Farmer’s Weekly – 30 August 2019

CROPS Precision Agriculture

Evenmoreastoundingis thatthe

samereportbyBIIntelligence

alsoprojectedthatby2034,the

averagefarmgloballywould

begenerating4,1milliondata

pointsdaily,originatingfromcell

phonesallthewaytocombine

harvesters.Backin2008,this

figurewasestimatedtobezero.

DeVriessaysfarmersglobally

arestrugglingtocopewiththe

volumeofinformation.Unless

thereareplatformstoconsolidate

thisrangeofdatainputsintoa

formatthatis easytounderstand,

manageandutilise,theproblem

is goingtogrow,tothedetriment

ofwhatthetechnologyis

tryingtoachieve,namelycost-

effective,profitable,sustainable,

andincreasedfoodandfibre

productionusingfewerresources.

“Technologymaybeniceto

have,butit’suselessif it doesn’t

generatesomeformofvaluefor

B

y itsnature,a commercial

farmingbusinessgenerates

substantialquantitiesof

dataintheformofhand-written

notes,hardanddigitalcopiesof

documents,and,inthecasesof

moretechnologicallyadvanced

operations,a streamofdata

fromanarrayofelectronic

sensorsanduserinputs.

A challengefacedbymany

SouthAfricanfarmersis to

efficientlyandeffectively

consolidate,store,analyse

andusethisoftendisparate,

potentiallybewildering,but

valuableinformationtomake

informedmanagementdecisions.

“Itdoesn’thelpthatthereare

alreadyover 100 companies

offeringanever-increasingarray

oftechnologiesandassociated

productstomonitor,measure

andfacilitatediverseaspects

ofmodernfarmingbusinesses.

“Theseaspectsincludefarm

managementsoftware,precision

agricultureandpredictive

analytics,sensors,smart

irrigation,animalandcropdata

andanalysis,roboticsanddrones,

marketplaces,andnowevennext-

generationfarms,”saysDeVries.

AgricultureAndthe

internetofthings

Accordingtoa 2016reportby

IoTAnalytics,it wasestimated

that6%oftheInternetofThings

(IoT)globallywasalreadybeing

usedonfarmsaroundthe

world.Anotherreport,thistime

publishedin 2015 byinternational

businessresearchcompany

BusinessInsiderIntelligence

(BIIntelligence),estimatedthat

in2020, 75 millionIoTdevices

wouldbeshippedtofarms

globally,morethandoublethe

30 millionfigurefor2015.

ErikdeVries, a directorat precisionfarmingconsultancyAgriTechnovation,saysthenumberand

diversityof datapointsgeneratedbyprecisionagriculture technologiesrequirecapablecentral

platformsto allowtheinformationto addvalueto farmingbusinesses.LloydPhillipsreports.

Dealing with the

data produced by

precision farming

ABOVE:

A modern farmer

must be able to

easily access

important and

understandable

data required

for informed

management

decision-making.

ADOBE STOCK

38 farmer’sweekly 30 August 2019