Smart Farming: How Automation Is Shaping the Future of Agriculture

With the rapid development of technologies like cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), drones, and robotics, the agriculture industry is expected to see significant change. 

In this guide, you will find everything you need to know about smart farming and how the adoption of new technologies are shaping the future of agriculture.

Market Insights What is Smart Farming? The Benefits of Smart Farming Smart Farming Technologies Putting Smart Farming Into Practice Use Types of Automation in Agriculture What Does the Global Future Hold?

Market Insights

Modern farmers are facing a variety of challenges these days. Challenges that need to be addressed through the adoption of new technologies — smart farming. Let’s have a look at those challenges.

Population Growth

Having reached 7.8B people in 2021, the ever-increasing world population growth is not showing any signs of slowing down. According to the United Nations (UN), it is estimated that there will be 9.7B people in the world by 2050 — that’s an additional 2B people that need to be provided with food and water. How? That’s a question that first and foremost lies in the hands of the agriculture sector.

• 9.7B → The world population by 2050.

• 70% → The increase in agricultural production needed to meet the food demand in 2050.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), agricultural production needs to be increased by 70% in order to meet the food demand in 2050. However, the fact that the food industry is responsible for 22% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and 30% of energy consumption only makes this situation more challenging. It is no longer about just producing more food, but also in a sustainable way.

Sustainable Sustenance

Life during the Covid-19 pandemic has intensified the demand for immune-boosting foods and supplements. In fact, 23% of global consumers have recently stockpiled more vitamins and supplements. According to a 2020 US survey, these are the top 5 benefits health-motivated eaters seek from food:

• Weight management (62%)

• Energy (57%)

• Digestive health (46%)

• Heart health (44%)

• Immune function (40%)

In addition, according to a study conducted by Proagrica, 39% of US consumers have considered shifting to a vegetarian or vegan diet since the pandemic began.

• 54% → The amount of consumers that care more about the healthfulness of their foods and beverages in 2020 compared to 2010.

• 27% → The amount of respondents that are concerned about the environmental impacts of meat.

As a result, the plant-based food market is now projected to reach €63.3B by 2027 at a 10.2% CAGR during the forecast period. Moreover, the overall plant-based market is increasing by 29% year over year — almost twice as much as the overall food and beverage market. Together with this major shift in dietary preferences, the increasing concern for the environment is also an important driver for more sustainable ways of food and beverage production. 

Labour Shortage

The third major challenge for many farmers is the shortage of manual labourers due to urban migration as well as the ageing of the population. It is estimated that there are approximately 1.3B people working in agriculture worldwide — that’s around 25% of global employment. However, according to the European Commission’s 2018 EU agricultural outlook, the workforce in agriculture is projected to fall from 9.7M to 7.7M by 2030, following a yearly decline of 2%.

• 9.7M → The number of workers in agriculture in the EU in 2016.

• 7.7M → The projected number of workers in agriculture in the EU by 2030.

• 1.3M → The outflow of national farm workers in the EU between 2011 and 2017.

• 75% → The expected labour supply cut in the UK’s agricultural sector.

Due to the travel restrictions as a result of the pandemic and Brexit, UK farmers are challenged even further: the country is expected to see a 75% cut in its agricultural workforce. Being heavily reliant on migrant workers to help with seasonal harvests, this year has been most difficult — and the same goes for many other EU countries. In addition, US farms also employed 11% fewer workers during January and April in 2021 compared to the same months the year before.

All three of these major challenges are calling for an alternative solution. And that solution is smart farming.

What is Smart Farming?

As a result of technological advances, there are currently a lot of different yet similar terms used in relation to smart farming practices these days. Let’s have a look at some of the most common ones to get a better understanding of how they are different.

Smart Farming

Smart farming — also known as Farming 4.0 or farm automation — is the application of data and information technologies to optimise the food quality and production processes of complex farming systems.

Smart farming does so using a range of technologies that help farmers monitor field conditions remotely, making it much easier for farmers to manage their fields and operations from one central place. These technologies include:

• The Internet of Things (IoT)

• Drones

• Robotics

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Automation

• Mapping

• Geomatics

• Decision making

• Statistical processes

• And many more...

