The future of Agriculture finds itself at a technological crossroads. Disrupted by climate change, constantly shifting demand for exports, and a growing global population, the sector is searching for new ways to remain relevant, sustainable and profitable.
A recent report by McKinsey and Company found that that the successful implementation of connectivity in agriculture, could brought $500 billion more to the global GDP over the next decade.
The agriculture sector requires rapid technological transformation. This include IoT devices and systems, which helps farmers and producers find new efficiencies in land use, water use and crop management.
In Australia, IoT in Agriculture is still in its first steps. Discover the three key reasons:
- Farms while often large businesses, do not function like city-based corporations. They do not have CIOs or CTOs to lead IT projects. This creates a barrier to adoption, which without education and industry support is difficult to overcome.
- Technology and solution providers are just starting. And until they start to understand the unique and specific needs of the environments their technology is being implemented in, adoption will remain steady, but slow.
- While the economics of ‘low investment high yield’ are well understand by the sector in relation to IoT devices and systems, the investment culture remains very linear.
Four leading experts as part of our ‘Agriculture’s Connected Future’ webinar explore these challenges in a webinar. Alicia Asin, CEO of Libelium, Paul Stapleton, Director of Precision Livestock Farming, Patrick Eckle, CEO of Digio and Simay Akinci, IoT Solutions Engineer at M2M Connectivity.
Key themes about future of Agriculture:
- Making data meaningful for maximum efficiency from IoT. Collecting data is just the start of the IoT journey.
- IoT must be seen as a long-term investment and not just the purchase of device infrastructure.
- Technology companies have to educate and guide the sector to achieve IoT adoption.
- Having the right technology partner is the key in any IoT project for success.
- Nothing better than getting ‘boots on the ground’ to understand the technological needs and challenges of farmers and agricultural businesses.
- Reliability should be a primary consideration when designing and integrating IoT systems for the rugged and extreme agriculture environments.
Experts concluded that technology has a major part to play in the evolution of Agriculture in Australia. However, education and culture have an equally important role to play to maximize yields from it.
Watch the Alicia Asín intervention in the webinar:
