TELECOM OPERATOR’S ROLE IN SMART AGRICULTURE

Internet of Things (IoT) technology is expected to play a significant role in enhancing agricultural productivity to meet food demand. Smart agriculture incorporates IoT-based advanced technologies and solutions to improve operational efficiency, maximize yield, and minimize wastage through real-time field data collection, data analysis, and deployment of control mechanism. Diverse IoT-based applications such as variable rate technology, precision farming, smart irrigation, and smart greenhouse will be instrumental to the enhancement of agricultural processes. IoT can addressagriculture-based issues and increase the quality and quantity of agricultural production, making farms more intelligent and more connected.

IoT Smart Farming

Several IoT-based applications in smart agriculture are designed to enhance productivity. Major applications of IoT for smart agriculture include:

1. Precision Farming: Precision farming is an approach to farm management that uses IoT and information and communication (ICT) technologies to optimize returns and ensure the preservation of resources. Precise farming entails the obtaining of real-time data on the conditions of crops, soil, and air. This approach aims at ensuring profitability and sustainability while protecting the environment.
2. Variable Rate Technology (VRT): VRT refers to any technology which enables producers to vary the rate of crop inputs. It combines a variable-rate (VR) control system with application equipment to apply inputs at a precise time or location to achieve site-specific application rates of inputs.
3. Smart Irrigation: The need to enhance the efficiency of irrigation processes and minimize water losses is on the rise. There is an increasing awareness on the conservation of existing water resources by employing sustainable and efficient irrigation systems. IoT-based smart irrigation measures various parameters such as humidity, soil moisture, temperature, and light intensity to calculate the precise requirements for water. It has been proved that such mechanism can contribute to higher irrigation efficiency.
4. Smart Greenhouse: The smart greenhouse allows farmers to cultivate crops with minimal human intervention. Climatic conditions such as temperature, humidity, luminosity, and soil moisture are continuously monitored inside a greenhouse. Variations in these conditions will trigger automated actions. These actions will then evaluate the changes and implement corrective actions to maintain optimal conditions for plant growth.

Precision farming to control irrigation and improve fertilization strategies on corn crops

5. Soil Monitoring Systems: Such systems can assist farmers in tracking and improving the quality of soil to avoid degradation. They allow for the monitoring of a number of physical, chemical, and biological properties such as texture, water-holding capacity and the absorption rate. Soil monitoring can help minimize erosion, densification, salinization, acidification, and pollution by toxic elements that can degrade soil quality.

TELECOM OPERATOR’S ROLE IN AGRICULTURE

Telecom operators can play a crucial role in the agricultural sector. They are expected to benefit from an increased number of connections, offering greater potential for additional value added services. The majority of telecom operators offer predominantly connectivity services, but connectivity only represents a small portion of the total revenue. In the future, mobile operators can provide end to end IoT services to generate further revenue growth.

THE FUTURE

The “Connected Farm” is the future of farming. The concept is spreading quickly and creating significant disruption in the agricultural sector. IoT thinking is changing agricultural practices on a daily basis. IoT uptake is already a mainstream phenomenon driven by the promise of revenue growth across the agricultural value chain. Taking advantage of the realtime data IoT provides, farmers can work their land while receiving updates from any asset anywhere on their properties — from crops, machinery, and markets: all monitored without the need for the farmer’s presence.

We expected mobile operators with strong IoT ambitions to generate significant revenues in smart agriculture by collaborating with LPWA technology providers.