Rabobank analysts say data-intensive farming could add €10bn per year to value of crop farming
Data-intensive farming employs control centres to collect and process information in real time to help farmers make the best decisions with regard to planting, fertilising and harvesting crops.
Sensors placed throughout the fields are used to measure temperature and humidity of the soil and surrounding air.
In addition, pictures of fields are taken using satellite imagery and robotic drones.
The images over time show crop maturity and when coupled with predictive weather modelling, are used to build models and simulations that can predict future conditions and help farmers make the best decisions.
Data-intensive farming replaces intuitive decisions with fact-based decisions, resulting in further increases in farming scale advantages, say the analysts in Rabobank.
They envisage farming practices will be steered more and more by facts, which in turn are generated by an increasing number of sensors.
The analysts say farmers have to decide how they access the new technology.
They can either access on their own to create a competitive edge over their neighbours, which requires a very large scale of operation, or via their suppliers who can leverage investments in modern technology across more farmers, or in co-operation with others (for example, via their inputs co-operative).
There can also be opportunities for co-operatives to develop new ancillary services based on the aggregated data.
The largest farmers are best positioned to benefit from adopting the new technology.
However, medium and small-sized farmers will also need to scale up, by either increasing their own operations or becoming part of a bigger franchise that shares data, technology and expertise.
Farmer co-operatives have a special responsibility to ensure that farmers will reap the benefits of aggregating their collected farm data, say the experts in Rabobank.
Currently, precision agriculture technologies are used by large farming companies which can better afford the robust IT infrastructure and resources to do the monitoring.
However, it is envisaged that smaller farms and co-ops could use mobile devices and crowd sourcing to optimise their agriculture.
