IoT solutions in agriculture include Smart Soil Sensor for Farm & Garden, farm vehicles, livestock monitoring, storage monitoring, and much more. For example:
- Livestock sensors can inform farmers when animals have walked from the herd so that farmhands can turn them up.
- Soil sensors can inform farmers of acute conditions like high acidity, offering the farmer time to settle the issue and provide better crops.
- Self-driving tractors can be managed remotely, giving vital savings in labor costs.
The coming years will witness the growing usage of these smart farming technologies. Installations of IoT devices in the agriculture world are predicted to undergo a complex annual growth rate of 20 percent. As per the Machina Research report published in 2016, “the number of connected agricultural devices is expected to grow from 13 million at the end of 2014 to 225 million by 2024.”
Following are described three common IoT agriculture use cases and five IoT agricultural applications now available in the market, making it feasible for farmers and ranchers to collect essential insights. Apart from this, we’ll jump some factors to consider while finalizing a IoT solutions for smart farming.
Use case in Agritech
Livestock Monitoring
With Livestock monitoring now, farmers can use wireless IoT solutions to collect data about their cattle’s well-being, health, and location. This data helps them to saves money in two ways:
- It assists in identifying sick animals so they can be pulled from the farm, stopping the spread of disease.
- It reduces labor costs because farmers can know where their cattle are located.
There are specific difficulties when rendering livestock with sensors. Particularly, it’s very challenging to provide cattle with a collar. Another alternative is to employ a wireless retrofitting bolus in the cow’s stomach that communicates with an ear tag via Bluetooth.
Another potential hurdle farmers face in implementing an IoT solution is choosing a wireless technology with sufficient battery power to continue the animal’s lifespan. For example, a beef cow’s lifespan is 15 months or longer —and whereas some technologies that use a mesh network likely won’t manage that sort of battery life.
Conservation Monitoring
Though it doesn’t completely come under “agriculture,” monitoring for threatened rhinos is one of the more exciting animal IoT solutions use cases out there. Identifying where rhinos are located can assist conservationists in guarding them against a burglar.
Soil and plant monitoring for precision farming
Soil and plant monitoring is a simple use case-but it can begin with a fantastic investment return for growers. We’ve seen many great uses for IoT in agriculture:
- Soil moisture and nutrients sensing
- Water usage controls for optimal plant growth.
- Defining system fertilizer profiles as per soil chemistry.
- Preparing the optimal time to weed and crop.
- Describing weather conditions.
Though these are some generic case studies given an insight into how IoT solutions in agriculture can be beneficial to the farming area, it’s also essential to know what IoT agriculture projects and applications have already been developed:
IoT and Sensors in the Field
It’s a big interruption. The IoT has huge potential in the food business. According to a report by Cisco, the Internet of Things (IoT) alone is expected to be worth $14.4 trillion. Sensors on devices and materials allow the Internet of Things to analyze and streamline agricultural resource selection, review, and distribution.
Field sensors, coupled with image recognition technology, let farmers monitor their crops from any location. Real-time data is communicated to growers by these sensors, letting them make crop changes respectively. Consequently, farmers avail of IoT sensors used in the field, which produces greater food production with less waste—precisely what this industry needs.
Drones and Crop Monitoring
A plane has been the sole means for farmers to have a bird’s eye perspective of their land. What if farmers could inspect their crops from the air without having to pay for an aircraft charter? Consider the investment’s return on investment. Crop monitoring drones are commonly employed to combat drought and other environmental issues. Crop monitoring devices are essential for maximizing the efficiency of precision agricultural technologies, crop monitoring devices are required.
(You can also take a look at our blog on How the agri-tech industry is evolving towards smart agriculture)
IoT and Sensors in Equipment
Sensors are being fitted on agricultural equipment in a similar vein to track the machine’s health and other data. Under the heading of “precision agriculture,” tractors and other farming equipment are being built with navigation systems and other sensors. Some of these sensors include GPS capabilities, allowing them to adapt to uneven terrain. In the cab of some implements, yield mapping and harvest documentation are built-in functions. Yield mapping and harvest documenting are built-in features on some implements. You’re on your own while others keep track of when the tractors need to be repaired. These sensors working together help to reduce machine downtime.
RFID Sensors and Tracking
After crops have been harvested, RFID sensors can follow food from the farm to the store. This means that the consumer, or end-user, will follow the food they eat from the farm where it was grown to the store where it was purchased. This technology can boost consumer trust in manufacturers due to increased manufacturing reliability and their responsibility to offer fresh goods.
Other hazardous bacteria outbreaks would not be prevented, but it would be simple to track the produce back to the farm or factory where it was processed if an outbreak occurred. RFID sensors on all crops could help to reduce epidemics and panic.
Consumers’ concerns regarding allergies and health needs may be alleviated by these tracking systems. Knowing that their commodities are being tracked is reassuring to the farmer. After all, they must ensure that their products reach their intended audiences in a safe condition.
Smart farming
Enough healthy food is feed by the efforts of agriculturalists to the entire world’s population. Approving food security is an important problem to solve as the world’s population increases daily. Soil moisture monitoring or surveillance, conservational conditions, stream, and self-control or control device management are all required for smart farming.
Smart Soil Sensor for Farm & Garden is also an interesting IoT-based Solution by Teksun that helps the yielders and breeders to monitor a farm, garden, and field-related soil data via a paired Mobile and Web App.
Bottom Line
In today’s dynamics era, the growth of the agriculture sector will always be a preference. So adopting IoT solutions in farming is driving efficiency, sustainability, and scalability.
