How AI & IoT are changing farming

It’s hard to imagine you’ve not noticed how AI & IoT are changing farming in big ways. From livestock tracking to real actionable insights; the advancements are helping producers make bigger profits, operate more sustainably and reduce overhead costs. Today, we’ll highlight the ways, big and small, that AI & IoT are used in modern farming.

AI & IoT in modern farming

Here are some of the core benefits of AI & IoT in modern farming:

Livestock & crop health

The first, and most obvious, are the applications for monitoring and acting on risk factors to livestock & crop health. We’ve explained before how, “livestock health and behaviour can be tracked using GPS and accelerometer technology attached directly to the animal using collars or tags, while crop health can be monitored with drone imagery analytics and field sensors.” But with true integration, farmers can go beyond simple alerts into action-based insights which allow them to trigger appropriate medical care, proactively allocate resources, request essential repairs and more.

Yield enhancement

While IoT sensors can and do inform farmers about soil temperature, nutrients, moisture and more; the real advancement is in insights that allow for a greater crop yield. ML can take sensor data and, together with AI, make recommendations to farmers that actively allow them to make adjustments to enhance crop yields at a farm level.

Farm economics

Beyond looking after the wellbeing of health and livestock, IoT, ML & AI can work to cut costs, predict maintenance needs and track assets. Applied agri fintech and ML systems like ours let farmers proactively manage risk so their businesses are future-proofed and more sustainable.

Sustainability

Technology is helping farmers monitor for pollutants, meet regulatory requirements and contribute to conscientious land management efforts that will improve yields and provide future generations with productive, sustainable land resources for millennia to come.

IoT sensor intelligence

Now, instead of just being glorified thermometers, the farming IoT devices themselves are smart. Producers don’t need to be coders or tech whizzes to set up and network their holdings. In general, configuration is intuitive and devices are ready to monitor for most use cases right out of the box.

Field mapping and analysis

For large landowners, detailed mapping using drones is commonplace. These drones can take images of crop & animal health, document their nutritional status and monitor for pest and disease risks in near real-time. They can also read livestock tags and search for missing livestock over vast distances and even inside structures, reducing thefts.

Actionable insights

The key across all of these spaces is that ML, AI and IoT are no longer just about measuring things and informing farmers. It’s about giving producers proper direction; suggesting actions that will improve their farm’s efficiency to save them time and money and then providing avenues for actioning those recommendations. That is the secret sauce and the real reason why AI & IoT are changing farming forever.

If you’d like to see how our AI systems can support your farming operation to achieve continued success and grow your revenues, please get in touch today.