Agriculture is a key segment that has really embraced the use of IoT in recent years. This is particularly true, in regions with vast farms that cover thousands of acres, where it is virtually impossible for farmers to know what goes on in all corners of their land.
The sheer size of many of these farms, also means that it is highly unlikely that the entire area will be covered by cellular or WiFi.

There are many drivers behind the market for IoT in farming, the main one being the need for increased food production. Factors such as the ability to react instantly to changing weather conditions, insight into crop planting, more precise harvesting and precise and timely data regarding soil, weather and pest conditions all play a role in realizing this goal.

Why Farms Need to Leverage Data

The list of ways the agriculture industry might leverage data is as long as there are species to sow and reap. By collecting and analyzing data, the industry has an infinite number of ways to improve agricultural practices using IoT applications. Satellite IoT adds another layer of scalability by adding its inherent characteristics of reach to often out-of-reach and disparate farm sites. All of these applications together roll up to a few overarching themes, namely, increasing productivity and profit while reducing waste.

Precision crop farming uses sensors to capture and transmit a vast array of data including, lighting, temperature, soil condition, humidity, carbon dioxide levels and pest infestations. Together this data enables farmers to detect anomalies and calculate optimum levels of fertilizer, pesticides and water needed, thereby increasing output whilst reducing costs.

Weather stations will update the farmer as to variations in microclimates on their farms. As well as assisting with irrigation needs, this is also used for feeding livestock. Smart irrigation systems control and monitor moisture levels, automatically dispensing water as and when needed. Similarly, sensors monitor the irrigation pipelines for leaks, alerting farmers when repairs are needed.
Proactive monitoring can also identify the need for preventative maintenance. In some cases, these alerts will be transmitted directly to equipment manufacturers to trigger delivery of spare parts and onsite repairs.

Some examples of IoT applications in agriculture include:

Precision farming: Precision farming devices collect a vast array of data specific to crop farming, field microclimate,
and the ecosystem. This data enables farmers to detect anomalies or infestations; estimate optimal amounts of fertilizer,
water, and pesticides that their crops need; reduce costs; and increase outputs.

Monitoring environmental conditions: Weather stations located throughout agricultural microclimates can send
updates over satellite for a real-time status of environmental conditions. This data can guide farm managers on the
deployment of day-to-day operations, such as irrigation and livestock feeding.

Smart irrigation systems: Farms can optimize the use of water through smart irrigation control and monitoring sys-
tems that automatically trigger irrigation systems when soil moisture levels are low. Sensors can also detect faults and
leaks in water pipelines to trigger repairs and reduce water waste.

Livestock tracking: Livestock monitoring collects data on stock health, well-being, and physical location.
Predictive maintenance and equipment monitoring: Telemetry data from equipment enables the proactive diagnosis
of issues and the remote servicing of equipment. It can also generate notifications to call a service technician.

Asset tracking: By tracking fuel consumption, maintenance, and location of light and heavy machinery, farming op-
erations can prevent theft and vandalism of security systems. With asset tracking farms can trace produce as it moves through the supply chain.

Drone beyond line of sight: Drones can be used for crop inspection, high value crop monitoring, and maintainance.

Precision farming, or Smart Farming, is using IoT applications for better asset management and monitoring. These applications can run the gamut to include microclimate and soil conditions, crop growth, livestock health
and activity, infestation detection, any sort of anomaly, and equipment health and malfunction, to generally maintain better control over the agricultural process. By more fully monitoring assets and learning from the data,
IoT is quickly becoming an essential business operations tool required to compete.

Success Criteria for Smart Farming

Getting these technologies onto farms and completely instantiated in the agriculture industry will require a period of education and good implementation. A critical requirement of any IoT solution is ease of use. Depending
on resources and the size of a farm, there may be no IT manager so IoT systems need to be easily installed and up and running quickly. Terminals must also be small, with low power consumption, offering easy access to all frequency bands and the cost of the solution must be affordable. Above all, farmers must see fast Return on Investment.

The success of the IoT’s impact on Smart Farming is also dependent on the creation of a robust ecosystem. This involves several steps: harvesting the data from the field, passing it to the cloud and analyzing it using AI and machine learning before making meaningful data available on platforms that farmers can easily access to aid decision-making. Real-time information on weather and environmental factors for example, will provide key data on when to irrigate. Each of these are businesses unto themselves that will play a part in IoT for agriculture. Different connectivity capabilities will be required to address the full spectrum of applications from monitoring of farm machinery to the provision of Internet access to farm buildings. Satellite’s inherent capabilities—such as its ability to reach remote areas, scale, and to extend coverage for other providers—make it an ideal enabler of IoT