We will talk more about this in the Smart Farming Technologies section. 

Precision Farming

Precision farming makes growing crops and raising livestock more accurate, controlled, and optimised by combining information technology with a wide variety of items such as: 

• Autonomous vehicles

• Drones

• Robotics

• GPS guidance

• Automated hardware and software

• Micro-forecasting and weather forecasting

• Yield mapping

• Soil sampling

• Sensors

• Telematics

Optimisation is key in precision farming. With its adoption of new technologies, precision farming allows farmers to measure and calculate, for example, soil variations across an entire field. This enables farmers to strategise their fertilisation processes accordingly, thereby saving costs and reducing the impact on the environment — and the same goes for many other agricultural processes.

“So, how does precision farming differ from smart farming?

While precision farming focuses on precise measurements between variations in livestock and land conditions, smart farming focuses on accessing and applying date. In other words, the data from smart farming practices can be used to optimise precision farming practices.”

— Editor's Note

Digital Farming

As the name suggests, digital farming uses existing data to discover meaningful added value and develop actionable intelligence. Just as we have seen with both smart farming and precision farming, digital farming enables farmers to increase their productivity, eliminate risks, and reduce costs in the long run. 

Digital farming can be seen as an umbrella term for smart farming and precision farming — digital agriculture integrates both concepts. In fact, it includes every operation involved in the agri-food value chain. We have listed some common examples of the operations within digital agriculture:

• Tractor/equipment apps

• Agri-food advertising and marketing platforms

• Advances in seed and agri-chemical production technology

• Intelligent warehouse platforms

• E-commerce software

• Block-chain technology

The Benefits of Smart Farming

As mentioned in the Market Insights section, there are three major challenges in today’s market: 

• Population Growth

• Sustainable Sustenance

• Labour Shortages

With the help of smart farming, farmers can overcome these challenges by adopting new technologies — such as robotics and automation — to their agricultural practices, thereby optimising their production’s efficiency and sustainability.

Here’s an overview of the main benefits of smart farming:

Water Conservation

Soil- and weather-related sensors optimise water usage.

Reduced Operational Costs

Automation reduces resource consumption, overall costs, and human error.

Increased Production

Optimised crop treatment directly affects production rates.

Increased Production Quality

Data analysis helps farmers adjust their processes to increase production quality.

Real-Time Data and Production Insights

Real-time insights into farm operations and conditions allow farmers to make more informed decisions.

Improved Livestock Farming

GPS tracking and sensors help monitor and manage the health and location of livestock.

Reduced Environmental Footprint

All conservation efforts — i.e. land and water usage — positively affect the environment.

Accurate Farm and Field Evaluation

Tracking production rates helps to accurately predict future crop yield and farm value.

Remote Monitoring

With the IoT, farmers can make real-time decisions from anywhere in the world.

Equipment Monitoring

Equipment can be managed based on production rates, failure prediction, and labour effectiveness.

As is shown above, the implementation of smart farming can also help farmers maximise their use of resources, minimise the environmental impact of the food production processes, and improve food security on a global scale. How exactly farmers are using smart farming will be discussed in the Smart Farming Practices section. 

In addition, with the help of certain smart agricultural practices, farmers get access to large volumes of data. They can then use this data to make more informed decisions, thereby improving their productivity levels as well as their overall profitability.

Smart Farming Technologies

Automation plays a huge role in smart farming as the practice uses software and sensors to manage and monitor the farm’s processes. This helps farmers improve the quality of their products as well as the availability, lower their costs, and increase the customer experience. All while promoting efficient, high-quality, sustainable production — regardless of the farm’s size or output.

Here’s an overview of some of the most common technologies in smart farming:

The Internet of Things (IoT)

The IoT offers limitless possibilities for smart farming practices, enabling farmers to monitor their farm’s operations remotely through connected devices. This way, farmers can, for example, use their smartphones to monitor livestock and crop from their living room while simultaneously collecting valuable data and information that help them make more informed decisions. 

