The agricultural landscape is changing
Large scale macro-farms are replacing family owned micro-farms. The demand for food is escalating. Agribusiness is turning to the Internet of Things (IoT) for analytics and greater production capabilities. Farmers create more efficient operations to gather information in the field, quickly synthesize data and make intelligent decisions to manage their business and reap the benefits of precision farming.
Technology trends in smart agriculture
Technology has become extremely valuable for agribusiness as they adapt to the changing demand of consumers, retail and the agriculture industry. Semtech’s LoRa-based IoT allows farmers to digitally monitor, manage and analyse every aspect of their business. From tracking cattle health, to monitoring pregnant cows to increasing crop yields. LoRa gets its name from the ability to provide Long Range communications, using very low power levels.
Livestock tracking
A cow tag, embedded into LoRa technology, can measure a cow’s body temperature, head movement and general mobility. An application server looks for ‘outliers’. This data becomes an indicator for cows’ health and subsequently enables farmers to quickly take action and prevent diseases among their cattle from spreading.
Maximizing Crop Yields
Controlling water and soil gives the farmer the possibility to increase crop yields to the maximum level within weather and crop constraints. WaterBit LoRa technology irrigation sensors provide two-way communications for sensor readings and implementing control actions in response to the primary needs of irrigation and fertilization. Sensors can detect the water level, iron content and salinity of the soil. This ultimately leads to better management of their crops and a higher crop yield.
Key benefits for smart agriculture
The following points are valuable for the future of smart agriculture, in which collecting and analysing data are important in order to maximize efficiency. Lora technology:
- utilizes a GPS-free geolocation technology that does not require additional power;
- operates with no or very low spectrum costs;
- has an open standard and allows seamless and easy scalability;
- uses public and private networks ready for implementation;
- robust signalling can penetrate for wide ranging coverage even in rural areas;
- currently comprises over 500 companies and facilitates networked communication among this growing ecosystem;
- allows secure data transmission in rural areas.
For more information, have a look at the article on the website of Semtech.
