Advancements and Importance of Modern Technology in the Agriculture Sector

Modern agriculture practices have changed a lot from some decades ago, primarily due to the advancement in technologies, sensors, machines, and devices.

Today’s agriculture sector is highly equipped with developed technologies like moisture and departure sensors, GPS, aerial technology, and robotics. The combination of advanced technology and the adoption of precision agriculture methods are helping the agriculture business to have better profit and high production of crops.

The agriculture industry has seen several advancements and changes in the techniques and approaches of farming over the last few years. For example, there is a decrease in the utilization of pesticides, high use of inorganic compost, and high use of advanced machinery and farm vehicles.

The utilization of modern ideas and technologies in the agriculture sector is a great way of improving farming and getting better outcomes.

Agriculture Technology

Agriculture technology refers to the advanced machinery and tools being used to help the agricultural enterprise.

For example, plows are one of the common agriculture farm equipment that has been used from earlier days. In the past, these plows were pulled with the help of animals. Today, animals have been replaced with modern engines. These engines help in pulling the plows and do the same work in a much more effective manner and at high speed.

Agriculture Technology Importance:

Farmers are no longer required to supply water to the farms, spray pesticide and fertilizers, or keep an eye on every plant. Instead, such works related to the farms can be done by the advised technologies like robotics.

These developed technologies have helped enable a reliable way of managing and monitoring natural resources like water and air quality. It also provides help to farmers in getting better control on the plant growth, distributions, processing, and storing.

Advantages of Using Modern Technologies in Agriculture:

Modern technologies help in providing several possibilities for the hardworking farmers in agriculture farms. Following are the benefits the agriculture industry is witnessing because of modern technologies.

• Increased productivity:

Modern technology helps in increasing the productivity in agriculture. With the support of advanced technologies, farmers can get much work done in less time and less effort.

Several advanced machines can raise the productivity of farming. Such technologies and machines include tractors, robotics harvesters, carrot separators and harvesters, robotics weeders, and many such technologies.

• Saves money and time:

The farm works that used to require a large number of people are now being done with the help of advanced technologies in a better manner and also faster. So today, farmers are not required to pay more money for the manual laborers and hence, save time and money.

• Technology increasing agriculture business and trading:

Modern technologies are helping to increase the business and trading of agriculture. Farmers can easily transport the crops to market and can expand their business and trades.

With the support of modern technologies, farmers can easily communicate and contact several buyers across the place and sell fruits, crops, and other farm items. Also, farmers can take one more step further and sell their crops on online platforms.

Emerging Technologies in the Agriculture Industry:

• Water and soil sensor:

Perhaps the devices with immediate effects in the agriculture farms are water and soil sensors. These sensors are hidden, relatively inexpensive, and durable. Farmers are easily able to afford such technologies and get endless benefits from them.

These sensors can detect nitrogen and sensor levels. Farmers can use this data to decide the right time to fertilize and water rather than depending on guesswork. It also helped farmers in being environment friendly by saving natural resources like water and limiting erosion.

• Weather tracking:

Although people make jokes about the local meteorologists, the fact is that weather systems based on computers are becoming more sophisticated.

There is a different online service of weather that mainly focuses on agriculture. These services can be accessed by the farmers via smart mobile apps on any smartphone. It can help farmers in providing enough information about the hail, frost, and other information related to weather beforehand.

• Satellite imaging:

As satellite imaging is becoming more sophisticated, it is allowing farmers to get the real-time image of the crops from the upside. This is not only bird-eye shots but a picture in high resolution.

Crop imaging can help farmers examine their crops without even visiting the farms. Reviewing the crops, even on a weekly basis, can help farmers to monitor and save their crops.

Also, this technology can be connected with the water and soil sensors to alert the farmers in the case of threats.

COVID-19 Impact on Agriculture Technology:

The supply chain of most industries across the world got highly impacted due to the pandemic, including the sector of agriculture technology. During the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, the agriculture industry supply chain was highly disrupted. There was a high hindrance in the agriculture productions which resulted in the lesser generation of the revenues. It left farmers with no option but to invest in the modern equipment of agriculture.

As per the market reports of BIS Research, the global agriculture technology-as-a-service market size in 2020 was $849.8 million. It is expected that the market size will grow and touch $3,031.1 million by 2026, at a CAGR of 24.42% during 2021–2026.

The high growth rate is also due to the rising push by the governments toward adopting agricultural digitization and automation.

Conclusion:

Technology is changing every aspect of modern lives, including the way of farming. The produce on the table has gotten much fresher, faster, and highly cost-effective because of the advanced technologies being used in the agriculture sector. In the coming few decades, technologies being used in agriculture will become more computerized.