Introduction
One of the oldest and vital sectors in the world is facing many difficulties required to feed the world’s increasing population with the required and quality level of products, utilization of climate variability, resource constraints, among others. To overcome such challenges, successful integration of IoT solutions have shown great impact especially for the farming and agribusiness industry by providing farmers with the means to analyze various aspects of farming. IoT platforms and device management platforms are vital in triggering, overseeing and controlling devices and sensors over expansive geographical farmlands to help support optimal efficient, sustainable and profitable farming system.
This paper outlines the major IoT solutions that are relevant to the agricultural business with a view to shed light on how IoT platform and device management platform can enhance production.
Key IoT Solutions for Agriculture
Precision Farming
Precision farming also known as precision agriculture is the process of using various advanced technologies to manage crops to optimize production based on data collected from IoT sensors and GPS. By allowing farmers to gather data on a small segment of the plant, water, and fertilizers and pesticides can be provided in a targeted and timely manner in order to force mature yield.
IoT Platform Integration: For efficiency in data collection from many sensors, an IoT platform gathers all the data in one place for analysis. The IoT platform gives farmers information on the state of the soil, the crops, and weather outlook, so they are better placed to make sound decisions.
Device Management Platform: Consequently, to function suitably in precision farming, a colossal number of IoT devices, for instance, the soil moisture sensors require effective management. Device management also works to guarantee reliability by overseeing the software that interacts with all the devices in question, firmware updates, calibration, and troubleshooting taking place from a distance.
Automated Irrigation Systems
Irrigation is another utility in agriculture production that challenges farmers, especially in the areas of water deficiency. The automatically controlled irrigation systems connected with IoT help farmers to minimize water consumption and at the same time meet the soil moisture and weather conditions as well as crop demands. This technology considerably minimizes water usage and guarantees plants get the right amount of water, hence increasing yield and quality.
IoT Platform Integration: Regarding the IoT platforms, water distribution and soil moisture data can be accessed by farmers from any location they are. To ensure optimal configuration, it accumulates data from the sensors installed in the fields and consequently changes the irrigation program.
Device Management Platform: Irrigation sensors across large fields are well managed by a device management platform, and it on a single platform all the devices used on the fields are controlled and maintained hence provision of a proper irrigation systems.
Livestock Monitoring
In livestock farming too, IoT solutions are introduce in tracking the health, location and productivity of the livestock. Hearables or collars and tags that are embedded with GPS and biometric features monitor each animal’s heart rate and physical activity, location, and more.
IoT Platform Integration: One example of IoT applicated to health is collecting the data from wearables and share it with an IoT platform which can monitor the person and if he has an anormal behaviour or a health problem, the system sends a notification. For example, if a cow’s activity level is down or its vital statistics are not normal, the system can let the farmer know to give the animal proper care.
Device Management Platform: Most of the cattle are raised over large areas, making it necessary for there to be a device management platform for each functioning wearable device. It enables diagnostics for solving issues, checking battery level and applying firmware for ameliorated prolonged performance.
Benefits of IoT Platforms and Device Management Platforms in Agriculture
The integration of IoT platform and device management platforms offers a range of advantages in agriculture, including:
Real-Time Data Access: The IoT platforms can provide the farmers with real time information of different parameters to enable them make the right decisions as well as take corrective actions.
Operational Efficiency: Ask users’ workload is minimize through IoT automation while device management platforms guarantee that all devices are fit for use making operation much more efficient.
Cost Savings: Management of inputs for instance water and fertilizers is made efficient; hence it reduces input costs. This case, also, predictive analytics aids in minimizing losses from disease or unfavorable climate.
Sustainability: It can be ascertained, therefore IoT solutions play a role of enhancing environment conservation through efficient use of resources and minimizing wastage hence enhancing farmers to engage in sustainable farming.
Several challenges often occur in the implementation of IoT to address agriculture; it is therefore important to learn how to address these barriers with ease.
While IoT solutions bring transformative benefits, certain challenges remain, such as:
Connectivity Issues: Some farms located in the rural regions of the country may not receive adequate and reliable connectivity, which makes the implementation of IoT applications in real time ineffective. To address this issue wireless or long range satellite connectivity solutions can be useful.
Data Security: As the agriculture sector continues to depend on IoT devices, it becomes important to safeguard such information. To avoid such vulnerability, there must be secure IoT platforms and device management platforms that have well enhanced security features.
Device Management Complexity: When there are a lot of IoT devices handling can be tricky but with a good device management solution, it becomes easier because it involves the handling of all the multiple tasks at central point with no need for users’ intervention.
Conclusion
Thanks to IoT solutions many innovations are now use in agriculture, farmers have an opportunity to get higher yields with less resources. The current improvements are made possible by IoT platforms and device management platform that must offer the relevant data and controls for the efficient farming process. With advancement of IoT technologies, several opportunities will come up in the farming industry enabling accuracy, sustainability and efficiency in farming to meet the future demand. To this end, leveraging IoT-as-a-solution in the agricultural value chain is not only about the option for success—it is rather a imperative for a robust, sustainable and productive food supply system.
