Smart Farming & Agriculture – New Ways in Food Production

Smart agriculture, also known as smart farming or precision agriculture, is a comprehensive food production approach that uses highly advanced, internet-connected technology.

Farm owners can use this state-of-the-art technology to increase productivity, crop production, and more. In simple terms, precision farming can completely revolutionize the agricultural industry by improving production and profitability while reducing waste and conserving resources.

Smart farming is here to stay, and we are here to explain everything you need to know about it! So, if you are ready to learn about the future of farming and food production, it is time to get started.

What Is Smart Agriculture?

Before we dive into a more detailed breakdown of the various techniques and smart farming technology, as well as the potential benefits they can offer, it is useful to take the time to explain what smart agriculture actually is.

Smart agriculture is more of a concept rather than a specific technique. Essentially, it involves using advanced technology to monitor, automate, and thoroughly analyze various farming operations.

Farm owners can use sensor technology, complex automation software, and more to manage their farms more efficiently and with a smaller labor force.

By tracking everything from crop production to livestock health, smart farming technology can give farm owners up-to-date feedback on everything they need to know to keep their farms productive.

Automation equipment and software can also cut down on waste reduction, labor requirements, and basic mistakes linked to human error.

What Technology and Devices Are Involved in Smart Agriculture?

As mentioned, smart agriculture is a complex approach to farming that involves using various advanced devices in unison.

While smart farms can vary from one another in terms of size and approach, the leading smart farming techniques, technologies, and devices used in smart agriculture are as follows:

Sensors

Naturally, all this automation and monitoring requires the installation of a variety of sensors. The sensors can monitor environmental conditions, including moisture levels within the soil, air quality, sunlight intensity, and more. They can also provide real-time updates on livestock behavior and crop growth.

These sensors feed the smart agriculture system data that it can use to communicate commands to other devices. They also provide the farmer and farm workers with information they can use to optimize farm procedures. Even instant and accurate production information can be incredibly useful for farmers when making budgeting decisions.

Agricultural Robots

Since smart agriculture also automates various tasks previously performed manually, robotics plays a significant role in any full-sized smart farm. These mechanized devices can be programmed to perform a wide range of tasks.

Whether these robots are programmed to feed livestock specific amounts of feed at exact times or plant seeds at precise distances and depths, one of the significant advantages of applying robotics in an agricultural setting is the accuracy and efficiency of their work.

While many are used for repetitive tasks to replace unskilled labor, others are used for more complicated and specialized roles, like analyzing soil and harvesting yields.

Flying Drones

Drones are beginning to play an increasingly important role in smart agriculture. When equipped with high-resolution cameras and an array of sensors, they can collect important data that can be used to assess everything from weather conditions to livestock behavior.

In any sort of large-scale farming operation, the collection of accurate data is incredibly important. Top-down views of crops, livestock herds, and more can all prove extremely valuable. This information is then fed back to the system’s data analytics tools. This data can inform decisions on fertilizer use, watering schedules, etc.

Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things, IoT for short, is a system of interrelated computing devices and machines. Despite the name, the devices involved in the system do not need to be connected to the internet; instead, they just need to be connected through a closed network.

Essentially, this technology is used for wiring everything together so that field technology can communicate with the central control hub. Given that smart agriculture involves sensors communicating with machines, drones, and more, the Internet of Things is essential to keep the smart farm running efficiently and effectively.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems

One of the keys to an effective smart farm is adaptability. Machine learning algorithms are often applied to smart farm control hubs to make everything run more efficiently. AI-powered machines can adapt watering, fertilizing, planting, and feeding schedules to be more effective and efficient.

Machine learning is also extremely useful when altering certain processes according to weather, climate, and soil quality changes. When the smart farm can solve challenges independently, it will run more efficiently. Even external factors, like market demands and pricing forecasts for crops and livestock, could be fed into an AI system to make important decisions.

When it comes to diagnosing diseases in livestock, artificial intelligence software is already proving to be an incredibly valuable resource. Early detection of sick animals and diseased crops make it easier for farm workers to isolate diseased livestock and crops from healthy ones.

Artificial intelligence can help a farm run more efficiently, and its precise nature can reduce material and labor costs. While it is considered a relatively new technology, there is no doubt that artificial intelligence will play a significant role in smart agriculture in the future.

