8 IoT Trends Transforming Modern Agriculture

IoT technology is a disruptive technology providing immense growth in every industry. Smart farming is an emerging concept, which uses modern information and communication technologies to increase the product quantity and quality with easy optimization techniques.

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• Sensor-based Farming

  IoT is a smart technology that constitutes a combination of sensor devices, gateways, and communication protocols. Sensors are installed on fields to capture relevant data, which is stored on a cloud platform for further analysis. The farm managers have quick and easy access to the field data through their smart dashboards. Sensor-based farming provides improved strategies for farmers to effectively manage their farms.

• Smart Livestock Management

  With the advent of IoT technology, smart wearables for the animals are the new trend to keep a real-time check on their activities and health. Sensor-enabled techniques enable the farmers to keep a record of the animals' nutritional health, which prevents any kind of diseases or poor health. Using wireless IoT applications, farm owners can monitor the location of their cattle, and identify sick animals to prevent the spread of any disease.

• Making Greenhouses Intelligent

  Conventional means of creating greenhouses involve manual control of environmental parameters that might result in production losses, energy loss, or increased labor costs. Smart greenhouses are made up of IoT-driven techniques that can monitor every detail of crop production as well as climate control. It eliminates the need for manual processing due to its automated features and sensor-enabled capabilities. The sensors are installed to meet the specific requirements of the crops. These sensors capture data, which is processed through a cloud platform and can be controlled remotely.

• Predicting Weather Conditions

  Maintaining favorable weather conditions is an essential requirement for crop production. Combining various smart farming sensors with weather stations, it becomes easier to collect data from the environment and send it on the cloud platform. This data is used to map climatic conditions, and allow the farmers to take required measures and improve their production rate. IoT-enabled solutions use advanced algorithms to predict the weather conditions, allowing the farm management authorities to stay prepared according to the forecasts.

• End-to-End Farm Management

  With the use of IoT architecture and solutions, farm management has become easier and more advanced. From utilizing data-driven approaches to analyzing the information through a smart dashboard, IoT-based solutions provide end-to-end services to the farm authorities. There are several IoT-based applications for smart farm management like livestock tracking, warehouse monitoring, weather analysis, etc., which are designed to provide end-to-end farm services. Moreover, it is an effective way to improve farming activities to all extents.

• Increased Investments

  The farming sector is improving daily and its benefits are becoming more apparent, which directly attracts the number of investments in this sector. Many well-known original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of sensor devices are introducing customized tracking tools and equipment to fulfill all the farm requirements. Also, several corporates are prepared to spend big on providing the agricultural industry with innovative technology, anticipating large ROI.

• Smart Water Management

  It is reported that 70% of the total freshwater supply is significantly used by the agricultural industry. This, in turn, creates the importance of optimizing water management with IoT technology. Installing technical solutions within the farming sector for smart irrigation helps cut down the wastage of water resources. Hence, improving the cost the fertilizer costs reduction at a significant level. The use of IoT technology provides adequate usage of water in the farms, which also helps in water conservation to a greater extent.

• Usage of Drones

  The rise and acceptance of IoT technology have promoted the concept of 'connected farms' at a significant level. The use of drones is gaining much importance as innovative tools to generate crop data and act as automatic supervising agents for cultivation lands. Most of the farming businesses are including drones to render better services and encourage smart farming. It is thus increasing the ability to make better and improved decisions for enhanced production.

Future of Farming: The Third Green Revolution

IoT technology is encouraging smart farming globally, which is significantly causing the third green revolution. The future of farming includes automated farm vehicles like tractors for better cultivation and improved sowing seeds under the ground. Also, with the use of GPS sensors in the vehicles, it becomes easier to locate their position and optimize the activities. With the rise in urbanization, using technology-driven solutions are designed to fulfill all the escalating food demands. IoT technology is potentially enabling better food traceability that will lead to increased food safety.

The use of IoT in the farming sector is proving more beneficial in terms of using water, optimized inputs, and overall crop production. Therefore, it can be said that smart farming has a greater potential to deliver better food quality for improved sustainability.