“It is important to understand that IoT technologies are integrated in many of the other technologies mentioned below. In this way, those technologies, too, can collect valuable data while carrying out their individual tasks.”

— Editor's Note

Agricultural Drones

Many farms are using drones these days — and with good reason. Not only can drones monitor crops by flying over the fields, but they also help farmers manage their farms in a more sustainable way. In fact, drones are even able to spot animals before the fieldwork begins, saving countless lives every year.

Drones are able to take over a lot of the work that previously required human labour — which is a huge step towards addressing the labour shortage in today’s market. Here are some examples of tasks that drones can easily carry out:

• Optimising farm security and surveillance

• Aerial treatment for weeds, pests, and crop diseases

• Monitoring livestock, crops, and soil conditions

• Planting crops

Smart Sensors

With the help of sensors placed around their fields, farmers can access detailed information regarding a wide range of variables — such as acidity levels and soil temperature. In addition, sensors can predict weather conditions for days and weeks to come, allowing farmers to take appropriate measures to protect their crops and livestock.

• ±12M → The projected global amount of agricultural sensors to be installed by 2023.

• 500K → The estimated average amount of data points a farm can generate per day in order to help improve their yields and increase their profits.

Robotics

There are many different types of robots found on farms these days. One of the most common types of farm robots is the milking robot, which — as the name suggests — is able to automatically milk cows. Other robots can pull weeds, sow seeds, or harvest crops in an efficient manner, thereby boosting both yields and income.

Electric Autonomous Tractors

Even though electric autonomous tractors are still in their infancy, the technology is extremely promising for the agriculture industry. Not only do they operate efficiently and independently, but they also protect the soil as well as the environment thanks to their innovative low-emission technology. 

If you would like to read about some real examples of smart farming applications that are using drones and robotics, please head over to the section “Use Types of Automation in Agriculture” below.

Blockchain

Put simply, blockchain technology is used to securely hold data and information in one centralised place. These days, more farmers are starting to draw on the interaction between blockchain technologies and the IoT. This helps farmers to create a secure environment for the storing and processing of their data. For example, the smart sensors in a greenhouse could serve as a local blockchain which can then be centrally controlled by the farm owner.

“Many new technologies are helping companies become more sustainable. If you would like to know more about how certain technologies can help you reduce the environmental footprint of your organisation, I would highly recommend reading the article below ↓

Sustainable Supply Chains in the Era of Industry 4.0”

— Editor's Note

Smart Farming Apps

As mentioned several times already, smart farming allows farmers to conveniently monitor and manage their crops and livestock from any type of device and from anywhere in the world. In order to do so, farmers are provided with specialised smart farming apps. Depending on the software, it is even possible to incorporate statistics in these apps, making it even easier for farmers to make intelligent decisions.

To give an additional perspective to the usage of technologies in agriculture these days, a study by Bitkom shows that 80% of farmers in Germany are currently using digital technologies. Two technologies that really stood out during the study were intelligent feeding systems and GPS-controlled agricultural machinery.

• 40% → The percentage of farmers in Germany using agriculture app on their phone or tablet.

• 40% → The percentage of farmers in Germany using farming or herd management systems.

• 32% → The percentage of farmers in Germany using smart systems to apply fertilisers or plant protection products.

Putting Smart Farming Into Practice

Now that we have talked about the different types of technologies used in many of today’s smart farming practices, let’s have a look at some of the most common ways in which farmers are adopting these smart farming technologies to their operations. Remember that thanks to the integration of IoT technology, the possibilities of smart farming are limitless. This enables all types of farms — regardless of their size and maturity — to adopt smart farming technologies in some kind of way.

• Weather Conditions Monitoring

  One of the most common ways in which smart farming is used these days is for the monitoring of climate and weather conditions. With the help of smart farming sensors, farmers are able to collect data about the environment. This helps farmers predict the weather conditions and respond accordingly.

