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3 reasons why modern farmers are embracing IoT technology at an astonishing rate

It seems that today everything is affected in some way by the Internet of things. It is changing the way goods are produced, the way they are marketed and the way they are consumed. Much of the conversation about IoT has revolved around transformation in industries like manufacturing, petrochemicals, and medicine, but one industry that has already seen widespread adoption of IoT technology is often overlooked: agriculture. .

Of course, many of us are very familiar with some of the efforts that have been made to optimize food production. As populations continue to grow, there has been a serious and sustained push to increase crop yields from our available arable land. Some of these efforts have not been particularly popular with consumers (ie pesticides, GMOs).

With the advent of new technology and the Internet of Things, farmers are finding new ways to improve their yields. Fortunately for us, these new ways are decidedly less disruptive than toxic chemicals and genetic manipulation. Using sensors and network communication, farmers are discovering ways to optimize well-known best practices to increase yields and reduce resource consumption.

If it is surprising that the agricultural industry is a technological innovator, it is worth considering how agriculture is, in many ways, an ideal test bed for new technologies.

There are a few good reasons for this:

1. Ease of implementation

Unlike other industries, deploying sensors and other connected devices on a farm can be relatively easy and inexpensive. In a heavy industrial environment such as a factory or a refinery, new technology must replace old technology that is fully incorporated into the production infrastructure. There are concerns about downtime and lost revenue, as well as concerns about finding the right products or product groups to integrate into your existing technology ecosystem. In a typical farm, there is no need for downtime and there is usually no concern for any existing technology that may be incompatible. Inexpensive sensors placed in various parts of a cultivated field can quickly produce highly useful actionable data without interrupting a single process.

2. Instantaneous value

Another reason agriculture has provided such a fertile test bed for IoT technology is the speed with the value and the ROI that can be achieved. Pre-existing precision agriculture metrics can be applied more easily, maximizing the already known benefits of established practices (knowing what types of crops to plant and when, knowing when and how much to water, etc.) Farmers have also been successful in safely and naturally controlling pests through the smart release of pheromones. Of course, there is the obvious and very tangible benefit of lower resource consumption and higher performance. A modest investment can produce measurable results in just one season.

3. Continuous value

In agricultural IoT deployments, the same practices that deliver instant value will continue to deliver value for as long as they are employed. Conserving water and reducing waste provide repeat value, as well as the increased yields brought about by precision farming. There are also opportunities to improve the equipment that farmers use every day. A connected combine or tractor can record useful information about its operation and maintenance. It can also allow the optimization and automation of certain processes.

There are some real concerns about our ability to feed our ever-growing population in the future. While controversial technologies like genetically modified organisms have helped increase food production, these techniques are not exactly popular with the general public, several of whom have raised concerns about the long-term impact of a genetically modified diet.

The good news is that similar increases in food production are possible without the need to modify the food; we simply have to modify the processes used to produce it. And it’s not just about food production. The plants are also used for biofuels and as raw materials in manufacturing. By increasing yield and reducing resource consumption, producers are also having a positive impact on many other industries.

For example, a Colorado-based company called Algae Lab Systems is helping algae growers improve their production by introducing sensors to measure environmental factors such as temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen in their photobioreactors and algal ponds. . Algae growers can now continuously monitor their crops from anywhere, which also allows for larger and geographically dispersed operations.

A case study detailing algae laboratory systems provides insight into how they are transforming the algae farming industry and aquaculture in general.

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