers can control weeds and prevent them from spreading using IoT devices. Bosch and Bayer are developing smart spraying technology that uses camera sensors to distinguish between weeds and crops.