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What's the
deal?
By Prabhu Shankar Lakshmanan
Feeding the future has a lot of challenges. Photo by Tanaphong Toochinda on Unsplash
“Are there not enough powerful technologies in the world already? If so, why
are people in some parts of the world suffer without food and others not?”,
my father asked during a conversation about my PhD. My father was a
farmer. He never knew how to read and write. The question made me explore
digital farming and big data application along with my research and business
interest.
Application of technologies
Crop selection
Seed selection
Once the crop is selected, the farmer must select seeds that possess traits
relevant to the specific agro-climatic conditions, such as drought tolerance,
disease tolerance, yield and quality. At some cases, the need for seed
treatment prior to sowing is required. The seeds and treatment chemicals
should be pre-ordered or checked for timely arrival not to miss the season.
Land preparation
Land should be prepared based on crop type, soil types, irrigation methods,
planting and harvesting methods, availability of other resources like labor,
finance, machinery, etc., Soil analyzes can provide insights of needed
fertilizer or manuring. Biodiversity of soil should be nurtured for various
reasons including soil health and nutrient disperse.
Planting or sowing
Irrigation
Weed management
Regional data about all the crops, previous outbreak of disease or pest,
vulnerability of the crops are relevant data to be stored and analyzed for
blocking the disease or pest development. Direct monitoring is very
important to avoid crop and yield loss. Image analysis are key tools for
managing pest or disease.
Nutrient management
Soil type, analyzes, crop nutrient requirement are relevant data which can
provide solutions such as type of fertilizers, nutrient contents to be used.
Yield management
Even flowering and fruiting is crucial for some crops to avoid multiple
transportation cost. Induction of flowering through providing appropriate
nutrients, chemicals, wind, and availability of insect for pollination decides
fruiting, ripening and fruit lose.
Harvesting methods differ based on crop types, timing, storage duration and
transportation. Timely harvesting can prevent seeds or fruits not to germinate
and help maintaining high quality. Certain harvest need to be done before
raining or heavy wind. Harvested materials mostly need to be stored at dry
and cool warehouses. Moisture content of the storage rooms should be
maintained at required level. The data can digitally be linked to transport
companies and food processors for decision making.
Concluding remarks
To come back to my father’s question, digitization of agriculture has a lot of
potential to produce more food, make farmers rich and create new jobs.
However, in my opinion, controlling of food wastage (i.e. about 35% or 1.3
billion tons is wasted) and even distribution to the starving parts of the world
will be able to solve sustainability of food supply and environment.
Digitization of entire agribusiness value chain will solve these issues.
About the author: Prabhu Shankar Lakshmanan holds a PhD (Plant Breeding and Genetics)
from Gent University/ILVO, Belgium and pursuing Global MBA specialization in Management
Consulting and AgBigData at GGSB, France.
References
Wolfert, S., Ge, L., Verdouw, C. and Bogaardt, M.J., 2017. Big data in smart
farming–a review. Agricultural Systems, 153, pp.69-80.