agriculture 4.0 the future of farming technologies, remote sensing, drone technology, biotechnology, mechanization and automation, GIS, traceability
AGRICULTURE 4.0 - THE FUTURE OF FARMING TECHNOLOGIES
In this blog, we will see the future of farming technologies, Imagine
you have a tool in your hand this tool already knows all the details of
your field. It knows about the soil, it knows about the weather that you have
experienced and it knows about the crops you have planted or you are going to
plant. And this tool can tell you the benefits of those decisions that you are
trying to make. It can help solve the impossible questions of whether to plant
a specific crop? How much pesticides to spray? And it is that confidence that
gives you success and strength. This will allow farmers to be innovative to
make new decisions adopt new practices and start to impact a change in a
sustainable way. With the growth in the population, with the change in consumer
behavior with the climate crisis. How do you secure your food production? The
real secret is sustainable production. Let us find ways to digitize agriculture
and build a foundation with the breaks of technology.
Remote Sensing
Satellites are our eyes in the sky, and what that allows us to do is to take information from satellites and relate it to the condition of both our crops and soils. Satellite remote sensing has been around for decades and it relies on sensors that fly on satellites outside the atmosphere. And it records the energy that reflects off the Earth's surface and depends upon how the reflections come back to the satellites. We can tell what the condition is and in the case of Agriculture, we can oftentimes tell how healthy the vegetation is and how healthy the crops are. What we are trying to understand is whether we can use satellite remote sensing as a way to assess the wares and winds of herbicide and pesticide applications and commercial agriculture throughout the state.
This method is used to estimate how much water is in the soil using radar satellites. If we have too much water in the soil or not enough water, it creates risks. But we could have drought or we could have flooding, or we could have a situation where it is wet and that creates disease in the field. We could use satellite images as a way to do this efficiently and in a cost-effective manner and get at least an idea of how much pesticides we could expect are going to be needed for commercial growing. There are many challenges associated with relating what satellites see with what is being used on the ground to grow crops. And part of the issue is to be able to accurately link what those satellite data look like with what growers have to use. As humanity in general, we have the Earth to take care of. We have to do that in a very sustainable way.
Drone Technology
In modern agriculture, drones play a key role.
Nowadays, from planting seeds to harvesting drone technology is used globally. Using
drones to check the conditions of crops. Drones are outfitted with infrared cameras
to take photos of crops. The photos are run through a computer to determine
whether the fields have any areas affected by pests or disease. Drone
technology could help and reduce chemical use by enabling him to spot spray
problem areas. Drones are used to collect some very sophisticated data to allow
us to create three-dimensional models of pasture. That is a great way to estimate
biomass. Being revolutionary, use drones in agriculture and making them an
essential tool. Drones excel at small areas at a high detailed spatial resolution. So that is perfect for research operations. And then any other sort of small area
cropping sort of situation.
Biotechnology
Biotechnology in agriculture can make pest control and weed management a lot easier pest control and weed management. Also, we can develop crops that are resistant to disease. So if there is a disease in the wild that threatens. Let's say corn plants might be able to find a gene that will make them resistant to that disease and in that case, we can save corn from the disease. Biotechnology can also increase crop quality and quantity. Some potential risks associated with biotechnology and agriculture at some of the traits that we give crops might be passed to wild relatives. So traits could be passed to wild relatives and those relatives would maybe get resistance to pests or an herbicide resistance and it might make them grow rampant and that is a risk that we face with biotechnology and agriculture. Also, make sure that the biotechnology crops don't harm any beneficial insects like bees so they don't harm any organisms. For example, if when you alter the genes of a crop it produces proteins. Those proteins cause allergies in people. And then that would be a crop that we would avoid using and so those are some general risks and benefits associated with biotechnology and agriculture.
