The Internet of Things has brought tremendous progress to many industries, including construction, health, and education. Of course, agriculture is no exception.

The impacts of climate change, soil erosion, and population growth mean that producers must improve efficiency, reduce waste, and adopt more environmentally friendly farming methods.

Fortunately, the Internet of Things is providing innovative solutions for many challenges, helping manufacturers reduce costs and provide more control and supervision of production processes.

Therefore, the agricultural Internet of Things has shown a high adoption rate and is expected to continue to grow in the coming years. In this article, we will explore some of the most common use cases of the Internet of Things in agriculture today, as well as some promising developments that may arise in the future.

1. Data collection and precision agriculture

IoT systems can collect and process large amounts of data from countless sensors at a very low cost. When applied to agricultural environments, this can provide enormous opportunities.

Sensors can collect data from the entire farm, such as sunlight, moisture, humidity, and temperature, which can then be analyzed in real-time and used to make better decisions or automate certain processes. For example, if a sensor for a specific crop detects that the soil moisture content is below a certain threshold, it will transmit this information back to the system, and the system will automatically turn on the sprinkler system.

The name of this IoT supported food production is precision agriculture, which is a concept of utilizing the exact amount of resources needed by farms to achieve optimal growth. In the above example, by implementing the Internet of Things, watering is only done when data determines the need for watering, thereby reducing water resource waste to near zero.

By implementing precision agriculture, we aim to maximize grain production and optimize the quantity of required resources. This not only leads to the production of more food, but also to cleaner agriculture and more environmentally friendly processes.

2. Drones

IoT agricultural drones are one of the most common use cases of drones today. They enable farmers to monitor crops on large areas of land. This can help identify any issues related to pest infestation or decay, which, if not controlled, may seriously damage crop yields. Today's IoT drones can achieve this by analyzing the color of crops. The darker the color, the more likely it is to cause pests or diseases.

In addition to monitoring crops, drones are also used to distribute materials throughout the entire farm, including spraying pesticides and fertilizers on crops. All these tasks can be controlled by operators at the farm or remote locations. More importantly, many of these tasks are being automated, such as regular crop monitoring, which means farmers do not need to use scarce and expensive labor to perform these tasks.

3. Livestock tracking

IoT devices are also being used for livestock. Placing a small sensor on livestock labels can collect a large amount of useful data that can be used to optimize farm operations.

These sensors collect data, such as the general health status, body temperature, nutrition, and location of livestock (tracking their health status and location helps prevent disease transmission).