Introducing Technology To Farming

Waking up and getting into a t-shirt made of cotton, eating cereal with 100% dairy milk and filling your car with gas are all thanks to farmers. You may not think much about it, but almost everything we do in our daily lives is down to agriculture. Farmers are to be thanked for harvesting the cotton in our clothes, the wheat in our bread and even the bacon in our breakfasts.

Wherever you live, there will be farms stuffed with animals being raised to provide food; from milk to pork chops. Tractors full of gas oil man the fields and with a little rain and sunshine, crops grow ready for a yearly harvesting. But what does it take to feed us? To fuel our cars and put clothes on our backs? With the population continuing to grow, it can take an awful lot more work and technology is beginning to assist farmers with that. Understanding how technology is changing agriculture is important, so check out our list to learn more:

• Telematics. It sounds like something from the future, but imagine pulling out your map and seeing exactly where all of your farming vehicles were, how much fuel is in each one and how much of your crops have been harvested and ready? This is what telematics can do. Farmers can improve their efficiency and even in one glance learn which of their pieces of equipment is about to break down. Nifty, hey?
• Smart Sensors. More and more farms today are full of equipment that is fitted with smart sensors. These can read plant health, water levels and even nitrogen levels in the soil. Sensors are now being used in irrigation, so they can measure the needs of the water.
• Technologies that are being created to make agriculture more robust are constantly in development. Seeding and fertilising can be done with much more precision now due to the technology available. Accuracy is so important in farming, and for technology it’s something that is booming.
• With every cell phone switching over to 4G technology, farmers are going to be excited. The lack of access to high speed internet in certain farming areas has long been a frustration for farmers. Communication is so key and technology is necessary to improve this.
• Drones are a technology that are fitting into every industry at the moment and with farming, it’s no different. Being able to see the crops and animals in real time without having to cross the entire farm to get there makes life so much easier on a farm.
• Machinery is constantly advancing. Look at the combine harvester of a century ago and see how much things have changed in the farming industry to know how much more efficient things are.

Agriculture is a huge industry – without it, we wouldn’t use half of the things we do at home and we’d have a real struggle with food. Technology combined with it makes it a force of nature and one such field that is evolving at a rapid rate.