In the second half of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century, a technological revolution in farming led by advances in sensing and robotics technologies looks set to disrupt traditional farming. This technology changes forever the way farmers work. Performance of agriculture and modern farms technics work far differently than those a few decades ago, because of advancements in technology, including sensors, devices, machines and information technology. Today’s agriculture prefers to use advanced technologies such as robots, temperature indicators and moisture sensors and GPS technology. These advanced technologies and robotic systems allow businesses to be more profitable, effective, and secure and environmentally friendly.
Background of the Agriculture Sector
The first twin-rotor system combine was introduced in the year 1975. This system allowed to cut crop and separate in one side over the field. In 1994, a widely known scientist introduced satellite; it helped farmers to use this technology to see their farms from overhead and allowing them for better tracking and planning. Year 2000 was a technology revolution year; when people got to know about the use of mobile phone. Likely many people and farmers started using mobile phone which helps them to maintain communication and on the other hand it facilitated farmers to place orders for seeds, fertilizer and it provided information towards new techniques. The data revolution is helping people to take the right decision, and farmers are no exemption. New mobile applications are providing information about the variety of fertilizers, firming process and other resources which help farmers to get knowledge about farming. 2015 was the year when masses introduced with the digital platform that conveys info about data collection, agronomic modeling and local weather monitoring, which gives the idea to farmers about their fields. These tools allow farmers to plan for healthier crops and make firming strategy that is beneficial for the planet. Therefore in the current year, the major breakthrough happened in farming technology which breaks the all previous technics of farming.
Some Breakthrough Technologies are –
Use of Global Positioning System
Mainly GPS technology pinpoints location through satellites. Just like previously tractors replaced draft horse on the farm, GPS technology also replaced eyeballing and guessing process in the farm. GPS can give farmers valuable information about which areas need fertilizer and which don’t. This information can save money and ensure that only the areas that need to nutrients are getting it. GPS guided drones are performing tasks from crop spraying to livestock monitoring and creating 3D maps.
The other technology is Sensor technology;
Sensor technology is basically monitoring everything like soil water content, temperature, humidity in grain silos and information about plant health.
Advantages of Smart Phone
Now a day’s farmers are using advantages of the internet through their mobile phone. For the purpose to check current marker scenario, Firming related videos, agriculture news, new technologies, and invention. In the other hand, they can easily find out those applications which are specifically developed to help farmers. Not only this but also some mobile applications allow them to ask their quires to the experts and get an appropriate response.
Harvesting with WIFI
In the modern agriculture system, technology helping farmer’s to use the electronic sensor distributed process which helps them to find out different conditions; sometimes the gadgets send data to the farm server about the farm condition. This data gets analyzed automatically. Then instruction gets passed on to the farmer which includes an appropriate dose of fertilizer, delivering the right amount of water and finding the hole punched in crop rows. These data’s are easily accessible by the farmer in tablet or smart phones, giving real time information. These advanced technologies can also monitor soil conditions i.e. nitrogen level in the soil and when to add fertilizer.
Robotic Formation in Agriculture
The self-driving cars one of the latest innovation in car manufacturing industry and impact of this innovation could also be witnessed in farming. Robots and self-driving tractors are becoming very common in farming. Which helping farmer to cut cost and time by automating time-consuming tasks done by humans.
There are farming robots for picking strawberries and lettuce, harvesting oranges and pruning grapevines, for mowing hay etc. Many farmers still prefer using human-driven tractors while others are using highly customized and automated tractors attached to sensors and robots. That can perform highly specific tasks, such as detecting where cows have peed and treated the affected grass to stimulate regrowth. Usually, these robots are guided by highly precise GPS tracking that allows them to nimbly navigate through the narrow spaces between crop rows.
Indoor Farming
According to research, Vertical farming or indoor farming is gaining popularity because the farms optimize land use in land-scarce and it can operate on minimal manpower. This technic helps growers of to produce year-round including specialty crops regardless of outdoor weather conditions. But this is not as easy as indoor farming since it is very challenging to produce an ideal sunlight that optimizes growth in cramped indoor spaces. Full-spectrum fluorescent and energy-intensive technologies provide required lights in indoor farming which is very expensive. But innovations of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in recent years have provided a cheaper and better alternative.
LED has also reduced the growing time compare to the traditional lighting technology because farmers can use different configurations to maximize the wavelengths of light certain plants prefer. Hooking LEDs to timers allows indoor farmers to maximize the ratio of light to dark that can speed up the growing process. For example, certain combinations of red and blue LEDs can reduce the amount of time it takes to grow a head of lettuce indoors by up to 17 days.
The Agriculture sector is the essential sector for any countries, as a stable agricultural sector can ensure food security of a nation. It can generate employment and also contributes on countries economic growth. Technology is a magic touch in farming which can help a country to makes drastic changes in this growing sector. In the past, farmers worked hard for farming seeds but now scientist and developers introduced new technology which can reduce farmer work and make them smart and contribute to country’s economic growth.
“Agriculture looks different today – our farmers are using GPS and you can monitor your irrigation systems over the Internet”.
Debbie Stabenow.