• Livestock Monitoring

  With the implementation of smart farming’s integrated IoT technologies — such as GPS tracking devices, smart collars, and temperature monitoring devices — farmers can now easily keep track of their livestock’s health and location. This results in a wide range of benefits, including:

  • Early detection and containment of diseases

  • Expedition of diagnosis and treatments

  • Reduction of the antibiotics and vet costs

  • Early detection of tampering or movement

  • Accurate predictions of calving

  • Quick recovery of stolen livestock

  • Reduction of labour dependence

  • Improved productivity levels

• Crop Management

  Smart farming allows farmers to place crop management devices anywhere in their fields in order to measure, for example, precipitation, the temperature, and the overall health of the crops. With the help of the integrated IoT technologies, farmers can monitor and manage their crops to support growth and ensure their desired outcomes. Moreover, farmers can also use the real-time data collected from smart farming practices to optimise their crop yields. Ways in which smart farming achieves this include:

  • Using combined data regarding soil quality, moisture levels, and weather conditions to optimise harvest practices

  • Preventing crop damages by recommending specific measures to the farmers

  • Using precision farming to optimise the productivity levels of individual plants

• Soil Quality Monitoring

  With the help of integrated IoT technologies, farmers can place sensors in the soil in order to optimise precision farming techniques and applications. It also helps farmers to restore their soil wherever necessary, thereby ensuring that the soil is always of the highest quality.

• Greenhouse Automation

  By using IoT sensors, farmers can now collect real-time information regarding the conditions of their greenhouse — i.e. the temperature, lighting, humidity, and the condition of the soil. In addition, with the help of smart weather stations and machine learning, this also enables farmers to automatically adjust the settings of their greenhouse conditions — as mentioned above — to match the parameters derived from the collected data.

• End-to-End Smart Farm Management

  We have been discussing a lot of different technologies so far — and that’s the reality of a smart farm. However, a single, cloud-based interface to collect, analyse, and send out farm data and information is needed to properly monitor and streamline the farm’s operations. This is also referred to as a farm productivity management system.

Use Types of Automation in Agriculture

As mentioned before, drones and robots are increasingly being used to automate agricultural processes. Agricultural robots can help farmers with many different tasks such as seeding, watering, and harvesting crops.

Because of the repetitive and labour-intensive nature of farming practices, agriculture opens up many opportunities when it comes to automation.  

Let’s have a closer look at the types of automation that are commonly used in agriculture. 

Autonomous Tractors

Autonomous tractors work independently and can be controlled by the farmers remotely. Farmers merely need to set up the system and maintain the machines on a regular basis. As technology advances — especially GPS, vision, and light detection technologies — smart tractors will become more and more independent and profitable for farmers all around the world.

An example of an autonomous tractor provider is Bear Flag Robotics. The company specialises in building driverless tractors with the goal to reduce labour costs for farmers. Besides enabling farmers to control the tractors remotely, the company also enables them to plan the tractor’s routes in advance and receive real-time reports and alerts. All without the need for human intervention in the field.

Seeding and Weeding Robots

Source: Naio Technologies

As the name suggests, seeding and weeding robots are used for planting purposes and they focus on a specific area of the field. These robots work with great precision and use artificial intelligence and computer vision to reduce pesticides in the field, thereby improving the quality of the food.

A great example is Dino — Naio’s weeding robot for vegetable crops on a large scale. A variety of built-in sensors — including RTK GPS — allows this robot to autonomously navigate the field with a 2cm precision range. This makes it ideal for harvesting a wide range of vegetables, such as lettuce, cabbage, onions, cabbage, leeks, cauliflower, various herbs, and so forth.

In addition, the autonomous robots produced by Farmdroid are a great example of how robots can help farmers in terms of business goals while also reducing their environmental footprint. Farmdroid provides solar-powered farm robots that sow crops and control weeds across the fields, thereby minimising damage to both the crops and the environment. 

Automated Irrigation Systems

Source: UC Merced, Ilene Lelchuk via rapid.berkeley.edu

An irrigation system assisted by robotics consists of special sensors as well as a Subsurface Drip Irrigation (SDI) system. SDI systems are not new to the agricultural industry. They help farmers control the amount of water that is being used and tell them at what exact time the plants ought to be watered.

