The agricultural sector is experiencing a revolution thanks to a set of new digital technologies that allow farmers to improve their financial performance and boost yields, while reducing the negative impact on the environment. One of the most exciting technological concepts at present is called “precision farming” or “precision agriculture”,[1] a farming management system that uses IoT technologies to monitor production sites and generate life time data. The analysis of this data allows farmers to react immediately to any need in the fields, as well as tracking and monitoring of the whole production cycle.[2]
Precision farming has been possible thanks to the development of a set of technological enablers, like high precision positioning systems, satellite navigation systems, geo-mapping, sensors and remote sensing, and integrated electronic communications.[3] These tools allow farmers to locate fields precisely, do prescriptive farming (i.e. planting in a way to accommodate the variable conditions of a property), and monitor and control livestock (to determine their location, understand their growth rates, and ensure their safety). Two great examples of Precision farming technologies can be found in the fertilizer and agricultural machinery arenas.
Fertilizer
Traditionally, the application of fertilizer has been done in one of two ways: Large scale or richer producers do soil testing of their fields at the beginning of the season, taking random samples and bringing them to specialized labs, sometimes located hundreds of miles away from their property. Based on that, they identify a fertilizer type that meets their field and crop requirements. Smaller scale farmers (who can afford fertilizer and have the option to choose among different products) usually follow the advice of public sector workers who make recommendations based on geography. These recommendations don’t usually match the specific needs of the farmer’s fields or crops.
Precision farming allows large and even mid- scale farmers to do effective soil management, controlling the evolution of soil nutrients through precise geo-positioning. This gives producers the opportunity to understand the evolving nutrient needs of crops throughout the production season. Using software applications,[4] farmers understand the soil composition in different sections of their property, the changes in soil composition during plant development, after meteorological events, and others. Analyzing this data farmers can apply different mixes or amounts in different areas of their plots. This not only reduces costs, but has a positive effect for the environment, as precise fertilization avoids unnecessary spillage. Furthermore, these farmers can monitor greenhouse emissions produced by the fertilizers they use, allowing them to conform with compliance standards.[5] Small scale farmers can also benefit from these technologies. New mobile applications are allowing agro input dealers and field agents to use cloud based analytic engines to make more accurate fertilizer recommendations for their fields.[6]
Agricultural machinery
Tractors, tillers and other farm equipment tools are experiencing drastic changes thanks to embedded technologies that make them driverless and more precise. These gains in efficiency are not only reducing costs, but also improving the negative environmental impact of farming, as less land is needed to produce the same amount of output. Companies like John Deere have brought IoT into the fields, making prepping, planting, feeding and harvesting a lot more efficient.[7][8] Farmers can literally driver tractors and run field operations from their office or while on vacation.
New digital technologies and precision agriculture are making farm operations more insight driven and efficient. While some of these new technologies might seem futuristic, the reality is that they have become quite widespread in recent years. As the purchase costs go down, we will see more of these new tools expanding across the world, and being used in combination with one another.
[1] Precision farming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_agriculture
[2] IoT as a solution for precision farming: http://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/blog/IoT-Agenda/IoT-as-a-solution-for-precision-farming
[3] Precision farming key technologies and concepts: http://cema-agri.org/page/precision-farming-key-technologies-concepts
[4] The world’s first difital fertilizer: http://blog.lolay.com/articles//the-worlds-first-digital-fertilizer
[5] Koch fertilizer: https://www.enviance.com/hubfs/2017%20Brand%20Assets/2017%20Case%20Studies%20(CS)/CS%20-%20Koch.pdf?t=1490560805490
[6] Accenture digital agricultura: https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-accenture-digital-agriculture-solutions
[7] John Deere Precision ag technology: https://www.deere.com/en_US/products/equipment/ag_management_solutions/ag_management_solutions.page
[8] Network World on John Deere and IoT: http://www.networkworld.com/article/3071340/internet-of-things/john-deere-is-plowing-iot-into-its-farm-equipment.html
This makes so much sense in the agriculture industry today and for the future. It is important that technology advances not just the comfort of the farmer but also increases yield. I would have liked to read a little bit more on the applications of these modern machines to understand how it can be scaled to less developed countries.
While I agree this is the way forward for farmers to increase yield specially with decreasing land available for farming but adoption of this technology in Asian and African countries seems difficult without Govt. support. According to the food and agriculture organization 80% of the farmland in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia is managed by small farmers and adoption of these technologies will need govt. subsidies and intervention to make it a success.
I think it is undisputed that these technologies will deliver improvements in outcomes for the environmental and the farmers. My question relates the implication of more capital-intensive technologies on the social outcomes produced by farming. As you hint during the article, these technologies are most cost-effective when deployed at scale and will therefore further advantage the largest producers. On the one hand, this may have negative social impacts on the smaller farmers. However on the other hand, cheaper production costs for the large farmers may translate to cheaper food prices, which has a positive impact on the society as a whole.
I think it is extremely interesting to see how many people in the class have chosen to write about precision farming and the impact of the use of IoT in the future of agriculture!
I particularly liked the in-depth analysis of the use of fertilizers depending on the size of the farmer as I think the key challenge of precision farming is precisely not leaving these small scale farmers behind. It might be a good idea for governments from developing countries to set up an organization that looks for potential opportunities within this sector.
I wonder what implications such rich data can have at the aggregate or policy level. One might surmise if it might be possible to even predict crop yields with a high degree of accuracy with rich data at the firm level and even predict soft commodity prices given projected demand. Such accuracy of data can eliminate hedging costs along the food production value chain and reduce the cost of consumables drastically. Overall, very exciting development for the agriculture sector. It does require a bit of tweaking for the emerging markets as has been pointed out. Perhaps, there a low-tech approach that is intuitive to less-educated farmers might be the way to go with heavy involvement from the government and local NGOs.
Extremely promising technology and I expect that this will increase productivity significantly. I believe though that it will be very challenging for small farmers in developing countries to invest and adopt such technologies. Their failure to do so will most likely increase productivity gap between them and developed countries even further, forcing small farmers even deeper into poverty.
One interesting application of precision farming is Agribotix (https://agribotix.com). While most of the issues are addressed in the above comments, I would like to share that there is a serious execution risk for this technologies as they scale up. Currently, many jurisdictions allow drones to fly in the visual line of sight (VLOS) and the expenses grow exponentially when drones are fitted to spray the crops accordingly. Hence, farmers still prefer to use the light planes as they cover a wider area and are cost effective on that basis. I look forward to the development of this technology and see how to get around this issue.