IoT in Agriculture: A Smarter Way to Farm with Internet of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a phrase that refers to the linking of devices to the internet, which allows massive amounts of data to be generated and transferred. IoT provides a virtuous loop that may produce even more accurate and personalized goods, pushing the boundaries and assisting agricultural digitization.
IoT in agriculture is a part of the smart agriculture toolbox and artificial intelligence, allowing farmers to automate critical farming activities and manage them with an internet connection.
IoT allows sensors-enabled devices to communicate and interact with one another through the internet. Various components in the farm industry, including sheds, tractors, pumps, weather stations, and computers, can be remotely monitored and operated in real time.
With recent industry improvements, a change is projected to occur as more and more organizations expand their product line by incorporating data acquisition, agricultural robots, and analytic services.
The global IoT in the agricultural market, estimated at $21.99 billion in 2021, is anticipated to reach $35.55 billion by 2026 with a CAGR of 10.1 percent.
Benefits of IoT in Agriculture
There are a few benefits worth mentioning, all of which work together to increase farm revenue.
· Monitor Climate Conditions: The most popular smart agricultural devices are weather stations, which combine various smart farming sensors. In reality, they collect data from the environment and transfer it to the cloud from various locations around the area. However, the given measurements will be used to map the climatic conditions, select the right corps, and take the necessary actions to increase capacity.
· Crop Management: Crop management devices are a component of precision farming. They will be placed in the field, similar to weather stations, to collect data for crop farming, ranging from temperature to leaf water potential and crop health. As a result, you can monitor and maintain crop development to avoid illnesses that might destroy your farm.
· Farming Livestock: A smart farming strategy in this scenario allows farmers to control the demands of animals and helps to adapt their nutrition. As a result, infection is prevented, and herd health is improved. Major farm owners employ IoT applications to track their cattle’s whereabouts, well-being, and health. They identify diseased animals with the use of these details. As a result, they can be segregated from the herd to avoid disease transmission.
· Systems for Farm Management: The complex approach of IoT goods in agriculture will be represented by farm productivity management systems. It is often made up of many agricultural IoT gadgets and sensors.
A comprehensive dashboard with analytical capabilities and built-in features is also available. It allows for remote farm monitoring and helps to streamline most commercial operations — along with other notable prospects such as vehicle tracking, storage management, and logistics, to name a few.
· Agriculture Drones: Drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs, have become increasingly common in business. In most situations, drones are used in smart agriculture as an IoT-based monitoring system and instruments for farm mapping and irrigation and pesticide treatment.
The Xaircraft P30, a Red Dot Award winner, is an autonomous plant protection drone. It employs complex algorithms to provide exceptional flying capabilities and accurate chemical spraying, hence reducing pesticide material and saving water.
· Smart vehicles: Due to self-driving farm vehicles, the efficiency of crops has increased. Autonomous tractors help the growers in reducing labor expenses. Thus, autonomous tractors used in farming will handle not only production issues but also labor shortfall challenges.
IoT Analytics-Based Agricultural Use Case Cycle
1. Selected Sensors: Sensors are installed to track how devices utilize inputs. This would imply, for example, that the farmers have exact information about their water usage.
Knowing how much water a plant needs for development and how much it’s fed, would each farmer reduce unnecessary watering and preserve water.
2. Data Collection: Data collecting can assist farmers in making production plans. The capacity to predict the amount of output will improve product distribution.
If the farmer knows when to harvest the crops, they will be able to plan the next delivery of seeds and grains once the ready product is distributed and the next batch is ready to be planted.
3. Data Analysis: Weather, soil quality, crop growth progress, and animal health can be tracked with smart agricultural sensors.
Farmers can then utilize this data to monitor crop health, identify performance gaps, improve equipment efficiency, and forecast future growth.
4. Decisions and Deployment: The introduction of automated robots in the manufacturing cycle will result in higher efficiency and lower operating costs since the robots will handle repetitive duties and decisions regarding irrigation, fertilization, pest control, seed planting, and more.
5. Recalibration: The preceding procedures’ outcomes are monitored and recalibrated depending on the business key performance indicator (KPI).
To sum up, everything that has been stated so far, IoT technologies in agriculture have the potential to revolutionize the way of farming. IoT adds a new degree of automation, efficiency, and precision to traditional agricultural processes by linking numerous sensors from fields, cattle, and tractors to mobile devices and each other via the cloud.
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