Depending on the advancement of the sensors that are integrated into the irrigation system, they may require human assistance to some extent. However, with integrated IoT sensors, the system is able to monitor moisture levels by itself and send real-time data analytics to the farmer’s smart device(s). The RAPID (Robot-Assisted Precision Irrigation Delivery) is an example of such a system.

Harvest Automation

Due to the fragility of the crops — especially certain fruits and vegetables — harvesting is no easy task for machines as they need to be able to harvest the crops without damaging them. Luckily, such robots already exist these days.

Source: Octinion

For example, Octinion’s autonomous strawberry picking robot — Rubion. With its built-in quality monitoring, Rubion can pick strawberries like the ideal human worker, without bruising the berries. Another example is Agrobot, a company that also builds robots to harvest strawberries and assesses the ripeness of the fruit with the help of artificial intelligence.

Drones for Planting

Drones play a huge role in the future of agriculture. Farms consist of huge fields that are nearly impossible to monitor properly without the help of a reliable, accurate solution. This is where drones come in, driving automation in farming to the next level. 

Here are a few examples of common use cases of drones on farms as well as providers of the drone solutions:

Source: DroneSeed via hubs.com

• DroneSeed is a company that builds drones that can plant seeds from the air. Their solution is not only advantageous to farmers but also helps the environment immensely by tackling deforestation and wildfires. 

• In addition, drones can be used to water crops in a way that saves farmers lots of time and effort. An example of this is the DJI Agras MG-1, which can spray fields 40 to 60 times faster than when done manually. 

• Last but not least, harvest monitoring and analytics helps farmers identify damaged crops so that they can quickly respond to unexpected change or undesired conditions. senseFly has developed a range of drones for exactly this purpose — and many more.

What Does the Global Future Hold?

Evidently, farm automation technology is going to be a key player in the future of agriculture — especially with growing concerns for the environment, labour shortages, and overpopulation. Moreover, over the next few years, the global smart agriculture market is estimated to increase to more than double its value back in 2019.

• 10.1B → The revenue of the global smart agriculture market in 2019.

• 21.5B → The projected revenue of the global agriculture market by 2027.

• 11.4% → The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) during the forecast period (2019-2027).

However, where there is progress, there usually are challenges as well — and the same goes for smart farming. As is the case with most digitalisation processes, many IT-related challenges come to the surface. In smart farming, some of these include:

• Operational technologies

• Interoperability

• Power supplies

• IoT security

• Data storage

• Threat protocols

• Cloud platforms

Interoperability Issues

With the emergence of a wide range of new technologies in agriculture, it is only a matter of time before interoperability becomes a big issue — especially when we are talking about robotics. It is a known fact that most robot manufacturers supply their robots with their own individual operating systems, which means that different brands and types of robots will not be able to communicate with each other. 

“Interoperability will play an essential role in the future of agriculture.

The lack of interoperability has already gained attention in robotic warehouses around the world. What is needed to tackle this problem is a universal solution that lets users control their robot fleet from one centralised location. This, too, will become an important factor in the agriculture industry of the future. It is without a doubt that robots will be roaming our farms within the next few years. However, to really optimise efficiency and productivity, there is a need for interoperable fleets.

If you would like to learn more about interoperability issues, check out our “Robotics Interoperability” report, where we discuss:

How interoperability can tackle communication problems

Trends that are shaping the future of the robotics industry

Challenges and opportunities in the global robot market

An interoperability case study at a Danish Hospital

Download our free Robotics Interoperability report here.”

— Editor's Note

It is no surprise that more and more farmers are making their operations more intelligent by switching to modern technologies — especially considering the many benefits and great potential smart farming has to offer. However, one must be wary of the challenges that await. So make sure to do your research and discuss your smart farming possibilities with one or more specialists.

If you would like to learn more about our fleet management solution for your farm robot fleet, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

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About Meili Robots

Meili Robots is developing the next-generation of mobile robots fleet management, called Meili FMS. A universal digital solution, an all-in-one platform that is capable of handling different kinds of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) and Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs). Enable traffic control, empower interoperability and facilitate automated task allocation — all via intuitive UI. Check our website meilirobots.com/product to learn about our products. Contact us to find out more: info@meilirobots.com.

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