Despite the application of around two million tonnes of pesticides, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN), 20-40% of the global crop yields are lost to pests and diseases. The usage of pesticides and fertilizers need to be controlled and optimized with agriculture solutions. New technology in agriculture is driven by continuous improvements in digital tools as well as collaboration among farmers and researchers in private and public domains. Conventional farming techniques and predictions are replaced by modern technology in agriculture and specific monitoring of crop-needs
Agriculture technology or agri technology is also known as agritech. It is efficient in mapping, monitoring and managing the farming decisions precisely. Agriculture solutions come in various formats such as satellite imagery, sensors, agriculture machines, and software solutions. Drones (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) have emerged in recent years from imagery to advanced processing of depth, texture and quality analysis of soil as well as crop scouting. It can map the yield and also individual crops to spot crop enemies earlier. This allows farmers to apply precise chemicals and to remove pests in early stages. This also helps in avoiding the unnecessary application of chemicals on crops that are not attacked by enemies.
Farming is highly dependent on its resources such as soil quality and texture, water resources, seeds, market demands and most important is weather conditions. Up to 70% of the water we take from rivers and groundwater is consumed in the food and agriculture sector which is three times more than 50 years ago. Whereas, the demand for the water in agriculture is estimated to be increased further by 19% by the year of 2050 due to irrigation needs. The increasing demands of irrigation are threatening to literally dry up the ecosystem. In today’s world of combating challenges like climate change and global warming, the natural resources are shrinking and seasons are becoming unpredictable. At such times, reducing water waste without affecting the yield is essential. Water utility can be restricted with optimization of the crop’s need for water and by choosing the right time to water it. Sensors fixed in the field can accurately sense the humidity in the soil and the analysis of the data predicts the approximate period to water the field.
Crop production is primarily decided by the soil examination, and weather in particular location. In addition, market demands need to be considered with seasons and location. The development of the analytics of economics in agriculture is key to sustaining productivity and profitability in agriculture.
As time passed, agriculture revolutions became a game changer in the agriculture sector. Industrial revolutions and encouragement for the research and development from all around the world changed the face of many domains including farming. Modern technology in agriculture has turned conventional agriculture into a controlled and optimized farming with smarter agriculture solutions. New technology in agriculture is playing a major role in the management of farming. Farm management is a concept of collection of various strategies and methods that are employed in farming to keep the farm productive and profitable.
Farm management works in four modes:
1. Operation and control
2. Study, understanding and description
3. Diagnosis and
Agriculture solutions are concerned with the day-to-day operation and management of an actual farm, estate, cooperative or other farm-based producing/marketing entity. Farm management studies provide understanding and description of farm systems and farm-related problems. Identification of problems and weakness in the farm-level systems are managed in the diagnosis mode. At the end, prescriptive activities are aimed at the prescription of action plans in the agriculture solutions for overcoming problems or weaknesses in the farm management process which calls back to operation and control.
CropIn is an intelligent and self-evolving system delivering smarter agriculture solutions to the entire agriculture sector. It fulfills the requirements of live reporting, analysis, interpretation and insight needed in the modern technology in agriculture for smarter agriculture solutions. Digitization of farms with CropIn is bringing automation in agriculture while reducing the resource utilization. Continuously increasing world population and decreasing resource availability are the current global problems which demand sustainable development in every domain. CropIn brings sustainability in agriculture by strengthening and empowering agri and resources in agri-ecosystem. This is possible through enabling businesses to benefit from actionable insights and empowering farmers through advisory and alerts.
A SaaS (Software as a System) based cloud software provided by CropIn is used to manage financial and field activities of farms. The manual data maintenance on paper by farmers is prone to human calculation errors. With upcoming technologies, farmers were provided with computer spreadsheets to maintain financial data. In the meantime, satellite imagery with agritech brought a field zone tracking in farming. Though this agriculture technology enhanced farming, the management of continuous monitored data and financial records became a challenge for farmers. The technical improvements achieved a agritech SaaS, which is the one of the most efficient tools to manage data analytics and satellite imagery in smarter agriculture solutions. This system works to collect, analyze data and manage all the activities from farm to fork. The contribution of CropIn in the modern technology in agriculture is supporting international farmers by providing innovative technologies, 100% data security and IoT based systems.