There are many smart agriculture solutions available addressing various aspects of your needs. These technologies are new and pushing your expertise to new limits and segments. There are areas you know nothing about that are now being addressed:
- Land: irrigation, planting, weeding, minerals, water,
- Utilities: Metering, Lighting, Waste, Energy management
- Building: Lighting, Climate control
- Transportation: Parking, Pollution, Fluidification
- Animals: health, breeding, tracking
- Safety (workers and livestock)
You know that “Smart” technology is the most likely solution to lead to improvements. You have heard about many technology trends such as the Internet of Things (#IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big data and even tested various technologies that are now available. You have started using radio technologies – WiFi, Bluetooth and the like – to interconnect systems on site.
So, which technologies to choose? Which will demonstrate, not only immediate value, but which are also future ready and deliver a return on your investment? It becomes a real issue and you are now struggling to move forward. How can you reap the benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, Machine Learning and the Internet of Things (IoT)? Is there someone who can guide you through the digital transformation in agriculture?
What, Why and How can you achieve this?
Agriculture is the farming and breeding of animals and plants to provide food, fiber, medication and plants. It also covers fisheries, insect farming, the cultivation of land and many other derived products to sustain and enhance life for all living creatures, not least us. Agriculture was the foundation for the success of sedentary human civilization. We were no longer hunter gatherers living hand to mouth but were able to domesticate animals and farm crops to generate a food surplus. This enabled people to live in cities and invest time in other activities, and the rest is history so they say. It is a journey of over 100,000 years. Throughout the journey change is a continual theme in agriculture but the rate of change is accelerating.
Over the last 20+ years, pioneering farms have adopted advanced technologies. Automatic milking has been evolving for over 25 years. These automated machines handle livestock, distribute food, disinfect udders, etc, notifying farmers of production levels or to alert them to infections such as mastitis. More recently sensors inside cows to detect heat, and sending an alert at calving time has been a growing trend.
There are over 2 billion people who depend on modern agriculture for survival and climate change is becoming an increasing concern for their food security. You know you must evolve. The number of challenges and demands made upon those of you in agriculture today are increasingly complex and varied. Many of the solutions proposed are founded on recent technology advances
Today’s smart agriculture solutions are designed to address the evolving requirements of point solutions that are suited to your rural environment and existing installations, whilst remaining future ready for the coming growth and possible migration to urban and peri-urban agriculture models.
There are numerous complex issues
It is more than just automating an existing process. Alongside automation we must address ever more restrictive environmental and economic constraints. There is growing concern that
- Global average temperatures will continue to rise
- An increased likelihood of droughts, in some parts
- In contrast with many areas experiencing heavier rain,
- Raised sea levels and warmer oceans, threatening some marine life.
- Thinner Arctic sea ice cover with smaller glaciers
The problem has become more complex and there are several themes which predominant in smart agriculture:
Smart Farming
Smart Farming should provide the farmer with added value to enable of better decision making and more efficient operations and management. To achieve this 2 interrelated technology fields are required:
- Information Management Systems: to collect, process, store, and distribute data in the appropriate and most useful format
- Environmental mapping: to understand and obtain the information required to make decisions relating to crop yield, terrain topography, geographic features, soil content, moisture levels, nitrogen levels, mineral content
Climate-smart agriculture (CSA)
Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) is an approach to help you manage agricultural systems and respond effectively to climate change. There are 3 main pillars:
- Increased productivity: sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes from crops, livestock and fish, without having a negative impact on the environment. Produce more food to improve food and nutrition security.
- Enhanced resilience and adaptability: Particular attention is given to protecting the ecosystem services which ecosystems provide to farmers and others. These services are essential for maintaining productivity and our ability to adapt to climate changes.
- Reduced emissions: Pursue lower emissions for each calorie or kilo of food produced, avoid deforestation from agriculture and identify manage soils and trees in ways that maximize their potential to act as carbon sinks and absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.
New technologies
Some of the technology themes that are changing the game in modern farming:
- Smart Building
Improved efficiency and comfort are important benefits of the smart building. Smart Lighting leads to reductions in energy consumption and CO2 emissions. But Smart Buildings can also give valuable, and previously unavailable, feedback to building designers.
- Connected devices
There is a growing list of devices that connect to agriculture systems and deliver data to assist you make decisions and operate more efficiently. The aim is to have them in every stage of the farming process.
- Autonomous vehicles
From the smallest drone to the largest autonomous tractor, modern farm vehicles are replacing manual labour and helping in labour-intensive, repetitive and standard tasks.
Deploying autonomous tractors and smaller vehicles or drones.
Delivering a Successful Smart Agriculture
Smart Agriculture will be judged a success on the ability of the solution to deliver on its promises. This is not limited to the technology working, but about achieving real change and doing this through tools that everyone can use. Not technology for the sake of technology.
We deliver Smart Agriculture project management, accompanying you through the initial phases, the selection, the prototyping, the RFP and contract award, the education and training of stakeholders, the delivery of the production systems and acceptance.
The first step would be:
Smart Agriculture Ideation
Understanding the requirement, the opportunity and constraints of the project will be identified during the “Smart Agriculture ideation” process where all parties will be able to expose their ideas. I would drive the process to identify:
- The challenges and their priority
- The farmers’ view
- Stakeholders and their roles
- Potential solutions
- Overall view including priorities, solutions and education and delivery
- Budgetary conditions
Success in Smart Agriculture is built on strong foundations of the results of the ideation session, and a true demonstration of value. And yes, now is the perfect time to take the first step.
Contact Us Now
To start the digital transformation to you smart agricultural solution.