IoT and farming.
With ever increasing population, agriculture and farming need more innovative and advanced technology to increase production of higher yields and to better allocate the resources. That said, it also needs to be low cost. IoT offers the perfect solution for that.
IoT applications in farming include:- farm vehicle tracking, livestock monitoring, storage monitoring, and much more.
For example:
- Livestock sensors can notify ranchers when animals have roamed from the herd so that ranch hands can round them up.
Because of livestock monitoring, farmers/ranchers can use wireless IoT applications to gather data regarding the health, well-being, and location of their cattle. This information saves them money in the following ways:
- It helps identify sick animals so they can be pulled from the herd, preventing the spread of disease.
- It lowers labour costs because ranchers can easily identify where their cattle are located.
There are obviously challenges related to it.
For one, It’s difficult to outfit livestock like cows with physical gadgets.
- Soil sensors can alert farmers to irregular conditions like high acidity, giving the farmer time to reconcile the issue and produce better crops.
Monitoring plant and soil conditions can lead to an amazing return on investment for farmers. Other related uses are::
- Sensing for soil moisture and nutrients.
- Controlling water usage for optimal plant growth.
- Determining custom fertilizer profiles based on soil chemistry.
- Determining the optimal time to plant and harvest.
- Reporting the weather conditions.
- Self-driving tractors can be controlled remotely, providing significant savings in labour costs.
With the effectiveness of IoT in this space, it is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 20%.
IoT is the future and what can be connected will be connected.
To end, check out some interesting projects that are happening in this field:
CROPX’S SOIL MONITORING SYSTEM
TEMPUTECH’S WIRELESS SENSOR MONITORING
PRECISIONHAWK’S DRONE DATA PLATFORM
PRECISION PLANTING’S CORN MAZE
JMB NORTH AMERICA’S CONNECTED COWS
References:
https://www.link-labs.com/blog/iot-agriculture
3 comments on “IoT and farming.”
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Hey!
IoT in farming is a very key topic. It isn’t only interesting but very useful as well, since production has to increase to cope with population growth.
In any case, you stressed the cost-saving benefits that IoT could bring to farming, but do you think that these savings will outweigh IoT devices costs? And do you reckon that they will decrease in the near future?
Hi,
Great read!I really like the part where you talked about the monitoring plants and soil conditions.What do you think are the implications of this on the environment? Is our environment going to be protected?
I too agree that using technologies like IoT in the field of agriculture is very useful for the society. AgriTech will be very useful for populous countries like India to increase agricultural productivity. Autonomous tractors have fewer safety and security risks than other autonomous vehicles. These technologies can be used to overcome labor shortage and other related issues. India’s Mahindra & Mahindra is planning to sell autonomous tractors at an affordable price. I hope the adoption of such technologies will make agriculture more profitable to small farmers.
https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/mampm-unveils-driverless-concept-for-tractors/article9864896.ece