Raising Food Productivity with use of Internet and Technology in Farming

Mar. 16

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As per United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs data, there will be 9.6 billion people on the Earth by the year 2050 which is as of the current year 2016 is 7.4 billion. The three things that are important for humans to live earth are air, water and land. We already know what scarcity of these vital elements has caused, above that what we will have after 35 years might not be so clean and pious as it is now. Even if we are able to keep these elements sustainable and in quantum, things can be fine with air and water but land can become the defeating factor.

Farmland is getting less day by day

Moving on with the current growth rate of the world, to sustain the larger population, we need more land – for homes, offices, factories and above all, farming. While developed countries like USA have lost about 0.15% of their farmland for development reasons in past 10 years, the numbers in developing countries like India goes up to 0.80%. Environmental activists have been making noise for this every now and then. Infact, it is believed that fertile land is being replaced by less fertile lands, that is why there is a decline in the areas of shrublands, grasslands, grazing lands, swamps and wastelands. It is highly questionable how with impact of climate change, much lesser land and other resources, we will be able to increase the food production by 70% in order to feed a larger population.

Barriers in increasing the food productivity other than reducing farmland

Climate change.
Increasing need for fresh water.
Availability of energy, particularly from fossil fuels.
Impact of urbanisation – lead to fewer young people adopting farming.

Smart Farming is only Solution

A great hope to this problem can be found in sensing technology, which can be helpful in increasing the quantity and quality of agricultural production. This technology is Site Specific Crop Management or popularly known as Smart Farming, which is paving way for the sustainability of human race on this planet. The three basic factors that contributes to this smart farming are agricultural automation, irrigation and drainage technology, which can ensure sustainable and protected farming without harming the environment.

Technology that makes farming smarter

Such technology is already being enforced in many areas by big corporations who still have direct relation to farming. Farming is considered to be one of the most complex sectors involving very different set of applications. With the help of a mobile app farmers can easily monitor their plants and know exactly what is needed to nurture them. The technology solutions available for effective farming making it smarter are:

Sensor-based field and resource mapping.
Remote crop monitoring.
Remote equipment monitoring.
Climate monitoring and forecasting.
Stats on livestock feeding and produce.
Predictive analytics for crops and livestock.
Livestock tracking and geofencing.
Smart logistics and warehousing.

These technologies include GPS services, sensors and big data to optimise crop yields. Rather than replace farmer expertise and gut feeling, ICT- based decision support systems, backed up by real time data, can additionally provide information concerning all aspects of farming at a level of granularity not previously possible. This enables better decisions to be made, resulting in less waste and maximum efficiency in operations.

We at LetsNurture believe that the use of smart farming is bound to grow, not just because of the necessity to solve the problems that the world faces regarding food security but due to use of technology in all the other sectors of industries. Application of IoT in everyday life is not far from reality and if you want some technological solution for your enterprise do contact us.