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What is the Significance of IOT in Agriculture?

With the increasing adoption of IoT (internet of things), the connected devices have been able to penetrate
all aspects of our lives. These include our home automation, health and fitness,logistics,
automotive, industrial IoT, and smart cities.

Therefore, it is logical to imagine that IoT, automation, and connected devices would be applicable to
agriculture. We also hope that it improves almost every aspect of it tremendously.

In the past decades, farming has experienced some technological transformations, thereby becoming more
technology-driven and industrialized. By making use of different smart agriculture gadgets, our farmers have
been able to gain better control of the entire process involved in the raising of livestock as well as growing
crops. This makes it much more predictable. It also improves its efficiency.

All these, coupled with the rising consumer demand for all agriculture products, has led to an increase in
proliferation of the smart farming technologies globally.

Here, we will explain the use cases of IoT in agriculture, as well as consider their benefits. Therefore, if you
wish to invest in smart planning, or you wish to build an agricultural IOT solution, please read on.

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Table of Contents

What Does Smart Agriculture Mean?

We can talk about modern agriculture in many different ways. For instance, AgriTech deals with applying
technology to agriculture generally.

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On the other hand, smart agriculture is majorly used in denoting the agricultural application of the IoT
solutions. Now, what does smart agriculture making use of IoT mean? When you use IoT sensors and IoT
solutions for the collection of machine and environmental metrics, the farmers will be able to make the right
and informed decisions. Also, they will be able to improve all areas of their work, including crop farming
and livestock.

For example, when you use smart agriculture sensors in monitoring the crop’s state, farmers will be able to
define the amount of fertilizers and pesticides they must use in reaching optimal efficiency. This also applies
to the definition of smart farming.

Though smart agriculture IoT and industrial IoT generally are not as famous as the consumer connected
devices, the market still remains very dynamic. Also, there is a constantly growing adoption of the IoT
solutions in agriculture.

COVID-19 has impacted IOT positively in the market share of agriculture. Few qualified workers
and supply chain disruption has caused the CAGR to about 9.9%. By 2025, the global market size of this
agriculture should triple to reach $15.3 billion, in contrast to its slightly more than $5 billion in 2016.

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What are the Advantages of Smart Farming?

smart farming project

IoT and Technologies have the ability to transform our agriculture in different aspects. There are five main
ways by which IoT will be able to improve agriculture.

Tons of data which is collected by the smart agriculture sensors. These include soil quality, weather
conditions, cattle’s health, crop health, and progress of crop’s growth. This data is useful in tracking how
your business is performing, equipment efficiency, staff performance, etc.

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More control over internal processes leading to lower risks in global agricultural production

Having the capability to foresee your production’s output lets you plan to have a much better product
distribution.

Waste reduction and cost management due to better control over production

When you are able to see anomalies in your livestock health, crop health, or crop growth, then it becomes
possible to mitigate any risks involved in losing any yield.

Better business efficiency via process automation

When you use smart devices, then it becomes possible to automate many processes all through the
production cycle. For example, pest control, fertilizing, or irrigation.

Enhanced volumes and product quality

Achieving much better control on the process of crop production, as well as maintain much higher standards
of the crop quality as well as growth capacity via automation. Due to this, these factors will eventually result
in higher revenue.

Now, we have learnt about how IoT can be beneficial to agriculture. Now, let’s consider ways in which these
benefits will be applicable in real life.

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What are the Use Cases or Applications of IoT in Agriculture?

IoT sensors meant for agriculture come in different types. This also includes IoT applications in all
agriculture generally.

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Monitor Climate Conditions

The most famous gadgets for smart agriculture system include weather stations, which combine different
smart farming sensors. Their location is usually across the fields where they collect different data from our
environment and then send it into the cloud.

Furthermore, the measurements provided are useful in mapping these climate conditions, choosing
appropriate crops, as well as taking the necessary measures in improving their capacity, for example in
precision farming.

Greenhouse Automation

Farmers usually make use of manual intervention for controlling any greenhouse environment. Using IoT
sensors makes it possible to be able to get the best real-time information regarding greenhouse conditions
like humidity, soil conditions, temperature, and lighting.

Also, adding to the sourcing of environmental data, the weather stations have the ability to adjust conditions
automatically to help in matching the necessary parameters. Greenhouse automation systems usually make
use of similar principles.

Growlink and Farmapp are IoT agriculture products which offer some capabilities. Also, GreenIQ is an
interesting product which makes use of smart agriculture sensors. Also, it is a well-known smart sprinklers
controller, which allows the management of lighting and irrigation systems remotely.

Crop Management

Another type of the IoT product in agriculture, as well as a different precision farming element are the crop
management devices. Like the weather stations, you have to place them in a specific field to help in
collecting data that is crop framing specific. These include precipitation, temperature, general crop health,
and potential of leaf water.

Therefore, you will be able to monitor the crop growth, as well as anomalies that prevent infestations or
diseases effectively,which could bring harm to your yield.

Cattle management and monitoring

Similar to crop monitoring, some IoT agriculture sensors exist, which could be attached onto animals present
on a specific farm in monitoring their log and health performance. With livestock monitoring and livestock
tracking, you will be able to get reliable data on physical location, well-being, and stock health.

