With the delightful adoption rates of IoT, most of the connected devices around us have penetrated almost every aspect of life. Then be it agriculture, healthcare, education, manufacturing, fitness, home automation, transport, law and order, the possibilities are endless. 

We intend to talk about agriculture specifically as a stream where IoT is playing a critical role. We have been seeing agriculture modernizing for centuries, and in line to that now IoT is redefining the way agriculture is looked at in India. In the last few decades, agriculture has seen huge transformations in terms of its techniques and usage of modern approaches along with super-smart gadgets. Farming now is innovative, strategic, technology-driven, and efficient with the usage of smart IoT and automation.

Wondering how conventional agricultural practices are changing into smart farming?

Let's delve deep into what smart agriculture is and explore the role of IoT in farming and how promising it is.

What is Smart Agriculture?

There are many terms that are mostly interchangeably used when it comes to modern agriculture, such as AgriTech or Smart Farming? However, there are slight differences in the definitions of these terms. 

So, when we say smart agriculture, we refer to the usage of IoT solutions in agriculture. AgriTech refers to the general usage of technology in agriculture.

According to the UN, the world's population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050, which will cause global agricultural production to rise 69% between 2010 and 2050. Such demand needs attention from the fraternity, and hence farmers and agricultural companies are turning to IoT for analytics and greater production capabilities.

Many startups and young enthusiasts too are working to bring about changes and advancements that could turn conventional ways into more sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective techniques. 

CropIn, a Bengaluru-based startup, is an intuitive, intelligent, self-evolving system that delivers future-ready farming solutions to the entire agricultural sector. It delivers decision-making tools that bring consistency, dependability, and sustainability to agri-businesses.

According to the CEO, Krishna Kumar “The world population is expected to cross the 10 billion mark by the middle of the century and its combined impact with urbanization and the rise of middle class is bound to create a higher demand of healthy, fairly produced, and sustainable food which would require the current produce to double by that time. In meeting this goal, smart agtech solutions would prove instrumental by optimizing agricultural practices, minimizing waste, developing climate resilience, and providing timely agricultural advisory.”

Some of the key benefits of smart Agriculture are mentioned below:

• Sustainability
• Cost efficiency
• Increased productivity
• Waste reduction
• Low production risks
• Operational automation

Application areas/use cases for IoT in agriculture:

• Agricultural sensors - Farmers today are using sensors, smartphones, and drones to have a detailed analysis of both the topography and resources in the desired area. Smart farming sensors located across the field collect data around various environmental parameters and send it to the cloud. This provides fine details of soil quality, temperature, and other variables.
•  Farming drones - Drones can assist farmers with crop surveying, soil and land analysis, livestock tracking, and monitoring. Farmers can also use pesticides for crops accordingly and in the desired manner and quantity.
•  Smart Greenhouses - They can automatically adjust various parameters such as temperature, humidity, irrigation, or lighting. This can be done remotely using IoT and connected devices, which aids in a hassle-free, predator-safe, efficient crop conducive environment.
• Monitoring climate conditions - This allows easier climate predictions and weather patterns. With smartphones, farmers can conveniently monitor crops, yield, livestock, and even equipment. Finer details around livestock health, feeding, and produce can also be drawn through smart analysis using big data. Becoming climate-proof is another important aspect the modern agriculturists are looking forward to. With the climatic conditions getting haywire and increasing population, it is important to adopt vertical farming techniques. This can be achieved even with space constraints in controlled environments powered by data provided by smart IoT sensors.
• Crop management - Crop rotation, management, and monitoring can be made easier with insights provided by data around crop growth, anomalies, crop health, precipitation levels, humidity, and climatic conditions. Crop management devices can change the game for farmers and make their decision-making more aligned to profitability.
•  Water management - Using too much or too little irrigation may prove to be hazardous to crops. This makes appropriate watering or, to say, water management critical. IoT-connected sensors can help in deciding the need based on land's moisture content, crop requirement, and climate conditions. Farmers can use this data to act accordingly then.
• Cattle monitoring and management - IoT agriculture sensors can be attached to the farm animals to get details around their health, temperature, grazing pattern, activity, and nutritional levels. 

The future of agriculture would be mostly dependant on data collection and analysis along with customized smart solutions. There are endless possibilities of IoT in agriculture; however, it is very important for one to assess his needs and requirements first. Before rushing into adopting these smart farming techniques, one shall note all the hardware requirements, maintenance costs, right data analytic tools, and infrastructure.