IoT Application in Agriculture

Internet of Things Application development for the Agriculture sector can be one of the focus areas for businesses and entrepreneurs working in the Assam and North East region. IoT in agriculture has vast applications as a smart farming system – such for monitoring the crop field with tech like light sensors, humidity, temperature, soil moisture, etc. and for automation of irrigation system. Today with the most penetration of smartphones a farmer can have most of their farming ecosystem information on the mobile phone itself. Along with reducing cost and increasing crop yields, a farmer by application of IoT in agriculture gains more efficiency as it will allow him to have global connectivity, minimize human efforts, faster access, time efficiency, and efficient communication.

A simple IoT case application in agriculture can help farmers in planning informed farming activities. These days top quality sensors, controller units are available at very low cost, though the cost may vary with advanced technical capability. A farmer can easily integrate sensors and controller units to an IoT farming system from himself with some tech support. Sensors can help farmers to measure vital components of soils such as pH value, acidity, salinity, and important nutrients such as Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium. Controller units when received via transmission can automate the procedure of releasing essential fertilizers and to do water management through drip irrigation technology. Pests are a farmers’ biggest enemy. IoT does play a vital role by identifying pests (insects and rodents)at right time. Farmers can use many mechanisms for this purpose – such as low-power cameras and sensors, high-power thermal sensors, fluorescence image sensing, acoustic sensors, gas sensors, etc. Moreover, IoT can help farmers to do Hydroponics and Aeroponics farming systems by integrating sensors, pumps, mixers, and humidity controllers to make the entire process fully automated.