Smart Farming

Smart farming is a control concept centred on providing the agricultural industry with the infrastructure to leverage advanced technology. Smart farming is growing in importance due to the combination of the expanding global population, the increasing demand for higher crop yield, the need to use natural resources efficiently, the rising use and sophistication of information and communication technology and the increasing need for climate-smart agriculture.

 Smart farming technologies

• Telecommunications technologies such as advanced networking and GPS.

• Sensors for soil scanning and water, light, humidity and temperature management.

• Hardware and software for specific applications and for enabling IoT-based solutions, robotics and automation.

• Data analytics tools for decision making and prediction. Data collection is a significant part of smart farming as the quantity of data available from crop yields, soil-mapping, climate change, fertilizer applications, weather data, machinery and animal health continues to increase.

• Satellites and drones for collecting data around the clock for an entire field. This information is sent to IT systems for tracking and analysis to give an “eye in the field” or “eye in the barn” that makes remote monitoring possible.

Advantages of Smart farming

• Helps reduce overall costs and improve the quality and quantity of products.

• Increasing control overproduction leads to better cost management and waste reduction.

• Improve livestock farming and reduce environmental footprint.

• Accurately tracking production rates by field over time allows for detailed predicting of future crop yield and value of a farm.