Mechanization and Automation
Mechanization is about using tools, implements, and machinery in farming. It covers the whole spectrum from land clearing, land preparation, reading, plant protection, harvesting, transport, processing, storage is about increasing production, about sustainably intensifying production it also reaches out food processing to make food more nutritious, high-end quality, and also make it to be better preserved. So far as mechanization is a means to an end. It helps smallholder farmers to make their work-life easier. It reduces labor burdens. It contributes to huge labor savings. It improves timeliness it helps farmers to do early planting which is so important specifically in the days of climate change. It helps to shorten the harvesting period which is equally important and it helps in marketing food with transport facilities and in storage. Mechanization is an enabler to help smallholders to break out of this what is sometimes called a vicious cycle of poverty to change from more market-oriented farming to more income-oriented farming to improve their livelihoods.
Digital Agriculture
Increasing productivity in small farms is one of the biggest goals in agriculture. With a lot of new satellites are being put up in space, you can see individual fields, individual small farms around the world. And you can watch those over time as the crop develops. The satellite imagery to predict agricultural productivity yields.
A geographic information system or GIS is a computer system for displaying, analyzing, and capturing features and events that occur on the earth’s surface. From physical features such as lakes and buildings to events such as floods and disease outbreaks, all of these can be mapped using a GIS. GIS needs several components like hardware, GIS software, and data. You need Hardware essentially a computer on which the GIS software will run and where the data is likely to be stored. Additional items such as GPS capturing data in the field are also useful. Secondly, you need specific GIS software that allows you to display, analyze, and capture spatial information. Data is the core component of any GIS. Data comes in two formats vector and raster. Vector data represents geographic features as points, lines, or polygons. For example, points are commonly used to represent singular features such as town sites and ball locations lines to represent linear features like roads and streams and polygons to represent areas such as property at administration boundaries. Raster data is commonly used for aerial photography and satellite imagery. GIS has many advantages and is used in a wide range of disciplines including precision agriculture.
Blockchain Traceability
The
industry has been established data flows on things like compliance,
order, licensing that is a traditional model. It is involved people visiting
things like farms and factories. So it is a very traditional structured paper-based
historical kind of model. Now we are moving into this or the age of the consumer
and customer that is much more new. But it is also involving potentially lots
more data to be collected in the supply chain. So what we are trying to do is link
that traditional and new forms of data and take it into industry 4.0. And then
link that into things like blockchain that all fall into that digital
transformation space. Blockchain becomes synonymous with trust as a service. So
imagine that in industries like agriculture from sugar to cane to rise to wine
organizations are creating assets. That needs to be exported or sold overseas
and they want to know in the production of that asset all the standards around
ethical sourcing, sustainability, practices will all have been met and not by trusting the supplier. But being able to see that in such a way that you
would be able to trace back who did, what, when and carry that reliability for
those actions.
Introducing
blockchain in any activity can be documented and stored in the distributed ledger
only with consensus among all participating stakeholders. Thus making the network
reliable than any individual operation. Untrusted stakeholders can transact with each other through smart contracts without the need for a centralized body. Every
stakeholder will have a copy of the same distributed ledger. That enables information
access in near real-time. Stakeholders remotely track the imported provenance. Blockchain
simplifies life for everyone in the supply chain.
Cloud Computing
Traditional agriculture has always used data. Data must be harnessed in new ways and provide better insights. The agricultural industry must evolve cloud that is empowering a digital transformation in agriculture by connecting data to the cloud driving innovation and value. Recognize crop disease or pests faster, connect with vendors doing all this knowing you control your data. With data captured from each field and connected to predictive analysis, farmers have an unprecedented view of their crops. Edge computing will lower the cost of field inaccuracy and speed up the response to crop threats. Artificial intelligence will reveal inefficiencies and unlock new insights to increase production. Mixed reality will make a remote mechanic an expert and give agronomists the complete view of a farm. Robotics will add a new dimension to how and where crops can be produced. Microsoft had the experience trust and scale to enable innovation throughout the global food value chain. Working together we can rise to the challenge of feeding the world. This is data-driven agriculture. This is agriculture on Azure because when the world of farming harvests data. The world works better.
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