Month: August 2021

Rapid Identification of Number of Trees Within A Farm Using High Resolution Satellite Data

Introduction

To facilitate customized ground advisory to the farmers it is important to know several ground level parameters, growing conditions, farming patterns, crop count etc. A ground level survey is feasible only if it is to be done on a limited focus group. However, as the scale of survey group increases, it is nearly impossible, time consuming and financially infeasible to setup and command the ground team to visit and gather farmer data. So, it is essential to look up to the technology to solve the scalability issues and provide the meaningful insights.

One such example is estimation of the number of trees within a field without actually visiting a field itself. With the rapid expansion and enhancement of satellite technology, this once undoable task has become much more feasible now if the computational power is available.

At Farmonaut, we performed such analysis for one of our business clients for more than 800 farmlands totaling 1000+ hectares in area. Not only did our system got the results pretty accurate, but also the automation system developed by us made the estimation at a faster pace. The system is developed in such a way that it can estimate these results for as many fields as required. A few results are attached below: 

The estimation of number of trees within a farm can help us identify whether the field has an optimum number of trees/plants planted per acre. Not only that, if any such farmers are identified who have less than optimum number of trees/plants in their farm, they can be given extra attention to by the ground team to ensure that they are aware of the fact that they need to correct this problem by planting more trees. 

 

We will keep posting about any such informative information on to our blogs, to help as many people as possible. Farmonaut is built upon a vision to bridge the technological gap between farmers and strives to bring state-of-the-art technologies in the hands of each and every farmer. For any queries/suggestions, please contact us at [email protected]

We have some more interesting articles coming up soon. Stay tuned!

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Importance of Organic Footprint Data

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1  Footprint data

Data are of different types, which gives information on particular thing or according to the requirement. When the data being searched or distribute with or without intention, that data is stored using internet. The past or present data are the foot print data. A data footprint can include some or all of the actions left on the web and on devices in the digital footprint, but it also includes internal systems, servers, and cloud computing services.

1.2  Organic Farming:

Evolution of different farming practices over the years have diverted farming towards usage of chemicals and synthetic products. This usage leads to degradation of soil, lowers quality of soil, decreases yield and production of crops, etc. Hence, to overcome such issues faced modern organic farming was introduced to fix the damage caused by use of chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. “Organic farming is all about an agricultural system that uses ecologically based pest controls and biological fertilizers which are derived from plants and animal wastes.”

Organic farming is far deeper concept than just non-chemicalization. According to IFOAM, “Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people”.

1.2.1  Advantages of Organic farming in India. 

       Organic farming in India is very economical, it uses no expensive fertilizers, pesticides, HYV seeds for plantation of crops. It has no expenses.

       With the use of cheaper and local inputs, a farmer can earn a good return on investment. This is one of the most important benefits of organic farming in India.

       There is a huge demand for organic products in India and worldwide and can earn more income through exports

       Organic products are more nutritional, tasty, and good for health to chemical and fertilizer utilized products.

       Organic farming in India is very environment friendly, it does not use fertilizers and chemicals.

 

 

1.2.2  Challenges faced by Organic farmers:

A. Soil issues

Being the 20th century, farmers haven’t continued to use the organic way of farming since ancient times. Due to which soil quality has degraded and usage of chemical products are increasing which make soil quality even worse. Switching to organic farming will help in gaining the quality of soil. Soil quality retention would take few years to get back to its original quality.

B. Non achievement of expected quality and yield.

Modern farmers switching farming practices from regular to organic faces quality issues. Organic farming gives better quality after few years due to soil being recovered from excess use the chemicals. Farmers think that organic cultivation will result in lesser yield when compared to conventional. Which is true for initial few years. Hence, quality and yield of organic crops is major issue that concerns farmers.

C. Failure of organic pest management

Chemical pesticides are instantly effective on crops and gives result in no time. Where as organic pest management practices take time and, in some cases, could result in failure too due to excessive or minimal use of organic pesticides. Farmers must know all the details regarding the organic operations in order to manage and get better results.

D. Inability to meet export demand

Demand for organic products is high in foreign countries mainly developed countries. Organic products are preferred due to its characteristics of being healthy and having no side effects or health issues on consuming. For which export of organic product from India is in huge demand. Export of organic products must meet certain requirement and pass the certification in order to meet the health requirements.

