We’ve all heard about smart factories, connected supply chains or autonomous cars, but what about smart agriculture? Well, thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), it is no longer an utopian dream – farmers really can increase productivity and efficiency as well as improve the quality of all our lives in a ‘smart’ way. Whatever the need – weather or crop monitoring, insect detection or soil analysis – it’s now all available through one service, offered via Nokia Worldwide IoT Network Grid (WING).
The agriculture industry today is facing many challenges, while its role for humanity grows ever more vital. The effects of climate change are becoming very real and agriculture is one of the industries that suffers the most – it is forecast that by 2050, agricultural production will decrease by 18% . Growing populations increase the demand for food, while at the same time arable landscapes are shrinking due to urbanization. There is a desperate need to protect fresh water supplies, bearing in mind that agriculture consumes 60% of this increasingly scarce resource. In addition, there is fierce competition among farmers to reduce costs and differentiate.
All these factors have led us to develop a tailor-made smart agriculture solution, offered as a managed service by Nokia WING. With the use of sensors in large geographical areas catering for thousands of farmers, massive amounts of data can be collected from the fields. Combining this information with historical data, farmers can make the decisions in order to grow high quality crops and increase their yields.
Questions like, when should farmers seed or harvest, what pesticides should they deploy or how to prepare the soil, can now all be answered by Nokia WING. It’s a fully managed, end-to-end IoT vertical solution with WING connectivity embedded, giving access to all the data in the form of dashboards, reports, notifications and alerts.
Moreover, on demand services, such as a connected mobile laboratory or drone rental for land surveys or crop monitoring, are also available to complement what Nokia WING offers.
With Nokia WING, we believe we can push the future of agriculture to the next level and create a smarter world.