The IoT in agriculture is what the world needs now to feed and sustain its ever-growing population. With its advanced remote sensors, the IoT in farming allows real-time tracking. From detecting crop diseases and pests to soil moisture fluctuations, IoT technologies help farmers solve critical farming challenges.
With IoT, they can lower their farming expenses and increase yields. As the Internet of Things becomes inevitable for efficiency, this is the best time to explore how it works in the agricultural sector. How is IoT reshaping farming operations? This detailed guide reveals ten popular uses of the Internet of Things in agriculture.
Discover 10 Usage Cases of IoT in Agriculture
As the global population increases, challenges such as food shortages are unavoidable. Farmers can no longer meet the rising demand for more food without altering their farming strategies, practices, and equipment.
Technologies such as the Internet of Things in agriculture are here to help professional farmers modernize their operations, increase food production, and lower operational costs. Below are ten creative ways to use IoT in your farming activities:
1. Create IoT-enabled Irrigation Systems
Managing water in dry and semi-arid agricultural regions is difficult. Farmers in these areas cannot predict the rainfall patterns with precision and therefore rely on irrigation systems. With the smart IoT-powered irrigation systems, farmers can forecast weather patterns more accurately, track soil moisture and temperature, and deliver just the right amount of water.
IoT uses sensors to track moisture levels and transmit this data to a cloud platform for analysis. Then, the irrigation system starts automatically when moisture levels drop below a preset threshold.
An IoT-powered irrigation system lowers water usage by thirty to fifty percent. It also promotes precision irrigation to save water and energy and lower labor costs. This irrigation system prevents crops from shriveling and drying, increasing the yields.
2. Internet of Things Supports Precision Agriculture
IoT in agriculture eliminates the trial-and-error approach to crop management. The IoT sensors monitor every section of the yard, allowing you to allocate tailored resources and reduce wastage.
Sensors track factors such as soil nutrients and moisture levels, pH balance, rainfall, sunlight exposure, humidity, and temperature. The data they collect can help you save pesticides and fertilizer, minimize environmental impact on your crops, and boost harvest per acre or section.
3. Automation of the Greenhouse
Another application of IoT in agriculture is the automation of greenhouses. Greenhouse farming works best only if you meet specific growing conditions. With IoT farming techniques, you can automate climate parameters such as lighting duration and intensity, carbon dioxide levels, humidity, and temperature.
Automated greenhouse farming can reduce human error, maintain consistent growing conditions, optimize energy usage, and boost crop quantity and quality.
4. Detection of Crop Diseases and Pests
Pests and diseases are the greatest threats to farming. Not only do they destroy crops, but they also reduce yields and the quality of the harvest. IoT in agriculture can solve this problem with detection tools such as cameras and biosensors.
These can detect pests and diseases at the earliest stages and provide automatic alerts and suggestions. These IoT-based tools can identify nutritional deficiencies by analyzing the leaf color patterns. They can detect bug infestations that lead to fungal and bacterial infections.
Hence, these advanced IoT technologies minimize crop loss in both large-scale and small-scale farming operations. Targeted spraying reduces pesticide wastage, improves crop health, and saves labor and time.
5. Climate Monitoring Meteorological Stations
Farmers rely on the data that local weather stations provide to practice accurate farming activities. Traditional weather monitoring stations are not as precise as the IoT-enabled options. IoT-based weather stations study varying microclimates across agricultural lands with speed and accuracy.
They use sensors that work even in areas with limited power and internet connectivity. These sensors gather data on rainfall patterns, wind direction and speed, temperature and humidity levels, soil temperature, and UV radiation.
Data from IoT-based weather stations can enhance your irrigation schedules, optimize pesticide and fertilizer usage, and shield your crops from unpredictable weather.
6. Advanced Soil Testing
Yield quality and quantity depend on the soil health. Traditional soil testing methods are less reliable because they are slow and inconsistent at producing data. IoT in agriculture is here to change that with its advanced wireless sensor networks.
Many soil monitoring sensors exist, producing data on humidity, temperature, and nutrient levels. Traditional ways of monitoring large tracks of land are both laborious and expensive.
IoT-based agriculture relies on cloud platforms for data processing and analytics.
They promote accurate decision-making, helping farmers avoid crop loss from abrupt climate change or nutritional deficiencies.
7. Automation of Farm Machinery and Equipment
IoT in agriculture includes automated farming equipment. You can now use IoT-powered drones, robots, harvesters, and tractors to increase your productivity and profits. Automated farming equipment offers GPS features that guide driving and track fuel usage.
You can use mobile apps to monitor your field from afar and receive predictive maintenance alerts in real-time. Farming equipment automation supports the crop lifecycle, from planting to harvesting. It lowers downtime, increases accuracy and speed for field tasks, and saves labor in the peak season.
8. Livestock Management
Do you deal with livestock farming? IoT in agriculture solves issues that you face when monitoring and managing your domestic animals. The main cause of death of livestock and decreased productivity is undetected health issues.
Now, IoT-based wearable gadgets like ear tags and neck collars can offer consistent disease monitoring and track livestock movements. You can detect diseases early and treat your animals before they become severely ill.
In addition, you can lower your veterinary expenses by treating disease symptoms early. Feeding livestock without wasting resources is hard for most farmers. IoT-enabled devices use GPS features to track livestock whereabouts across the land.
You can use the GPS data to improve feed and water allocation. These devices can monitor your animals’ reproductive cycles, letting you predict the mating and calving seasons with precision. Monitoring livestock grazing patterns and locations can prevent theft. As you enhance livestock welfare, you can produce more milk and meat.
9. Agriculture Robots and Drones
IoT in agriculture also entails robots and drones. Harvesting can trigger damage and losses if it is slow due to unpredictable weather patterns and labor shortages. With robots, you can speed up vegetable and fruit harvesting with minimal damage.
Robots can offer targeted weed control, minimizing pesticide wastage and boosting yields. Besides robots, farmers can use drones to do various tasks. One of these is planting, as drones can distribute seeds more evenly and efficiently in difficult terrains.
Moreover, drones can spray crops more accurately from above. They can reduce chemical usage while protecting them from pests and diseases. Drones offer cameras and sensors with premium features, allowing you to gather valuable aerial data.
You can use drones for land surveying, soil monitoring, livestock counting and monitoring, checking the distribution of irrigation water across fields, and detecting pests and diseases.
10. Different Remote SensorsÂ
IoT sensors for agriculture price and benefits coincide. These remote sensors help with crop monitoring to detect signs of pests, diseases, and stress. They also check rainfall and humidity levels, allowing you to optimize your irrigation practices.
Remote sensors check soil nutrients and pH levels to guide your fertilization activities. Sensors enable livestock farmers to track animal health, location, and grazing patterns. In greenhouses, sensors regulate humidity, temperature, and lighting conditions.
Final Word
IoT in agriculture is an upgrade that enables farmers to shift from traditional farming techniques. The future of IoT in agriculture is bright, as it makes farming more sustainable and profitable. Millions of farmers will adopt IoT farming to automate their activities, reduce operational costs, improve yields, and withstand climate change.