Climate Change and Precision Farming | Yuktix Technologies
The world is experiencing alarming Climate change and Climate if unchecked is an urgent threat to health, food supplies, biodiversity, and livelihoods across the globe. Agriculture is affected significantly by climate change; however, it is one of the main sources of greenhouse gases. As per the researches, it is found that Agriculture is among the largest contributors to climate change. Contributes to Approx 25% of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions, which makes it the world’s second-largest emitter after the energy sector.
Some of the worrying statistics around Green House Gases emission from agriculture are: 53% nitrous oxide (N2O) and 5% carbon dioxide (CO2), and also the constant flooding of the Rice paddies fields creates similar, anaerobic conditions which favor methane production. A massive amount of Carbon dioxide originates from the burning of fossil fuel, machinery used in agriculture. The excessive usage of Nitrogen fertilizers and chemicals for an increase in yield and quality of crops increases N2O (Nitrogen Oxide) and Nitrogen oxide results in making the atmosphere 300 times warmer than an equal amount of carbon dioxide.
Every year around 10 billion trees are
cut down for agriculture, the overutilization of land, loss of soil organic matter,
Salinisation of soils, acidification of soil has some irreparable loss to the
climate and ecosystem. The impact of climate on global food security is not
only on food supply but also on food quality, food access, and utilization.
Climate usually affects the nutritional value of crops. Research proves due to
an increased level of carbon dioxide; the concentrations of minerals in some
crops (e.g. wheat, rice, and soybeans) can be up to 8 percent lower than
normal. Protein concentrations may also be lower, while carbohydrates are
higher.
The inappropriate use of natural
resources due to lack of agricultural information results in overutilization of
natural resources resulting in wastage of natural resources and also directly
affect climate. Due to climate change, there has been an increase in droughts,
floods, and locust outbreaks, etc. that is resulting in declining yields, these
sudden climatic changes heighten the pre-existing problems for farmers
globally. The studies suggest that global climate change will reduce
agricultural productivity by roughly 17% by 2050
In the present situation Precision agriculture comes to the
rescue. Precision agriculture helps to optimize returns agricultural yields and
to minimize potential environmental impact and wastages. The use of Site-Specific management or Variable
rate application (VRA) technology identifies which areas
have a fertilizer deficiency and which have just enough and thus help manage
excessive use of chemicals and fertilizers.VRA technology helps in increasing
soil fertility and yields by reducing and managing nutritional imbalances, crop
stress, and pest infestations. Also,
a reduction in the use of fertilizers and other pesticides facilitates a
decrease in greenhouse gas emissions and less contamination of soil and water
bodies. According to World Economic Forum with Precision agricultural
practices global yield could drastically increase 10-15% by 2030, greenhouse
gas emissions and water wastage can decline by 15-20% provided 15-25% of the
farms of a region start adopting precision agriculture.
With precision farming, there is an increase in yields that
implies the possibility of increasing production with less water and without
expanding the agricultural area, which means less deforestation and depletion
of natural resources. Constant usage of crop monitoring through Drones and remote sensing techniques helps
in keeping a check on the incidence of plagues and diseases thus making it
easier to contain epidemics. Farmers can take timely corrective and preventive
measures by appropriately using the advanced technology
The
Smart devices and sensors generate and obtain real-time data, Micro –weather
data, facilitates field testing, wind sensing that helps farmers with better
farm management, Irrigation Management, Disease Management, Soil Management,
etc. The digital advisory Services helps better climate monitoring that
immensely helps farmer take well informed and intelligent decisions. The use of
solar energy in operating Smart devices helps reduce the burden on
non-renewable resources and also a solution for pollution.
Yuktix combating Climate change with Precision agriculture
Yuktix understands the current farming trend and provides smart farming
technologies to monitor and act, on individual farm assets in a targeted way.
Yuktix provides sensor-based devices that provide data for better
decision-making across the agriculture value chain. Yuktix Micro weather
station collects real-time data from fields by using sensors like temperature,
humidity, pressure, rain, wind speed, wind direction, solar radiation,
evaporation, soil moisture, etc. Thus
this real-time data helps farmers know the actual farm conditions and then take
decisions. This helps reduce over or under-utilization of resources.
The devices at Yuktix have been
effectively and efficiently assisting farmers in Disease prediction, Pest Prediction,
Irrigation Management. Yuktix's Agriculture dashboard using Satellite Imaging
provides Statistics like NDVI
(Normalized Difference Vegetation Index). The NDVI helps in
Crop Monitoring, farmers can track changes in the NDVI for individual fields
throughout the season; can monitor both the crop rotation patterns and the
current vegetation rates. With the help of user-friendly charts, the app
visualizes different types of data, including the vegetation indices,
temperature, precipitation rate, growth stages, historical weather, etc. NDVI
rates help in the identification of high productivity zones, as well as
discover the weak points in the field that require special treatment. Each
zone, at every growth stage, needs a different amount of fertilizer and
irrigation treatment. Farmers also get notified every time an abnormal change
of the NDVI value has been detected, helping them make well-informed
agricultural decisions promptly.
Yuktix GreenSense provides a Smart Irrigation System that consists
of Soil Moisture Sensors, Rainfall sensors that measure soil moisture based on
factors ETO (Evapotranspiration)calculations,
Rainfall data, and soil moisture data, enabling farmers to take appropriate
decisions on irrigation eliminating water wastage. Yuktix understands and cares
for the environment, thus the devices are optimized for low power consumption.
The devices can run on batteries or solar power for years without requiring a
change.
It is clear that the impact of agriculture is huge, Precision
agriculture has a significant role to play in dealing with the Climate
imbalance due to agriculture. Combining the conventional farming methods with
Smart ways and equipping farms and farmers in soil management practices could
reduce the carbon and other greenhouse gas footprints drastically. Over the
years there have been, massive development in the field of IoT in agriculture
and now Implementing agri-tech has become easier than ever before. The is
extremely necessary to exploit technology and leverage precision farming in
developing local and global strategies for a reasonable and smooth agriculture
transition while addressing climate change. Real-time data-backed agriculture
will establish the most favorable farms with ideal crop yields and restrain
food wastages along with lower environmental impact by efficient use of
need-based agri- inputs in farming.
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