E. Time

 

Farmers and his crops require interaction for observation. In case of conventional farming farmer solely can handle large acres of land. Organic crops require constant watch on crops hence it is difficult for sole farmer to carry out organic farming in large acres of land. 

Introduction: Farm Traceability

Traceability can be said as the follow up on the movement of activities taking place. In case of any product, the ability to follow up on the movement of food through the stages of production, processing and distribution. Tracing plays an important role in helping businesses in the competitive era of domestic as well as globally. Today’s agribusiness and food have utmost importance of accurate and timely traceability of products and activities. Customers do expect to know about the product at every step to make sure if they meet the requirements and expectations. Traceability is the only tool by which expectations of buyers could be meet. 

Farm traceability can be said as a system in which fruits, vegetables or any food product can be traced from the field to the buyer by unique code.

The unique code used can be any combination of numbers, letters and colour. The code assigned should have certain facts attached with it. The codes can also be in the form of barcode.

TITLE: “BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES AND TECHNOLOGY USE IN FARMTRACEABILITY”

 

Objective:

  1. To analyse importance of blockchain in farm traceability
  2. To know other technologies used for farm traceability
  3. To study business opportunities in farm traceability

 

Objective 1: To analyse importance of blockchain in farm traceability.

Blockchain system is set of linked chain that is responsible for storing auditable data in blocks/units. Blockchain is also called as internet of value because it is safer to store and transact value from one system to another. Blockchain can be easily understood as similar to Google spreadsheet that accepts contribution of multiple author due to locking mechanism. 

In agriculture the blockchain technology can be used in may different ways in order to benefit farmers and consumers. Contributing all the benefits under 3 categories, blockchain can be used in following ways:

1) Crop and Food production

Blockchain when coupled with IoT can help farmers in sustainable farm practices and help optimize the farm resources like water, labour and fertilizers. The below flow chart could give you better understanding how the blockchain emerge with IOT could work.

a. Data collection:

The data collected in agriculture are important for farmers to increase quality, productivity and yield of the crop. Data can be of different kinds and can be collected any number of times. Dividing the valuable data that would be required can be categorised as follows:

b. Data processing

Having data and utilizing them in correct way is important. Understanding the data is only possible if it is in correct format or structured manner. Hence, the data must be structured according to the relevant things like timestamp, demography or type. The process data can be used in Crop quality recommendations, Crop demand prediction, Crop identification, Crop yield Prediction, etc.

c. Saving data in blockchain

The data is then to be stored in blockchain which can be distributed across every stage of the network. Since the information will be available to all agriculture market related people, it will be easier to maintain efficiency in crop and food production.

 

2) Food Supply chain management

The food produce is traced from the beginning of cultivation stages till it reaches the end consumer. In food industry the blockchain is used to monitor the supply chain management. Its benefit is that it is open source and allows others to add their views. 

 

Produce being sent to the consumer after passing at various stages need safety in the quality. The supply chain can be of different duration from 1 day to 1 month and even more than that in case of usage of road transport or export purposes. To ensure that edible supplies reach the consumer with safe to eat quality is prime duty of companies. Hence, blockchain having multiple usage can be used in supply chain to ensure the safety of food or produce. Following shows how it can be used:

 

 

 

Conventional farming has caused various environmental impact due to use of toxic or harmful agricultural activities. To overcome the environmental impact cased it is necessary to know which factor has caused it more. 

Emission of         various Greenhouse    gases   from different agriculture is over million tonnes. As per INCCA, 2010 report, Total emission of GHG was 334.41 million tonnes which included Livestock, Manure management, rice cultivation, soils and burning of crop residue. However, Livestock, rice cultivation and soils incorporated major GHG emission around 95% of total emission. 

  • Carbon footprint:

Carbon footprint is the measure of the total amount of Carbon dioxide emission that is directly and indirectly caused by an activity over the life stages of product. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is tool to produce complete picture of inputs and outputs in carbon footprint. In food chain, at all stages GHG emission takes place, from its farming to manufacturing, distribution, food preparation and waste disposal. 

