“Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will, in the end, contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.” – Thomas Jefferson
Our ignorance towards nature and its abuse has been entailing significant hazards in recent years. The ripple effects of our current actions toward nature will engulf the future of the next generations. There has been a significant imbalance in the biodiversity abreast the destruction of arable lands, which has been widening the gap between demand and supply of resources.
To take necessary actions to mitigate climate change and restore vegetation on earth is the need of the hour. There is a dire need for a decisive roadmap to ebb the impacts of unethical & abusive agricultural practices and deforestation.
Recent years have witnessed the adoption of modern agricultural practices such as intensive farming, precision farming, organic farming and mechanization for improved productivity at low operation costs. Cloud technology holds the remarkable potential to deliver formidable results in the agriculture sector. Many start-ups have created practical applications based on cloud technology. Sensors are implemented in the soil or water to collect the data and optimize the yields.
Cloud and Ground Is Ready To Talk
Using predictive analytics, cloud technology can provide an overview of the market demand. It can help farmers produce the resource with accurate predictions on the weather. It can ensure that there is no wastage of resources. Farmers can form a cloud community to share the best practices and positive experiences which might help others in the region to adapt.
Cloud technology can be further extended to collect data from different types of equipment installed in the fields to form a formidable database. The collection of data will help in combating various uncertain conditions in the future. Experts can be involved to perform research on data collected to draft a decisive policy that influences future agricultural practices.
Few start-ups have started collecting data on inputs, seeds, equipment, fertilizers, and nutrients to create best practices and minimize water usage. At present, these new-age technologies can be implemented in developed nations that have adequate internet access and power supply. While developing economies, which face issues like internet access, and power outages will have difficulty in adopting cloud technology for farming at least for now.
A software program called compass is designed and developed to allow farmers to plant their crops, hold and share field maps, store the soil test information, and track inventory.
Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and other cloud service providers can help to store massive data with the aid of deep learning and artificial intelligence. The collection of data ensures better research in crop breeding, plant growth, resilience, and yield.
Prospects of Cloud Farming
A few years ago, predicting was the most difficult task of all. Now, times have changed. All we must do is collect meaningful data from the field and put it to use. Farmers are always discouraged from large crop losses, and we must acknowledge it and give them due attention. If the world population growth continues at the same rate, there will be severe repercussions on the resources.
We must start predicting the demand and put the tools into action for adequate supply. Compared to all other sectors, agriculture is far behind in utilizing technology. Cloud technology combined with artificial technology can analyze the data collected to alert the farmers on weather forecasts, soil health, and weed presence on the field.
We are sure that a cloud-based ecosystem will one day help farmers address most of the critical problems faced by the agricultural field. Let us hope that cloud technology will make a farmer’s life much easier.
