We all know that the world population is increasing day by day. So, to fulfil the demand of food, maintain the control, supply and maintenance the manual process does not seem to be practical. As a result, the help of automatic devices has come into the picture. Likewise, we see in our previous article that IoT has left its footprints to the well-being of mankind. Likewise, IoT also played an important role in agriculture and termed it into “Smart Agriculture”.
However, this article is about the IoT applications in agriculture. Consequently, using the IoT devices the productivity increases, waste and effort reduces. Now coming to the point that what are the applications of IoT in agriculture and those are:
- Precision Farming
- Agricultural Drones
- Data analytics
- Smart Greenhouses
- Monitoring Livestock
- Monitoring Cloud Conditions
- Crop Management
- End-to-end Farm Management System
Precision Farming
In order to increase productivity, quality, profitability in agriculture the precise applications have been introduced using IoT devices. Moreover, it helps farmers to use crop inputs more efficiently including pesticides, fertilizers, tillage and irrigation water.
By using the remote sensing, GPS and GIS this technology has been built. So, usage of resources will be utilized efficiently. Likewise, it prevents soil degradation in cultivable land resulting in sustained agricultural development.
Precision farming changing the socio-economic status of farmers. hence precision farming is the right thing to adapt in modern agriculture.
Agricultural Drones
The agricultural industry seems to have embraced drone technology with open arms, using these advanced tools to transform modern farming. These are some multiple tasks done by drones are:
- Monitoring overall crop health.
- Checking for weeds and spot treating plants.
- Scouting land and crops.
- Managing livestock and monitoring health issues.
- Can update real-time data
- Higher-resolution data
- Irrigation
- True count of plant growth
- Head’s up on stressed area like leak in irrigation or pest infestation
Data analytics
Firstly, data is mainly collected through sensors and sends to cloud-based storage and end-to-end IoT platforms. So, using the analytics tools the data is collected and transformed. Then, this analytics of data includes the weather forecast, crop conditions, livestock monitoring. Hence farmers will get an insight view to take any decision in advance related to harvesting.
The real-time status of crops, irrigation, identifying deceases of plants can be known from the sensors. Finally, data are sent to a GUI(graphical user interface) displaying both the data and the warning notifications.
Smart Greenhouses
Basically, to make the greenhouse smart weather stations have been introduced which is controlled by the internet of things. Smart greenhouse reduces human effort, increases the accuracy at the same time. Moreover, with the help of sensors, the real-time data can be analyzed which are:
- Remote monitoring system to protect the plants at its optimal temperature.
- Monitoring conditions like temperature, humidity, pressure, light levels, fluctuations, power failures, heater, fan, and other equipment.
- Ensures about the irrigation and fertilization conditions.
- Infection control and avoid diseases using agrochemical treatments.
- Reveal weather, soil and crop characteristics.
Moreover, collected data are transmitted through the reliable, wireless, cost-effective connection. Then, they are sent to a GUI platform from where the analysis of data and the threat notifications can be visible. After that, the real-time information is sent via emails and text messages to smartphones, tablets and some automation devices like amazon echo. Finally, here are some great innovation of agricultural products in IoT are Farmapp, Growlink and GreenIQ.
Monitoring Livestock
Firstly, to produce enough food for the world’s increasing population, the importance of livestock monitoring has come into the picture and IoT here plays that role. Likewise, to reduce farmers daily struggle to manage crops and livestock, livestock monitoring opens a new door.
So it brings opportunities to the farmers to optimize their livestock health using remote-monitoring and data-driven decision making. Here is a few livestock markets in the world.
Applications of livestock monitoring:
- Healthy feeding management
- Breeding management
- Milk and milk products management
- Livestock health and diseases management
- Monitoring behaviour, eating habits and control
- Financial management and decision support
- Location tracking
- Maximizing livestock livelihood
- Calving management
The data are collected through the hardware devices like RFID, sensors, GPS technology, smart cameras and also sends via emails or texts on smartphones. A few smart devices that are used in monitoring livestock are SCR by Allflex and Cowlar (collar tags). Likewise, some pet care devices are:
- Fitbark: Dogs GPS and health monitoring device.
- Petnet: Smart feeders
- tailio: Cats GPS and track
- Petcubes
Monitoring Cloud Conditions
Firstly, nowadays we have seen that the climate change and weather report have been very much unpredictable in all over the world. Therefore, this may lead to negative effects on food production. In addition, temperature, humidity, moisture, raining have become unpredictable.
Hence the countries which are mostly relies on agriculture have found a devastating issue on farming. So, to overcome these variable environment parameter problem the need of local weather station become necessary. Finally, here are some features of cloud monitoring IoT:
- Configure the samples per day.
- Set alarms when data needs any action
- Track historical measurements.
- Sensor fleet management tools.
- View with smart dashboard
- view the sensors at located fields.
So, here are some benefits of using cloud monitoring system in agriculture.
- Cost, effort, manpower reduced and efficient use of crops
- Saving of water resources
- Real-time information for each crop is known and preventive measurements can be taken.
- Save time and avoid human error.
- Easier to make decisions in seeding, irrigation, pesticides, labour
- Spreading time of seeds can be track more appropriately.
- Better anticipate diseases.
Here is a few cloud monitoring products of IoT are used in agriculture are allMETEO, Smart Element which works with the help of Base stations, Blue Node, sensors and Psycno.
Crop Management
Basically, IoT in agriculture is the crop management like weather stations, the crop management devices just need to keep on the fields to collect data for the particular crop cultivation. So, real-time data for temperature, crop growth, precipitation and more can be checked by these devices ( Arable, Semios). So, these are all-in-one weather and crop monitoring devices. Due to this, here are some benefits of using IoT crop management devices:
- Sms notification via email or text in smartphones or smart devices.
- Cost-effective.
- Easy to implement.
- Detailed real-time information collection.
End-to-end Farm Management System
End-to-end management system in the farm is nothing but to connect all the devices and sensors with the data together. Also, it can be installed as a smart dashboard having the capability to analytics of data and to report features. In addition, predictive algorithm enhances the powerful data analytics. Furthermore, the internal system must be secure or data can be lost or hacked. Finally, the benefits of end-to-end farm management system are:
- All fields together
- Daily plan
- Automatic alerts
- Record keeping
- Harvest weighting and forecast
- Hourly work
- Machinery work
- Live stream
- Flexible sensors configuration
- Tracking
- Real-time updates
- Soil testing and moisture checking
- Alerts notification
- Scouting
- Offline important changes notification
So, the world is moving faster than we think and to fulfil the increasing demands of the world’s increasing population nothing can be the best way to cultivate but the Internet of things is. Hence, the future IoT can change the world.
