Smart Farming in Kenya - Precision Agriculture
Precision Agriculture, commonly referred to as Smart Farming, enables farmers to increase yields while utilizing a minimum amount of resources like water, fertilizer, and seeds. Farmers may start understanding their crops at a micro scale, save resources, and lessen their influence on the environment by deploying sensors and mapping fields. When civilian access to the Global Positioning System (GPS) began in the 1980s, smart agriculture began to take off. Farmers were able to monitor and only treat weeds and fertilizer where it was necessary after precisely mapping their crop fields. Crop yield monitoring was embraced by early practitioners of precision agriculture in the 1990s to produce suggestions for fertilizer and pH correction. More measurements and inputs into a crop model would enable more precise suggestions for fertilizer application, watering, and even peak yield harvesting.
In the past and into the future, farming has been and will continue to be a labor-intensive, manual endeavor. Almost all of the above industry areas are now impacted by technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data & Analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML). How is it possible that current Internet and communication technology (ICT) and agriculture do not interact?
In this article, we'll examine how these sensing technologies have been incorporated into contemporary large agribusiness and talk about how spreading the technology to local small farms as well as around the world will help us feed a growing population.
What are Agriculture Sensors - Precision Agriculture
Introduction:
Agriculture sensors are those utilized in smart farming. These sensors offer information that helps farmers monitor and improve crops by adjusting to changes in the environment. Weather stations, drones, and agricultural robots all have these sensors attached. Mobile apps created especially for the purpose allow for their control. Based on wireless connectivity, they can be managed directly through Wi-Fi or indirectly via cellular towers using cellular frequencies using a mobile phone app.
The list of agricultural sensors used for various tasks in the agricultural industry is shown in the following table.
Table 1 Types of Sensors Used In Agriculture - Precision Agriculture
|
Agriculture Sensors |
Functional Description |
|
Location Sensors |
The
latitude, longitude, and altitude of any position within the required area
are determined by these sensors. For this, they use GPS satellite assistance. |
|
Optical Sensors |
These sensors
measure the soil's characteristics using light. To measure the amount of
clay, organic matter, and moisture in the soil, they are mounted on
satellites, drones, or robots. |
|
Electro-Chemical Sensors |
By
identifying particular ions in the soil, these sensors assist in acquiring
chemical information about the soils. They offer data in the form of pH and
soil nutrient concentrations. |
|
Mechanical Sensors |
These sensors are
used to gauge mechanical resistance or soil compaction. |
|
Dielectric Soil Moisture Sensors |
These
sensors gauge soil's dielectric constant to determine moisture levels. |
|
Air Flow Sensors |
Air permeability is
measured using these sensors. They can be utilized in mobile or fixed
positions. |
What are the Uses of Agriculture Sensors - Precision Agriculture
Following are the Uses of Agriculture Sensors: They are employed in weather stations for agriculture. These devices have sensors that collect data on a variety of variables, including air and soil temperatures, rainfall, leaf moisture content, chlorophyll content, wind direction, solar radiation, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, and others.
They are utilized in numerous pieces of equipment (such as the dendrometer) created by agro-based businesses for use in farming or agricultural pursuits such as assessing leaf moisture, trunk diameter, and other factors. In agriculture, they are employed as drones for spraying pesticides and insecticides. In addition, Due to the drop in the price of electricity, mobile solar-powered pumps have gained a lot of popularity. And E-fences are becoming more and more common, and they protect crops from animals like elephants.
What are the Benefits of Agriculture Sensors - Precision Agriculture
Following are The Benefits or Advantages of Agriculture Sensors: They were developed to increase yields while using the least amount of water, fertilizer, and seeds possible in order to fulfill the rising demand for food. By preserving resources and mapping fields, they achieve this. and They are simple to install and utilize. They also cost less. They can be utilized for pollution and global warming in addition to agriculture. They have a wireless chip so that someone can control them from a distance.
