Salesforce for Agriculture: Digital Farming Revolution

Agriculture plays a significant role in India’s growing economy and its future cannot be accomplished without digital tools and technological innovation. With increasing awareness of environmental issues and the need to better manage available resources, agriculture technologies are gaining traction to enhance sustainability and create more effective farming methods. Approximately 54.6% of the total manpower is engaged in agricultural and related sector activities, the sector accounts for 17.8% of the country’s gross value added (GVA).

Even though it’s growing rapidly, the adoption of emerging agriculture technologies and SaaS for precision farming is still in its initial stages in India. A report by EMR says that the Indian agriculture market will reach a value of $580.82 Bn by 2028.

What is Agriculture 4.0?

Modern-day agriculture faces challenges like lowered resources, increasing demand, and rising costs. Industry 4.0 and agriculture are closely related. Industry 4.0 is essentially the industrial revolution, similarly, Agriculture is moving toward its fourth agriculture revolution that uses digital technologies for a smarter, environmentally responsible, and resourceful agriculture sector. It incorporates the evolution of precision agriculture and directs all measures taken in agriculture based on a precise and accurate analysis of data and information collected and transmitted with modern tools and technology.

Farmers have been looking for improved methods to increase productivity, control waste generation, and reduce environmental impact. We are seeing the adoption of advanced Industry 4.0 applications in agriculture, leading to precision agriculture- a farming management system that applies new technologies and derives applicable data to boost production. This contains all digitalization and automation processes in business such as Big Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), and virtual and augmented reality.

Adopting 4.0 solutions in agriculture results in:

Reducing unnecessary wasteby having an estimate of the exact water requirements of the crop or advance detection of certain plant diseases or pests
Automation and data management of the tasks that need to be carried out quickly and with precision
Saving both time and money by being able to plan all stages of cultivation, sowing, and harvesting with better precision
Improving supply chain traceability results in a short, error-free, and sustainable supply chain capable of producing high-quality food.

Technologies Driving Agriculture 4.0

Rialtes helps you leverage SAP to optimize your plan-to-harvest processes and farming services while taking advantage of AgriDrones, IoT-based crop sensors, smart irrigation, and Robotic Irrigation. To understand the impact of Industry 4.0 on agriculture, let’s examine some of the most important technologies used in Agriculture 4.0.

Drones

There is a lot of ground to cover in farms, and Drones are becoming a main ingredient for modern agriculture. Thanks to them, many jobs no longer need to be performed manually. They are mainly used for land mapping, typically equipped with various sensors that allow them to collect data. The most advanced versions of these come with infrared sensors and imagery systems to detect issues that cannot be detected on your own. With applications adopted from Industry 4.0 in agriculture, drones can provide useful data regarding soil fertility, disease, and plant maturity in real-time.

Sensors

Sensors work as an extended range of sight and data collection for activities both above and below ground. They obtain information on temperature, soil, and humidity by monitoring light, humidity, soil moisture, temperature, crop health, etc. With this information, you can learn the needs of the crops and take the right steps to fulfill them. They can detect when crops need irrigation, determine the right amount of fertilizer for each crop, and instruct what chemicals should be used and where.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence refers to the technology that instructs machines to assess conditions and make decisions. In agriculture, AI helps to automate irrigation, enhance harvest quality, and detect infections and pests in plants to determine the herbicide that needs to be used making crop management precise and effective. It also fosters innovative farming techniques like vertical agriculture, an advanced farming system that fully utilizes resources and increases food production in a smaller area.

Robotics

The incorporation of robots has a wide range of applications within the agricultural industry. For instance, automating the performance of various maintenance tasks in the fields or checking the status of the crops with sensors, and taking the necessary measure. With robotics, it is possible to perform complex tasks such as measuring PH levels in the soil to simpler tasks of planting seeds and harvesting fruits and vegetables.