2.1.1 Sources of GHGs emission from agriculture: 

With reference to C emissions, agricultural practices may be grouped into primary, secondary and tertiary sources (Lal, 2004).

  • Primary sources of C emissions are due to mobile operations (e.g., tillage, sowing, harvesting and transport), stationary operations (e.g., pumping water, grain drying) and direct emission from soil.
  • Secondary sources of C emission comprise manufacturing, packaging and storing fertilizers and pesticides.
  • Tertiary sources of C emission include acquisition of raw materials and fabrication of equipment and farm buildings, etc.
  • Nitrogen footprint

A nitrogen footprint is the amount of reactive nitrogen released to the environment as a result of an entity’s resource consumption. In case of farming the resource consumed are the various inputs used for cultivation of particular crop. Nitrogen footprint helps minimizing the negative effect caused on human health and environment. In case of food production, footprint data helps in optimizing the role of nitrogen. 

We will keep posting about any such informative information on to our blogs, to help as many people as possible. Farmonaut is built upon a vision to bridge the technological gap between farmers and strives to bring state-of-the-art technologies in the hands of each and every farmer. For any queries/suggestions, please contact us at [email protected]

We have some more interesting articles coming up soon. Stay tuned!

Wait!!

Before that…

Follow us at:

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AppLink: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farmonaut.android

Website: https://farmonaut.com

Satellite Imagery: https://farmonaut.com/satellite-imagery

Satellite Imagery Samples: https://farmonaut.com/satellite-imagery-samples

 

 

Business Opportunities And Technology Use In Farm Traceability

Executive Summary:

Traceability is the new trend in market for various businesses. Agriculture being one of them is finding ways to use this technology in effective and efficient way possible. Customer buying any products expect to get safety and basic security of the product. Similarly, farmers expect to get high prices of the produce. 

The study entitled “Business Opportunities And Technology Use

In Farm Traceability” will guide you through what traceability is all about and how it can transform agriculture. Apart from being trace, businesses do require transparency at different stages of production, processing and distribution of any products.

Technologies getting better arises opportunities in business sector. Traceability also can be done with different technologies, blockchain being the most widely used has been discussed in this report. 

Apart from blockchain other technologies and business opportunities of farm traceability are giving importance to steps taking place between farm to fork. Keeping this in mind, all the aspects and necessary information on Farm Traceability are elaborated.

Introduction: Farm Traceability

Traceability can be said as the follow up on the movement of activities taking place. In case of any product, the ability to follow up on the movement of food through the stages of production, processing and distribution. Tracing plays an important role in helping businesses in the competitive era of domestic as well as globally. Today’s agribusiness and food have utmost importance of accurate and timely traceability of products and activities. Customers do expect to know about the product at every step to make sure if they meet the requirements and expectations. Traceability is the only tool by which expectations of buyers could be meet. 

Farm traceability can be said as a system in which fruits, vegetables or any food product can be traced from the field to the buyer by unique code.

The unique code used can be any combination of numbers, letters and colour. The code assigned should have certain facts attached with it. The codes can also be in the form of barcode.

TITLE: “BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES AND TECHNOLOGY USE IN FARMTRACEABILITY”

 

Objective:

  1. To analyse importance of blockchain in farm traceability
  2. To know other technologies used for farm traceability
  3. To study business opportunities in farm traceability

 

Objective 1: To analyse importance of blockchain in farm traceability.

Blockchain system is set of linked chain that is responsible for storing auditable data in blocks/units. Blockchain is also called as internet of value because it is safer to store and transact value from one system to another. Blockchain can be easily understood as similar to Google spreadsheet that accepts contribution of multiple author due to locking mechanism. 

In agriculture the blockchain technology can be used in may different ways in order to benefit farmers and consumers. Contributing all the benefits under 3 categories, blockchain can be used in following ways:

1) Crop and Food production

Blockchain when coupled with IoT can help farmers in sustainable farm practices and help optimize the farm resources like water, labour and fertilizers. The below flow chart could give you better understanding how the blockchain emerge with IOT could work.

a. Data collection:

The data collected in agriculture are important for farmers to increase quality, productivity and yield of the crop. Data can be of different kinds and can be collected any number of times. Dividing the valuable data that would be required can be categorised as follows:

b. Data processing

Having data and utilizing them in correct way is important. Understanding the data is only possible if it is in correct format or structured manner. Hence, the data must be structured according to the relevant things like timestamp, demography or type. The process data can be used in Crop quality recommendations, Crop demand prediction, Crop identification, Crop yield Prediction, etc.

c. Saving data in blockchain

The data is then to be stored in blockchain which can be distributed across every stage of the network. Since the information will be available to all agriculture market related people, it will be easier to maintain efficiency in crop and food production.

