How technology is going to shape farming of the future – The Hill (blog)

The recent introduction of smart technology into farming practices provides a new way for farmers to manage natural resources and hence, the economic profitability of the farm. Smart farming practices based on data collection willprove to be beneficial for water conservation and soil longevity.

State of the art smart farming solutions and new Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are enabling many American growers to take a more sustainable approach to the monitoring of livestock, crops, and soil conditions. These technologies are transforming rural America by increasing the quality, quantity, and cost-effectiveness of agricultural production while concurrently addressing key environmental issues for small rural agribusinesses.

I anticipate that the forthcoming 5G technologies will lead to a broader adoption of precision agriculture and field monitoring systems. Precision agriculture is the practice of collecting and processing data in real-time through sensors on equipment used to assist farmers in planting, fertilizing, and harvesting their crops. Pictures of the fields and livestock, data on soil fertility and crop conditions can be transmitted back to the data collection site using satellites and drones. Farmers can leverage this data to make crop rotation and maintenance decisions, for example, that will lead to the reduced use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Farmers rely on precision agriculture for one reasonit is perfectly precise. Interruptions or slow network connections could have negative consequences on crop yield and quality of the final product, which can ultimately impact a farmers livelihood. 5G networks will better support these technologies, increasing the precision in precision agriculture, and ensuring that these high-tech tools deliver on their full potential. The deployment of 5G networks will make precision agricultureitssustainability enhancements, largely used thus far for larger-scale farming, much more accessible to the smaller-scale farmer.

These new innovations are the future of the agriculture world as we know it. And we are hopeful that agriculture can bridge the gap between the acceptances of these new innovations in technology and the power that they could have for our members in their daily lives. Its further development and the insights the new technology delivers will not only improve productivity and profits, it will allow National Grange members to work smarter and not harder.

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How technology is going to shape farming of the future - The Hill (blog)