Smart agriculture, a new term that only applies IoT solutions in agriculture, helps farmers better control the process of breeding and cultivation.
Weather monitor, providing data such as temperature, humidity, wind speed.
With the increasing adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT), connected devices penetrate every aspect of life, from health, transportation to home automation solutions. cars and agriculture.
IoT in agriculture gives farmers greater control, while reducing their dependence on unpredictable factors such as weather, and optimizing each process in the production chain, according to Busines Insider.
For example, to monitor the condition of crops, farmers will install sensors for each tree, thereby determining exactly how much pesticides and fertilizers are needed until harvest.
Two serious epidemics in the last two years, African swine cholera and Covid-19, have made it difficult to control individual cases, because if early cases of infection and isolation are detected, the consequences maybe not so serious. But also because of the direct influence of SARS-CoV-2, the market share for IoT in agriculture in 2020 is forecast to grow by 10% to about 5.6 billion USD globally.
In many parts of the world, Covid-19 has not been fully controlled, leading to disruptions in the supply chain of raw materials and a shortage of qualified labor.
“This situation will last for at least a few years,” a professor of the Institute of Biological Sciences, Environment & Rural America forecast. The size of the smart agriculture market could increase to US $ 6.2 billion in 2021, before tripling in 2025 to US $ 15.3 billion.
There are 5 causes of IoT to help improve agricultural productivity.
Firstly, there are billions of data collected by intelligent agricultural sensor systems, such as weather conditions, soil conditions, regional growth rates, or the health of cattle herds over time. real time.
Second, due to real-time tracking, the owner of a production facility can proactively plan product distribution based on growth. Also by closely monitoring the actual output, farmers will avoid being forced to sell small businesses on the grounds of crop failure, or poor quality every year.
Thirdly, labor productivity is certainly increased by many automation processes such as irrigation, fertilizer, pest control …
Fourthly, monitor product quality right from harvest, based on reports and comparisons over the years. From there, it will be easier for farmers to maintain higher standards for crop and livestock quality.
Finally, production wastes as well as treatment costs that are minimized by the output of one cycle can be used as inputs to another cycle.
Cows wearing a necklace record their living habits and health status.
The most popular and popular smart agricultural equipment is weather observation stations, combined with intelligent farming sensors. The measurements from the environment are synchronized, thereby creating climate maps. Based on this map, farmers will cultivate correctly and select the right crops.
Another example is home automation. In the past, farmers manually intervened to control the greenhouse environment, with IoT, they just need to set up the initial conditions, then let the computer system self-adjust factors such as light, heat. degree, soil condition and humidity.
The two most promising applications in bringing IoT into smart agriculture are cattle and drone surveillance. Unlike plants, cattle are more sensitive to external influences. The lesson from the African swine cholera is an example. Because it is impossible to control individual pigs in the farm, one or several pigs come into contact with wild pigs and transmit the virus.
With IoT, each animal will have a separate diary, set until the slaughter, record their health status, habits, even their current position compared to the herd to issue dangerous warnings. . Based on the data, the system will send an accurate notification to the rancher that any animal may have a problem. Together with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), farmers can choose to monitor their herds, depending on their needs.
Vietnam is an agricultural country that is gradually modernizing. However, the difficulty in applying IoT in real conditions is application design. Farmers in our country are not in the habit of using smartphones or computers to control the farm situation. Instead, people still choose the form of manual testing is to visit regularly.
Another factor is price. Vietnam’s agricultural products often export when they have advantages in price. If IoT is applied in many stages, even in a closed cycle as the slogan of this technology is “from the farm to the dining table”, the price can be put up. Another difficulty is that the scale of agricultural production in Vietnam is quite fragmented when 70% of the households have an area of less than 0.5 hectares.
Around the world, dozens, hundreds of hectares of farms have been using IoT for years, along with other scientific advances such as AI (artificial intelligence) and blockchain.
Unlike Vietnam, the difficulty of developed countries such as the US, Germany, France … is data security. Due to the constant need for connectivity and control, foreign farmers are required to use wireless connections such as 4G, 5G or wifi to access data. This inadvertently creates security holes, because they are far less secure than using an internal LAN.
Data security in agriculture is still a strange concept to most farmers, even when they use high-value devices such as drones. To fully benefit from IoT, they are recommended to maintain the system periodically, and should not keep a data import and export routine.
Văn Việt
Source: Vietnam Agriculture Newspaper