 

2) Food Supply chain management

The food produce is traced from the beginning of cultivation stages till it reaches the end consumer. In food industry the blockchain is used to monitor the supply chain management. Its benefit is that it is open source and allows others to add their views. 

 

Produce being sent to the consumer after passing at various stages need safety in the quality. The supply chain can be of different duration from 1 day to 1 month and even more than that in case of usage of road transport or export purposes. To ensure that edible supplies reach the consumer with safe to eat quality is prime duty of companies. Hence, blockchain having multiple usage can be used in supply chain to ensure the safety of food or produce. Following shows how it can be used:

 

 

 

3) Controlling weather crisis

Farmers usually faces the problem of unpredictable weather conditions for the different crops. For survival of crop weather conditions monitoring and predicting are essential. It would be a game changer if, farmers could know at what conditions their crop went wrong. To gain the transparency and traceability in such blockchain has ability to do. Block chain can do in 3 simple steps:

  1. Blockchain receiving essential information from agricultural weather stations.

Air temperature, Soil temperature at different heights, Wind speed, Rainfall,

Relative humidity, Wind direction, Atmospheric pressure, Solar radiation and Leaf wetness are few parameters that must be measured, recorded and saved in blockchain. The information must be accessed by farmers transparently. 

  1. Farmers take preventive measures

The data generated by weather station and saved by blockchain would help farmers to analyse. Which would helpful further in decision making related to farming. For example, If the soil temperature is known, farmers can maintain the temperature by irrigation and similarly could predict rainfall that would be helpful to get prepare for coming rainfall. 

Objective 2: To know other technologies used for farm traceability.

1)Biosensors

Biosensors are analytical device that converts biological reaction in to electrical signals. It creates discrete or continuous electronic signals which are proportional to as single analyte or related group of analytes. The main feature of biosensors are stability, cost, sensitivity and reproducibility.

Agriculture today includes production of crops and livestock producing different products which are part of daily lives. Some natural threats like pests and diseases causes loss in profits of farmers. To increase profits, decrease in such natural threats is necessary. Biosensors can hence play an important role in rapid and specific detection. 

In the agri-food industry, biosensors have been useful to assess the freshness of raw materials such as meat, fish, fruits and vegetables. In these cases, biosensors detect compounds that provide abnormal flavours and aromas, indicating microbial growth and food safety problems. Pesticides, fertilizers, and heavy metals can be quickly detected in small quantities with biosensors.

 

 

2)RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)

RFID technology identifies object by radio frequency without coming in contact. These are really small computer chips that will allow consumers to track individual products. It can also be called as “Tagging technology”. It is applied in many industries nowadays including Traffic supervising, security supervising and more.  Tracing of farm can be lot easier with RFID technology that consist of farm monitoring system and also livestock monitoring using wireless sensor networks. This method can be easy to carry out for farmers to protect their crops. RFID provides:

o Field data capturing o Entrances and Camera Control o Management of Pre-Calibrated goods o Warehouse management o Traceability Forward and Backward Advantages of RFID:

  • Tags can be used in order to store data such as temperature, moisture, weight, date of harvest, field of harvest, etc.
  • Can work without any contact
  • Data collection is also possible in greenhouses. Measure and record growth time, moisture content, equipment management and even personnel management.

Limitations of RFID:

  • It also studies plant pathologies such as viruses or phytoplasma monitoring  Encryption of data is expensive.
  • Cost of RFID is higher than other alternatives. 

Objective 3: To study business opportunities in farm traceability.

Traceability is not an option anymore for the businesses emerging in agriculture. For being the best business in market have to get updated regarding the customer desires and wants. Technologies emerging should be used by the businesses to gain more profits and customer satisfaction. Traceability is used in many sectors in order to keep customer updated about the products they wish to buy. There are many companies and apps that provides traceability feature. 

