Automation Transforming Farming

Agriculture in today’s world is growing and changing rapidly due to environmental influences, laws, and regulations. Not to mention the growth in our population and shifting trade policies affecting how, when, where and what we produce, the agriculture industry is ever-evolving much like the manufacturing industry. In fact, most industrial manufacturing principles can be applied to modern-day agriculture.

Automation in the manufacturing industry is intended to streamline, optimize and automate processes to produce products quicker, better and more efficient than before. Who determines whether farmers get the same privilege of automated processes? As of recent, large-scale farmers are integrating autonomous devices, like tractors, to quicken the time spent planting and harvesting produce from the fields. Other innovative technologies include utilizing IoT devices, like sensors and gauges, that are connected across the farm to collect data about growing conditions, apply fertilizers, and treatments from remote locations.

By using a digital platform, farmers don’t need to personally review the entire farm’s produce status during any undesirable weather conditions. On a digital platform, they can review if their produce needs more pesticides, treatments, fertilizer, water, and so forth within the digital platform. Thus, resulting in a significant increase of time to focus their attention on improving production yields, addressing customer requests and fulfilling new orders.

To put smart farming into a real-life example, this is how it would appear. For example, Farming Company A is a farming company that grows produce ranging from tomatoes to potatoes in their many fields. They want a way to see whether a tomato is ripe enough to pick because the sun hasn’t been shining as often, therefore slowing down the harvesting process. The farmer logs in to their digital platform, reviews notifications about moisture levels and sun exposure, and then reviews how many days on average is needed for a tomato to be ripe. After reviewing, the digital platform will either tell him the tomatoes are ready or they still need more time to ripen. Over time, the intelligence behind the software will develop and create patterns and consistencies to know exactly when the right time to harvest each vegetable is. As the IoT sensors learn about information regarding specific fields, seeds, moisture, sun exposure, and so forth, they can accurately notify the farmer when any crop-related factor is putting produce at risk and when the produce is ready for harvesting.