Smart Agriculture Sensors: Helping Small Farmers and Positively Impacting Global Issues, Too

Smart agriculture, also known as precision agriculture, allows farmers to maximize yields using minimal resources such as water, fertilizer, and seeds. By deploying sensors and mapping fields, farmers can begin to understand their crops at a micro scale, conserve resources, and reduce impacts on the environment. Smart agriculture has roots going back to the 1980s when Global Positioning System (GPS) capability became accessible for civilian use. Once farmers were able to accurately map their crop fields, they could monitor and apply fertilizer and weed treatments only to areas that required it. During the 1990s, early precision agriculture users adopted crop yield monitoring to generate fertilizer and pH correction recommendations. As more variables could be measured and entered into a crop model, more accurate recommendations for fertilizer application, watering, and even peak yield harvesting, could be made.