What is Smart Farming?

technogrow

Just Hatched
Traditionally, farming has been and will continue to be a manual and labor-intensive industry. Technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data & Analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) are affecting almost all of the listed industry sectors. How can Agriculture and modern Internet and Communication Technology (ICT) not interact?

A small initiative by John Deere Co. in the 1990s of using a GPS system in tractors linked to the satellite for automated steering of the crop map, reducing errors and thus increasing crop yield by reducing wastage seeds, optimum utilisation of fertilisers & manures, fuel, and time paved the way for a full-fledged industry.

According to a report published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FOA) of the United Nations, there will be 8.5 billion people on the planet by 2030, and 9.6 billion by 2050. Given limited agricultural land, a scarcity of fresh water, and ever-changing climate conditions, it is estimated that food production must increase by 70% to feed this population.

To address this issue, efforts are being made to improve the quality and quantity of agricultural products by making them "intelligent" and "connected" through "smart farming," also known as "precision farming." Precision agriculture is expected to grow to 43.4 billion USD by the end of 2025. 4

Smart Farming is known as the 4.0 green revolution in agriculture because it combines agricultural methodologies with technology – Sensors and Actuators, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Internet of Things (IoT), Robotics and Drones – to achieve desired production efficiencies at a manageable cost.

According to a survey, 80 percent of farmers in the United States and 24 percent of farmers in the United Kingdom have already begun using Smart Farming Tools (SFT). These figures reflect the fact that SFTs add value to the farming ecosystem. In terms of scale of operations, smart farming tools and techniques can be applied to both large scale distributed conventional farming and focused small farming set of organic farms.
 

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