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Introduction
Today, most of us know about IoT, and it is making different sectors of society ‘smart’. In fact, every device when connected to the Internet becomes a part of the IoT environment. We often discuss how it affects the social media sector, finance sector, and technology definitely, but rarely ponder over its impact on the farming sector.
So, in this article, we will discuss IoT and Smart Farming.
What is Smart Farming?
Smart farming is a relatively new concept referring to organizing the farms using modern technologies to increase the quantity and quality of harvest while optimizing the human labor needed for production. The modern technologies include IoT, big data analytics, remote sensing robotics, drones, and Artificial Intelligence.
In short, smart farming is all about developing the productivity, and reducing waste, along with the use of resources and remote sensing. It is characterized by precision farming too. Adopting Smart Farming leads to increased profit, minimized waste, and maintains the environment’s quality.
IoT, that stands for Internet of Things plays a very crucial role in Smart Farming.
Gyroscope and Image
Gyroscopes and image sensors are widely used in autonomous vehicles, robots, and
drones, for geo-mapping, field health monitoring, crop fertilization, autonomous irrigation and analytics.
Near-infrared and EC
The portable soil scanner utilizes near-infrared and EC sensing for real-time soil
recommendations and diagnostics of soil fertilizing and treatment. IoT agriculture sensors present in the scanner send data to the data processing center, which sends the insights right to the farmer’s connected device.
Moisture and Temperature
Moisture and temperature sensors offer automated moisture, temperature, and EC monitoring and enable wasteless and efficient irrigation leading to wise consumption of water. This eventually leads to the reduction of the carbon footprint associated with farming and the preservation of water resources and energy.
Impact of IoT on Smart Farming
Let’s see how Farming has been impacted by IoT already.
With the introduction of industrial IoT in Farming, several sensors are now employed in this sector. The sensors are connected through an Internet connection to the cloud. This system helps farmers to see live and real-time data and make the right and timely decisions.
The advent of IoT has aided farmers in a lot of simple tasks. Let’s take the example of monitoring the water levels in tanks. All this is achieved in real-time which increases the efficiency of the whole activity of irrigation.
Another major thing that became possible with the advancement of IoT technology is the tracking of sampling growth. Because of this, farmers are able to keep a track of the consumption of resources and accordingly the time that is taken for the seed to fully grow into a plant.
Not only is it limited to the activities on the farms, but IoT helps biologists research the effects of micro-climates and genomes on crop production to optimize yield and quality.
Additionally, IoT also aids livestock management, supporting livestock health with several monitoring tools like ear tags for cattle, capable of detecting respiratory diseases. In case a disease is recognized, it communicates with an alert so the cattle can be segregated from the other herd and prevent the disease from spreading.
IoT has the utmost potential to transform agriculture in many aspects and these are the main ones. Talking about how IoT will have solid participation in Smart Farming, we have the following perspective.
Since a lot of IoT devices are employed in the process, Data collected by smart agriculture sensors, this data can be used to track the state of the business in general as well as staff performance, and equipment efficiency. The ability to already have an idea about the output of production allows planning for better product distribution.
IoT is expected to bring an evolution to the agriculture industry by empowering growers and farmers to deal with the enormous hurdles they face. Agriculture is generally considered a labor-intensive, high-risk, low-reward sector. Farmers are very likely to be impacted by unexpected environmental changes, economic downturns, and many other risk factors.
But with so much information gathered, Big Data Analytics can be employed to get significant insights into the future and the necessary steps and precautions that the involved people can take, making the sector emerge as one of the most lucrative ones.
Applications of IoT in Agriculture
Similar to other sectors, the applications of IoT in agriculture assure features that were previously unavailable, like reduction of incurred cost, automation,data-driven processes, and efficiency. Although, if we see, in agriculture these advantages do not act as improvements but as solutions to the challenges the sector is facing.
Some of them are as follows:
Improved product quality
Data-driven farming helps grow more and better products. Using crop and soil sensors, farm mapping, and aerial drone monitoring, farmers better understand detailed relations between the conditions and the quality of the crops. Employing connected systems, they can recreate the best conditions and shhot up the nutritional value of the products.
Excelled efficiency
In the present time, agriculture is a race. Farmers have to grow more product in poor quality soil, deteriorating land availability, and increasing weather fluctuation. IoT-enabled agriculture enables farmers to monitor their produce and conditions in real-time. They get insights on time, can predict issues before they happen, and make informed decisions on how to avoid them. Additionally, IoT solutions in agriculture inject automation, for instance, demand-based irrigation, and fertilizing.
Expansion
IoT-based hydroponic and greenhouses systems enable a short food supply chain and should be able to feed the ever-growing with fresh foods. Smart closed-cycle agricultural systems allow growing food not only on farms but on other surfaces like roofs, gardens, etc.
Reduced resources
Plenty of agriculture IoT solutions are focused on optimizing the use of resources—soil, water, and energy. Precision farming using IoT depends on the data gathered from diverse sensors in the field which aid farmers accurately to allocate just enough resources within one plant.
Agility
One of the crucial advantages of using IoT in agriculture is the increased agility of the involved processes. It is because of the real-time monitoring and prediction systems, farmers can quickly respond to any significant change in humidity, weather, air quality as well as the health of each crop or soil on the farm. In the situations of extreme weather changes, new capabilities help agriculture professionals save crops.
Cleaner process
Smart farming using IoT is a true way to reduce the usage of pesticides and fertilizers. Not only does precision farming help producers save water and energy and make farming greener but also significantly scales down on the use of pesticides and fertilizer. This approach allows getting a cleaner and more organic final product compared to traditional agricultural methods.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an EC sensor?
EC sensor stands for Electrical Conductivity sensor. It is used to measure the conductivity of a solution. It is generally utilized by the aquaculture and water testing industry.
What are some of the challenges of IoT in Smart Farming?
Like two faces of a coin, IoT in Agriculture also has some disadvantages. Connectivity should be provided throughout the agricultural space including houses, farms, fields, barns, etc. For the system to be functional.All the electronic devices involved should have a simple yet functional design and a certain level of robustness to bear the conditions of the farm. Any IoT system used in farming should be able to handle not only connectivity but the conditions of harsh outdoor spaces.
What is Precision Farming?
Precision farming refers to the use of modern technologies to increase crop yields and profitability while lowering the levels of traditional inputs like land, water, fertilizers, etc. required to grow crops. In short, employing precision agriculture means using less to grow more.
Conclusion
This article extensively discusses Smart Farming and how IoT makes it possible.
We hope that this blog has helped you enhance your knowledge regarding IoT and Smart Farming, and if you would like to learn more, check out our articles on Coding Ninjas Blogs.
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