Why Smart Farming

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) recommends that all farming sectors should be equipped with innovative tools and techniques, particularly digital technologies, to counter the many challenges facing this sector. Sustainable farming of the future should be Smart Farming. By smart farming we understand the application of data gathering (edge intelligence), data processing, data analysis and automation technologies on the overall value chain, that jointly orchestrated allow operation and management improvement (analytics) of a farm with respect to standard operations (near real time) and re-use of these data (animal-plant-soil) in improved chain transparency (food safety) and chain optimisation (smart data).

Smart farming aims to optimise the yield per unit of farming land by using the most modern means in a continuously sustainable way to achieve best in terms of quality, quantity and financial return. Smart Farming, also known as precision farming, makes use of a range of technologies that includes GPS technology, sensors, robots, automation/controls, climate forecasting and big data to optimise crop yields.

Benefits

Some of the benefits of developing and implementing smart farming are:

Increase productivity: increase yields by optimizing growth and harvesting processes for example,
Reduce cost: cost of resources (water, energy), lower fertilizer and pesticide usage for examples,
Enhance environmental issues: water and energy consumption, animal feed, health and welfare, plant health, soil pollution, etc.
Increase traceability and transparency in food supply chain (packaging, processing, storage, transport)
Help predict the property value of farms and have insight into the commodities market, - Move closer to consumer demands,
Improve communication with consumers and food processing companies,
Strengthen position in the value chain
Reinforce governance support of farmers’ local communities and improve decision processes. The needs and benefits between large farmers and small farmers are different.

Challenges

These are some of the challenges that smart farming faces:

Data management: Gathering data on a large scale can have privacy implications and these must be respected.
Regulations: As technology changes, so must regulation. Appropriate and timely regulations to govern these developments will have to be put in place.
Connectivity: Farmers are increasingly reliant on accurate, reliable and timely data delivery, but rural areas often suffer from rather poor broadband availability.
Business models: Reliable business models should be developed to clearly show the economic benefits when smart farming technologies are adopted.
Scaling: So far, it is larger farmers who have benefitted most, as early adopters of what have been smarter versions of farm machinery Initiatives should be taken to the uptake of smart technology by farmers at all scales.
Training: Young generation should be trained in software development and IT.