Agriculture being the source of livelihood must be taken special care. Usage of traceability in agriculture sector could help farmers, middleman as well as customers. Due to the pandemic crisis people are understanding the value of agriculture and its produce. Agriculture start-ups and businesses are boosting in India nowadays. With rise in start-ups are many business opportunities that are arising with farm traceability.

1. Customer Satisfaction

People today look for security in each and every little thing they buy. Safety being the customers priority firms must also take safety as their priority. For a business to run in long-run, customer retention is the key which mainly comes from customer satisfaction and stand up on their expectations. Traceability is the thing which provides customer every data which they wish to know even after usage of the product. Traceability is the only way businesses can gain maximum customer and retain them.

For example, if a person gets food product of particular brand which provides them to access even the farm where it was grown, definitely customers would prefer it over any other brand who just gives labelling for the same price.

2. Optimise and manage supply chain

Getting the supply chain transparent could help the businesses in cost reduction and effective management of the distribution. Tracing the distribution vehicles and all other steps involved could be great for agribusiness to grow.

  1. Easy market access:

Due to high risk in transport various countries denies to accept product or experience huge risk in getting better quality. Getting traceability feature businesses could ensure the quality and customers could trace the quality at different stages too. The problems arises when consumers demand distinct qualities like Location, organic nature, etc. which could be possible by traceability. Most countries are readily opting for organic produce which needs assurance on safety. Hence, traceability gives more vast market to deal with.

4. Risk monitoring

Enabling agribusinesses to implement such technology can help them to avoid:

o risk of quality issues  o contamination o disease outbreak in products o Stock wastage

5. Better Price

Farmers growing the crop aren’t getting right prices for the produce due to unpredictable weather conditions or not knowing preventive measures. Through traceability knowing of weather conditions is possible which encourages farmers to take measures in order to prevent crop from damage. Also, farmers can store information on at what conditions were crop spoil and based on that can prevent such circumstances. This would result in better quality and ultimately in getting better price to the farmers.

6. Inventory management

Agri-commodities are perishable in nature. Hence, storing them for longer period of time causes quality deterioration or spoilage. This causes agribusinesses in losses. By adopting traceability for farm to fork agribusiness can easily manage inventory stocks and get updates on quality issues as well. 

 

CONCLUSION

Agribusiness requires more care when compared to other business due to products being perishable in nature. Agribusiness are getting more high-tech due to the situation in the last few years. To sustain in market, businesses must adopt technologies to gain more customer and to retain them. Traceability and transparency can make businesses boost to greater heights. In this study, various methods by which traceability can be carried out is explored. It includes Blockchain being the most widely used method since it is cheaper than other methods and will be also beneficial to every person involved in the process. Block chain can be used in crop production, supply chain management and weather crisis. Secondly, Biosensors that helps in traceability by converting biological reactions in to electronic signals. Hence, any spoilage, contamination, etc can be known in order to avoid shipping them further. Lastly, RFID (radio frequency identification) is a technology that helps in tracing without coming into contact with the produce. It uses a computer chip or tags that can be traced. With all the technologies available, traceability agribusiness can evolve with many opportunities in the market. Business opportunities such as better market access, customer satisfaction increases, supply chain management and inventory management. Future modification can help it grow more and get more specific with the technologies help agribusinesses.

We will continue our research work further to other crops too and will keep on posting our findings as well.

 

We will keep posting about any such informative information on to our blogs, to help as many people as possible. Farmonaut is built upon a vision to bridge the technological gap between farmers and strives to bring state-of-the-art technologies in the hands of each and every farmer. For any queries/suggestions, please contact us at [email protected]

We have some more interesting articles coming up soon. Stay tuned!

Wait!!

Before that…

Follow us at:

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/farmonaut

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Tumblr: https://farmonaut.tumblr.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYWOOPPKATLgh4L6YRlYFOQ

AppLink: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farmonaut.android

Website: https://farmonaut.com

Satellite Imagery: https://farmonaut.com/satellite-imagery

Satellite Imagery Samples: https://farmonaut.com/satellite-imagery-samples