Digital Agricultural Technologies and the Modern-Day Farmer

Farming is one of the oldest industries. Over the years, humans have relied on the production of crops and rearing animals for their survival. Agriculture has, therefore, been the backbone of human societies since time immemorial, which indicates its importance.

All along, humans continued devising new technologies and techniques for maximizing their output. In the wake of reducing farming lands and increasing population, technologies emerged to help produce more with less. Even so, many traditional farming techniques and technologies still dominate to date.

Some Farmers Still Relying on Traditional Agricultural Methods

In Africa, and other developing nations, for example, farmers still rely on traditional farming methods. Notably, in traditional agriculture, there is reliance “outdated information, outdated tools, and organic fertilizers. This is according to Tractorgyan.com, which notes that the modern farming approaches are different since they utilize technologically improved tools as well as machinery.

Today, farming is not only a way of food production for family use, but also a way of income generation. One important aspect of traditional agriculture is that the produce was for subsistence use, meaning that it was consumed within the households. However, today, the agricultural industry has advanced to a form of business.

An aspiring agripreneur, therefore, ought to be aware of the best modern farming technologies that will guarantee him success. In today’s world where global environmental challenges are prevalent, a successful commercial farmer is the one who can capitalize and leverage on the available digital agricultural technologies.

How does the Digital Technologies Enhance Agriculture?

As earlier mentioned, the world is faced with numerous challenges including climate change, increasing population, as well as natural resources degradation! The impacts of these problems are reduced arable land areas, unproductive soils, drought, higher demand for food and other resources, among others. A modern farmer must devise ways of countering these problems; whereby the solution is adopting the digital agricultural technologies.

So, what are the Digital Technologies in Agriculture?

The term “digital technologies” in agriculture is somehow mysterious to many people. When mentioned, most do not get a grasp of what is really meant by this phrase. To demystify this, digital agricultural technologies, could be defined as the various modern technologies that rely on the use of the internet, smart devices like mobile and smart phones, computers, state of the art machinery, drones, as well as data analytics systems, artificial intelligence, among other digitally- delivered services and applications.

We already saw that the traditional agricultural methods relied on outdated information, outdated tools, as well as organic fertilizers. For example, one traditional form of agriculture is the shifting cultivation, whereby farmers cleared the land in a variety of methods like burning or slashing, then grew crops for several years until the land lost fertility. The farmer would then shift to a new land. In today’s advanced agricultural technologies, the same piece of land can be used continuously for decades or centuries without losing fertility. This is the case with aquaponics systems. A modern farmer must, therefore, understand the digital technologies that best suits them in their endeavor to making a living out of agriculture.

What are the Various Examples of Digital Technologies in Agriculture?

Numerous digital technologies are in use today to help farmers cope with the various challenges today. The agricultural technologies are reliant on the internet, artificial intelligence, mobile smartphones, mapping technologies like GPS, and precision agriculture, among others.

Digital technologies are applicable in diverse ways. In aquaponics, for instance, two systems including aquaculture and hydroponics are used in sustainably producing fish and vegetables respectively. To ensure the optimum conditions for growth of fish and vegetables, the systems are made under a controlled environment greenhouse.

Greenhouse technology is one of the solutions to the traditional agricultural problems. Notably, the greenhouse technology represents one of the main concepts of indoor farming called the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). This approach helps circumvent the challenges of global environmental crises. These are like climate change that results in droughts, flooding, extreme temperatures, and poor lighting, among others.

Therefore, in aquaponics, systems are placed in controlled environments that utilize smart digital technologies. Like sensors for controlling fans and/or heaters for regulating temperatures, aeration, and humidifiers for humidity. This form of digital agriculture is a game changer since it can be practiced both in urban and rural areas.

What You Should Know

Noteworthy, the hydroponics systems involve the growing of crops without reliance on soil. The plants are grown in an inert media where nutrients are added in the water. And absorbed by the plant via its roots, which are suspended in the nutrient solution.

Hydroponics systems are important by also allowing vertical farming, which ensures that a small land area can be used to increase the yields by multiple digits. For instance, it is estimated that vertical farming allows a farmer to achieve a whopping 100 times more yields on a single area when using vertical gardens than in conventional farming.

A modern farmer must, therefore, consider adopting digital agricultural technologies to increase their chances of succeeding in agribusiness. Digital technologies helps in increasing productivity as well as profits for the farmer. Also, the farmer can access markets more reliably.