Nobody can deny the importance of agriculture in the social and economic development of countries. The art of cultivating livestock and plants is called agriculture. In the past, everything went smoothly in agriculture, but crop production is decreasing significantly nowadays.
The main reasons for a decrease in productivity are dramatic changes in climate conditions and poor water supply. Therefore, like other fields, intelligent solutions have made their way into agriculture as well.
Smart agricultural solutions are common these days, and they can help farmers increase output and cut costs. So, in this article, we’ll talk about the benefits of using LoRa in agriculture.
What Is Smart Agriculture?
With technological evolution, almost every field is under pressure to work efficiently and productively, and agriculture is facing the same challenges. When farmers use smart technologies powered by IoT, it’s called smart agriculture. For smart agriculture evolution, technologies like LoRa and LoRaWAN are critical. So, here we’ll talk about the benefits of LoRa-based IoT solutions in agriculture.
Benefits of Using LoRa in Agriculture
As the population is growing, consumer demand is increasing. Global warming is also causing problems. The pressure on our planet’s supply of food is increasing. But the good news is farmers have taken timely actions and started using the latest technology in agriculture.
Therefore, we have seen the emergence of smart agriculture in the last few years. LoRa-based smart agriculture can help in remote monitoring and tracking livestock health indicators. So, let’s discuss all the benefits of using LoRa in agriculture.
Wide Area Deployment
The best thing about LoRaWAN is they can be deployed across a wide area at a very low cost. It’s a cheap solution because its sensors are battery-powered and don’t consume much power. Therefore, batteries can last up to 10 years. Now, it can be easily seen where to use these networks for developing smart agriculture.
Help Measure Moisture Level
Another benefit of using LoRa in agriculture is low bandwidth consumption. So, they can be deployed in large geographic areas and require less data due to the lower bandwidth. It can help measure soil moisture levels across different locations on a farm so that farmers can know the best time for sowing and harvesting.
Help Detect Temperature Level
LoRa-based IoT solutions can help detect temperature changes in the greenhouse. It helps farmers to adjust ventilation and irrigation accordingly.
Significant Water Reduction
LoRa-based IoT technology for smart agriculture reduces environmental impacts and improves efficiencies. Moreover, it can help maximize yield with minimum expenses. It has been observed that agriculture, where LoRa and LoRaWAN protocols are in place, has seen almost 50% water reduction. So, now you calculate how much it can impact the overall expenses and productivity.
Help Measure Environmental Conditions
Agricultural success mainly depends on how accurately farmers measure environmental conditions. Moreover, how they transform or translate this information into useful insights. Agricultural IoT helps measure environmental conditions and inform farmers how and when to intervene.
Sensors in IoT devices can help measure the weather in a field, the location of livestock, and the condition of the soil. With this technology, farmers can record rainfall and other weather conditions. For example, it can help farmers set flood risk alarms, alerts about changes in water quality, or alerts about excessive use of phytosanitary products.
More importantly, IoT solutions are cheap and easy to deploy. It can provide unparalleled visibility into all conditions regardless of the farm size.
Cost Reduction
Implementing IoT technology can increase crop yield potential and ROI. Moreover, it can improve farming efficiencies in both developing and developed countries. LoRa networks are cheap to deploy and maintain. It means implementation of LoRa technology is cheap, but it can help generate maximum yield and ROI.
Other benefits of using LoRa in agriculture are that this technology is reliable, scalable, and versatile. More importantly, it doesn’t require license fees. LoRaWAN is a cheaper solution than cellular networks, which makes it ideal for farming companies.
Cattle Monitoring
Farmers can use LoRa wireless technology to monitor animal conditions. For example, LoRa-based IoT solutions can help track the location of animals and monitor body temperature, productivity, and diseases. With proper use of this technology, farmers can also increase milk production. Finally, it prevents the theft or loss of livestock.
Farm Asset Management
As IoT solutions play their part in other fields, farmers can now use them to track and control the entire supply chain. They can also foresee storage conditions and receive alerts on equipment. So, farmers can enjoy all these benefits by using LoRa in agriculture.
Final Words
If we want to overcome future food scarcity due to the increasing population, the best practice is to transform agricultural practices, and farmers are already doing it. Farmers can use technologies like LoRaWAN and enjoy all the benefits mentioned above. So, if you want LoRa design services to enjoy these benefits, you can contact Arshon Technology.
We have a good background in LoRa design services and know which IoT solutions are required for smart agriculture. So, get our services today, reduce your cost, increase overall yield, and increase ROI.
Author: Sara (Fakhri) Siahkar IoT Specialist @ Arshon Technology Inc.