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For instance, these sensors will be able to locate the sick animals, which will help farmers to separate them
from the others to prevent contamination. Making use of drones from the real-time tracking will also assist
farmers i9n reducing staffing expenses. Its function is similar to the IoT devices for petcare.

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Precision farming

This is also called precision agriculture. It refers to efficiency as well as producing data-driven decisions that
are accurate. Furthermore, it is included among the most effective and widely used applications or use case
of the IoT in agriculture.

When you make use of IoT sensors, farmers will be able to collect different metrics on every aspect of the
field’s ecosystem and microclimate. These include humidity, soil condition, temperature, lighting, pest
infections, Co2 levels, and humidity. Also, the data allows farmers to get an estimate of the right amounts of
pesticides, fertilizers, and water, which is useful for their crops, raise healthier and better crops, as well as
reduce the necessary expenses.

For example, CropX helps in building IoT soil sensors, which measures the soil temperature, moisture, as
well as electric conductivity. This allows the farmers to consider each of the unique needs of crops.

Agricultural drones

One very promising and well-known AgriTech advancements is the utilization of agricultural drones in our
smart farming. This is also called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These drones are more equipped than
the satellites and airplanes in collecting agricultural data.

Asides from their surveillance capabilities, these drones have the ability to carry out different tasks that
required the use of human labor previously. These include fighting infections and pests, crop monitoring,
agricultural spraying, planting crops, locating shrinking agricultural lands, etc.

Predictive Analytics

Predictive data analytics and precision agriculture work together. While the smart sensor and IoT
technology can serve as a goldmine for the real time data, using data analytics assists farmers in making
some sense from it, as well as having some important predictions. These include time for crop harvesting,
risks of infestations and diseases, yield volume, and more. Also, the tools for data analytics help to ensure
farming. This depends inherently on the weather conditions, which are more predictable and manageable.

Management Systems

You can represent a very complex approach to the IoT products used in agriculture by the management
systems of farm productivity. Usually, they include some agriculture IoT devices and IoT sensors, which are

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installed on these premises, coupled with a strong dashboard having analytical capabilities, as well as
in-built reporting and accounting features.

Furthermore, this provides capabilities of farm monitoring that allows users to be able to streamline the
majority of their business operations.

Asides from the listed use cases of IoT in agriculture, there are some important opportunities, which includes
storage management, vehicle tracking, automation, logistics, etc.

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What you should Consider Before You Develop a Smart Farming

Solution

iot smart farming

Now you can see that the applications of IoT in agriculture are numerous. There are lots of ways through
which smart devices will be able to assist you in increasing the revenue and performance of your farm.
However, developing agriculture IoT apps is a difficult task.

There are some challenges you must take note of if you wish to get involved in smart farming applying IoT
in agriculture.

The brain

The data analytics has to be the center of any smart agriculture solution. This collected data will offer little
assistance if you fail to make proper sense of it. Therefore, there is a need to have strong data analytics
capabilities, as well as apply some machine learning and predictive algorithms to help in obtaining
actionable insights that are based on this collected data.

The hardware

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In order to create an effective IoT solution for our agriculture, there is a need to go for device sensors. You
can also create a custom sensor. Whatever choice you make depends on the information you wish to collect,
as well as your solution’s purpose generally. Whatever the case is, your sensor’s quality is important to your
product’s success. It depends on the accuracy of any data collected, as well as its reliability.

The mobility

The applications of smart farming must be tailored to be used in this field. As a farm manager or business
owner, you should have access to the information remotely or on site through a desktop computer or
smartphone.

In addition, each of the connected device has to be autonomous, as well as possess the wireless range
necessary to be able to communicate with the other devices, as well as send data onto the main and central
server.

Connectivity

There is a need for data transmission between the many different agricultural facilities. This is a challenge
for smart farming adoption. Today, the IoT devices make use of different connection protocols, though
efforts required for developing the unified standards are presently underway. Furthermore, the advent of
technologies and 5G space-based internet hopefully, should find a solution to the problem.

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Infrastructure

There is a need to have a strong internal infrastructure to make sure that your application for smart farming
performs properly as well as ensure it handles the data load properly.

Also, the internal systems must be secure. When you don’t secure the system properly, it once increases the
possibility of anyone breaking into it, to steal your data, as well as take control of the autonomous tractors.

Maintenance

Maintaining your hardware could be a major challenge which is very important for the IoT products used in
agriculture. This is because the sensors are useful in this field and can get damaged easily. Therefore, ensure
that the hardware is easily maintained and is durable. Otherwise, you will end up replacing these sensors too
often.

Data Security

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IoT technology and precision agriculture implied working with different large data sets. This increases
possible security loopholes, which perpetrators could use for hacking attacks and data thefts. For example,
many farms make use of drone to transmit data to the farm machinery. The machinery helps in connecting to
the web. However, it has very little to no security protection like user passwords.

Some basic security recommendations for IoT in agriculture include the use of encryption methods in
protecting sensitive data, monitoring of data traffic, storage of data in blockchain to keep its integrity.

Conclusion

We have explained in detail the applications and uses of IoT in agriculture. We hope more advancements in
agriculture result from the use of IoT technology.

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