IoT: Making farming more efficient

According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) by 2050 the world’s population will exceed nine billion, so to meet increased demand agricultural production will need to grow by 60 per cent.

Agricultural productivity is rising across the world, but often not quickly enough. Food security remains a serious issue in many countries and the FAO has estimated there are 805 million chronically hungry people in the world.

All of this is set against a backdrop of slowing productivity growth, limited availability of arable land, climate change, the increasing need for fresh water, and the impact of urbanisation. To counter these challenges the FAO recommends that all farming sectors are equipped with innovative tools and techniques, particularly digital technologies.

“There is an increasing consensus on how important the Internet of Things [IoT] is to transform the agriculture sector,” Saverio Romeo, principal analyst at Beecham Research, explains. “Within this there is an extensive set of applications that touch different parts of agriculture.”