31 August 2021
Alastair Williamson, CEO at Wyld Networks
Alastair Williamson, CEO at Wyld Networks looks at why agriculture is turning to the IoT for help and the role of satellite comms
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has predicted that global food production in 2050 will need to be 70% higher than in 2009, as the world population and calorie per capita intake continues to grow rapidly.
To generate increases in yield without a major increase in land resource is going to require major changes in the face of climate change; forcing agricultural producers to battle against water shortages, increasing temperatures and more freak weather incidents. Meeting these targets will require a quantum leap in technology and tech take up in farming. However, this transformation is underway and at its heart is a growing, super-efficient agritech ecosystem with a dynamic, wirelessly connected IoT.
Demand for data
Fundamental to this agricultural innovation revolution is the need for more data points to give agronomists, engineers, designers and farmers a highly granular data picture of the food production cycle’s aspects. BI Intelligence predicts that by 2035 there will be over four million data points per day on the average farm - an eight-fold increase on 2020.
Key data sources include soil moisture sensing, weather stations, crop and storage monitoring, livestock and asset tracking, following the complete field to fork journey.
For example, the moisture level of soil at different locations and depths across a farm helps to calculate the best times for sowing and harvesting, while detecting temperature changes in a greenhouse makes it possible to adjust ventilation and irrigation accordingly.
So much of agricultural success depends on being able to accurately measure and translate environmental conditions into intelligent insights and acting upon them, presenting truly enormous possibilities for agricultural IoT. Sensors measuring the location of livestock, weather or soil conditions are relatively cheap and straightforward to deploy, yet deliver unparalleled visibility and benefits across the biggest farms and ranches.
Farmers can monitor field conditions from anywhere, with data flowing seamlessly from sensors to the cloud and on to a laptop or cell phone app. This increases operational efficiency, lowers costs, reduces waste and improves the quantity and quality of yield. For example, it is estimated IoT could save up to 50 billion gallons of water annually, as sensors help farmers to optimise water usage.
Connectivity problems
Designing, producing and deploying sensors and devices needs to go hand in hand with connectivity improvements. The current pace of broadband change and mobile connectivity in rural Britain, according to the 2019 NFU survey, is unacceptably slow. Sixty-four percent of farmers believe their broadband speed is insufficient for their business needs and 59% think the cellular signal they receive is insufficient. The UK’s Stuart Roberts, NFU Vice President, said: “Many members feel they still don’t have adequate access to the broadband services needed to run a modern-day farming business.”
However, connectivity for the IoT does not rely solely on cellular and Wi-Fi. Other wireless radio technologies are available.
LoRa and LoRaWAN
LoRa is a modulation method for transmitting long range radio signals with low-power. For example, a remote soil moisture sensor may send small data packets several times a day over a distance of say 10 kilometers for over 3-5 years, on two AA batteries. LoRaWAN is the standard protocol for wide area network communications using LoRa, creating an IoT network with bi-directional communications.
Sensor-to-satellite
An emerging technology in agritech is sensor-to-satellite connectivity. Using LoRa, it is possible to send data from the farm directly to a Low Earth Orbit satellite without the need to maintain a terrestrial LoRa network. Effectively, the terrestrial gateway is replaced by a gateway in space, freeing up sensors to be placed literally anywhere on the globe, however remote.
This means unserviced connectivity areas will come into range, while access to remote data opens up new applications. For example, a crop requiring a certain soil type, water input and fertiliser may become possible in a given environment if the true information of the ecosystem is understood, both on a macro level and in a highly-localised way. Specific, granular conditions can alter inputs to improve yield and reduce environmental impacts. The opportunity to blend this data with highly local satellite imagery is a potential game changer.
Future harvests
There is a massive potential for IoT innovation in global agriculture, connecting wireless sensors, from the corn and wheat heartlands of the USA, to sub-Saharan cassava production in Nigeria, to livestock farms of Argentina and to vertical farming in any urban global area.
Agricultural colleges and universities, agronomists, agrometrics software providers and farmers all stand to benefit from these new rich, granular data sources. Along with machine learning and AI breakthroughs, improvements in data flow are predicted to radically gain pace to deliver against the demanding environmental and agricultural targets lying ahead.
