Smart Farming Powered by IoT
The 20th century was a great time for advancements in technology for agriculture and farming. The time saw the mechanical innovations of numerous harvesters and tractors. The 21st century has proven to be no different as the technological advancements in agriculture and farming have been constant. The driving force behind increased agricultural yield today is the Internet of Things (IoT).
The use of IoT in Agriculture has paved the way for smart farming methods that eradicate any inefficiency and give over all the control to the farmer. The farmer can keep a vigilant eye over all aspects of the yield, and then take necessary actions based on what they deems feasible. The applications that have enhanced the yield we get from farming include livestock monitoring, vehicle tracking, storage checking and many other innovations. The implementation of these methods has been fruitful for farmers as they can detect all anomalies right at their core. Since most farmers have to compensate for the human error when they are farming, the use of IoT would mean that the human error would reduce significantly.
Here we have a few examples concerned with the use of IoT in Agriculture.
- Livestock sensors in place in cattle can notify ranchers of instances when some of the animals have roamed away from the herd. Based on this information, farmers can actually save their animals from roaming into the wild or being attacked by other wild animals in many cases.
- Soil sensors have led the innovations toward precision farming. These sensors can alert farmers of conditions such as high acidity and other anomalies. The farmer can then address the issue accordingly and form a judgment based on the information. This would lead to the production of better crops after the issue is addressed. Salinity or water logging in soil can reduce the yield of the crop. These factors directly impact the farming that is being done on the land and eventually reduce the yield and make the land useless for farming in the future if action is not taken. By actually knowing what’s going wrong with their land farmers can prepare in advance to compensate for the downtime.
- The innovation of self-driving tractors has really made work easy for farmers by increasing efficiency. The tractors provide cost reductions by reducing labor costs. Moreover, since these tractors are specifically made for working in the fields, they have a good efficiency associated with them. Besides just aiding farmers in increasing the efficiency of the work done, these tractors also have low maintenance costs.
The years coming up front will see an increase in the use of these technologies as farmers recognize IoT and the opportunities it presents in agriculture.
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