What are Disadvantages of Agriculture Sensors - Precision Agriculture
Following Are The Disadvantages of Agriculture Sensors: IoT technology and smart farming both demand constant internet access. In impoverished nations like Kenya and other parts of the world, this is not accessible. Additionally, there is a perception in the industry that consumers aren't always eager to adopt the newest Internet of Things devices with agriculture sensors. Smart grids, transportation systems, and cellular towers—basic infrastructure needs—are not universally present. This makes it more difficult for its use to increase.
Technology; That Will Take You to the Top in Smart Farming.
Smartphone Tools -Precision Agriculture
Numerous tools on smartphones alone can be adapted for use in farming. For instance, observations of crops and soil can be recorded as photographs, precise locations, colors of the soil, water, plant leaves, and characteristics of the light. Some in-phone data-gathering tools are included in Table 1:
Table 1: Agricultural uses of existing smartphone tools - Precision Agriculture
|
SmartPrecision Agriculture phone Tool |
Precision AgricultureSmart Farming Applications |
|
Camera |
Provides pictures of
leaf health, lighting brightness, chlorophyll measurement, and ripeness
level. Also used for measuring Leaf Area Index (LAI) and measuring soil
organic and carbon makeup. |
|
GPS |
Provides location for crop mapping,
disease/pest location alerts, solar radiation predictions, and fertilizing. |
|
Microphone |
Helps with
predictive maintenance of machinery. |
|
Accelerometer |
Helps determine Leaf Angle Index. Also used
as an equipment rollover alarm. |
|
Gyroscope |
Detects equipment
rollover. |
Smartphone Apps - Precision Agriculture
Numerous smartphone apps are starting to use Internet of Things (IoT) principles, data gathering, and quick processing to give small farmers current, useful information about seeding, weeding, fertilizing, and watering. These programs compile information from portable sensors, distant sensors, and weather stations to produce in-depth evaluations and helpful recommendations. Numerous applications created exclusively for small-scale farmers include:
Disease Detection and Diagnosis: You can send images of questionable plants to professionals for analysis.
Fertilizer Calculator: What nutrients are required can be determined using soil sensors and leaf color.
Soil Study: In addition to pH and chemical data from sensors, soil photographs are captured to help farmers monitor and respond to shifting soil conditions.
Water Study: Farmers can estimate their water needs by using brightness logging and leaf area index determination from photographs.
Crop Harvest Readiness: Camera photos with UV and white lights accurately predict ripeness.
The quality of life for small farmers can significantly increase when specialized programs increase farm output by assessing soil, crop, weed, and insect characteristics and providing helpful feedback for agricultural decisions.
Conclusion - Precision Agriculture
Smart Farming; Utilizing technology that make it easier and less expensive to collect and analyze data, adjust to changing environmental conditions, and make the best use of resources, precision agriculture has grown to satisfy the rising global demand for food. Smaller farms are now able to benefit from these technologies as well, using tools incorporated into smart phones, pertinent software, and smaller-sized machines, even though huge farms were the first to adopt them. Additionally, these technologies are helping to find solutions to problems like pollution, global warming, and conservation that go beyond farms.
The future of smart farming is not simply an abstract idea; it is a path for study, technological advancement, and, most importantly, innovation. Agri-food companies, technology providers, and ultimately all of us as consumers stand to benefit greatly from new Internet of Things (IoT)-based solutions that make the best use of digital devices and the virtual world in difficult as well as severe situations.
Increased utilization of autonomous farm vehicles and improved wireless data collecting from more intelligent, smaller unmanned aerial and ground vehicles are predicted in the future advances of precision agriculture (UAVs and UGVs, respectively). These smaller vehicles can monitor the status of farm equipment in addition to crop and soil conditions, which enables farmers to perform better machine servicing and maintenance. In general, agricultural practices will continue to benefit from process advances discovered in the industrial manufacturing sector.
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