Data Analytics Software

While the Internet of Things connects everything and AI systems can adapt procedures to match changes in conditions, complex data analytics software is responsible for displaying and analyzing the data collected by drones, sensors, and robots in the field.

This data can be related to crop health and yields, soil conditions, climate change, weather conditions, fertilizer usage, livestock health, the prevalence of pests, and more. Analyzing this data helps farm workers and machines optimize farming practices to improve yield and reduce waste.

When paired with data analytics software and artificial intelligence systems, they can act as a brain or central hub for an entire smart farm.

What Are the Practical Benefits of Smart Agriculture?

Smart farming can offer many real-world advantages over traditional farming methods. While the up-front costs of this technology and equipment can be prohibitive to small-scale, family-owned farms, for large-scale industrial farming, the benefits are immense.

Smart agriculture benefits farm owners and investors, as it can optimize productivity while reducing costs. It promises to revolutionize agricultural production, which can only be helpful with a growing global population and the ever-growing threat of widespread food shortages.

From a more everyday standpoint, the following are some of the most notable benefits of running a smart farm:

Increased Crop and Livestock Yields

Smart farming is all about efficiency and timing. Crops are watered on time, and livestock are fed the optimal amount of food at the right intervals. Everything is done to ensure the health and growth of the farm’s crops and livestock. When everything is done efficiently and correctly, yields are improved.

Essentially, smart farming helps farm owners optimize growing conditions for crops and livestock requirements. These small improvements add up to significantly higher yields, especially throughout multiple growing seasons.

Reduced Waste

Not only can smart farming improve yields, but it can also significantly cut down on waste. Whether you are talking about only using fertilizer when it is needed and with extreme precision or portioning out livestock feed in exact portions, smart farming eliminates guesswork and human error.

Since sensors can detect moisture levels in the soil far more accurately than the human eye, fields are only watered when necessary. Not only does this cut down on water usage, it means the sprayers are not used excessively, which cuts down on wear and electricity use.

When it comes to planting, seeds are planted with the exact spacing to ensure the grown plants will not smother each other out.

Basically, automation improves the efficiency with which resources are used. The farm wastes less, which is beneficial to the environment, as well as the productivity and profitability of the farm.

Reduced Labor Requirements

Since smart farming involves automating various processes, running a farm efficiently with fewer workers is possible. With a labor shortage, especially in the farming industry, this is incredibly beneficial for farm owners.

Even the farm owners themselves can take a step back and focus on more important concerns rather than being forced to take such a hands-on approach to the farm’s daily operations.

Another benefit of the reduced labor requirements in smart farming is that it could potentially open up farmlands in more isolated areas. If a small number of people could run a smart farm themselves, rather than needing a large workforce, operating farms in more remote areas would become more practical.

Improved Environmental Sustainability

Since smart farms use resources more efficiently, their environmental impact is reduced. Lower water usage, more accurate use of fertilizers and pesticides, and reduced greenhouse gases mean that a smart farm could have long-term environmental advantages over a similarly sized traditional farm.

Unfortunately, large-scale agricultural operations damage the environment and ecosystems surrounding them. When farms make better use of the land they occupy and produce less waste materials, they are far more sustainable.

Sensors that detect chemical run-off, soil erosion, and water contamination could all be incorporated into the smart farms of the future to help reduce their environmental impact.

What About the Drawbacks of Smart Agriculture?

While smart agriculture can offer plenty of benefits for farmers and the general population, like any new technology, it is not without its faults. The following are some of the potential negatives that are associated with smart farming:

1. High Upfront Costs

Perhaps the most notable drawback of smart farming is the high cost of purchasing and installing the equipment. As it stands, the high costs associated with implementing smart farming technologies can be a significant barrier to small-scale farm owners.

Where large factory farms can afford these upfront costs, they can be prohibitively expensive for those with lesser means. This creates an imbalanced market where industrial farmers gain an even greater advantage over their smaller counterparts.

2. Technical Complexity

Given that the state-of-the-art equipment needed to run a true smart farm is incredibly complex, it can be difficult for those unfamiliar with the technology to get started. Without proper training, the entire system can be incredibly difficult to understand.

For older farmers, or those that have relied exclusively on traditional farming techniques in the past, the technical know-how required to run an intelligent farm can prove to be a daunting obstacle.

Not only do the farm owners need proper training and experience, but those they hire will also have to undergo the same training, which can be both time-consuming and expensive.

3. Privacy and Data Security Concerns

Given that most smart farm systems are connected to the internet, there are concerns that sensitive information could be hacked or even just accidentally leaked to the competition.

While most systems used in smart agriculture are incredibly safe and secure, it is always worth considering the risks when relying so heavily on an internet-based system to run a business.

4. Reliance on Complex Technology

With smart agriculture, every process depends on technology and computer systems. When these systems fail, or a piece of advanced equipment simply breaks, an entire farm’s activities can immediately halt.

With onsite technical support, farming operations could be continued for a significant length of time. This becomes exasperated if the farm is located in a remote area that is a significant distance from anyone with the technical know-how to repair or replace the damaged equipment.

Given the nature of farming, the timing of certain operations is critical. Let’s say, for example, the computer system that controls when crops are watered fails early in the planting season; a farm could lose an entire season’s worth of crops if the system was not repaired quickly or the fields were not watered manually while the system was down.

What Is the Future of Smart Agriculture?

There is no denying the fact that smart farming is here to stay. This incredible technology offers numerous benefits, especially for large-scale farming operations.

While farms will not suddenly start looking like a scene from a Star Wars film in the next few years, there is no doubt that this technology will continue to grow in prevalence and adoption.

While nobody can predict the future with any sort of certainty, it is not unreasonable to suspect that artificial intelligence and machine learning will continue to grow in prominence.

Flexible automation can offer a potential solution to the labor shortages that have plagued the farming industry for decades and can greatly improve crop and livestock yields.

Autonomous farming equipment will become more popular as this technology drastically reduces labor costs while improving efficiency and environmental sustainability.

This exciting new technology could be the future of the entire farming industry by eliminating basic human errors and the time-consuming process of training new employees.

Will Smart Agriculture Truly Revolutionize Food Production?

Unsurprisingly, this significant shift in the farming industry has so many speculating about the future of food production.

While some predict that farming will become more sterile and the relationship between humans and the food they eat will deteriorate, others view these technological advances as an opportunity to end global food shortages and widespread hunger in less developed countries.

Potential to Diminish Food Shortages

Given that the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that over 820 million people globally are suffering from ongoing hunger, any technology that promises to increase food output while reducing waste will cause excitement.

This issue is more concerning, considering that many experts anticipate the global population to exceed 9.8 billion people by the year 2050. With such a massive increase in the global population, it is believed that food demands will also be 60% higher than they are today.

With climate-smart agriculture emerging as the only viable solution to the world’s food security concerns, it seems inevitable that smart farms will need to become more prevalent.

Potential to Open New Farmlands

Improving crop output and expanding farming opportunities to previously remote areas increase food availability; it could also enhance food quality.

When farm management can be efficiently and precisely done using sensors, drones, and other pieces of intelligent farm technology, fewer pesticides and chemical fertilizers are required.

Autonomous farming is particularly exciting in this regard. Self-driving farm equipment could allow a small number of individuals to operate a full-scale farm in the most remote locations.

Autonomous agricultural machinery and artificial intelligence-backed smart farming could also address labor shortages, particularly in the farming industry.

Potential to Increase Food Quality

When applied correctly, smart farm technology could enable the growing and harvesting of healthier and more nutritious crops, which could be hugely beneficial in a world where obesity rates continue to climb due to the overconsumption of low-quality food items.

The CDC recently revealed that only 10% of American adults consume the daily recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables. Given that many cut back on produce consumption due to costs, the potential for smart farming to cut down on consumer prices for highly nutritious produce could have significant health benefits.

Final Words

Smart agriculture and smart farming have the potential to revolutionize the entire farming industry. While there will always be a place for traditional farming methods, these farms may begin to take a backseat role as smart farms demonstrate their ability to improve efficiency, yields, and profitability.

As with any emerging technology, the future is still being determined. AI software and more versatile and autonomous farming machines could completely change how we grow, harvest, and distribute food.

Regardless of what the future has in store, one thing is sure: smart agriculture is here to stay!

To learn more about the urban side of the smart technology revolution, we encourage you to read Infrastructure of Cities – The Evolution of Smart Cities.