Smart Farming is No Longer a Hype but a Reality …[Enabled by Emerging ICTs] by PROF. ARTHUR U. UME
Not too long ago, the World witnessed a great agricultural boom as a result of innovations and breakthroughs in genetics, and the Genome project. Once again, another boom can be seen in the horizon as a result of possibilities to leverage huge improvements in ICT, specifically IoT applications and solutions which are increasingly being introduced as key innovations in Geo-positioning systems, Big Data, UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, drones), remote sensing and robotics. These technologies are increasingly coming into the production space and practical use, and when “cemented together” by IoT (Internet of Things) constitute a potent force that many researchers believe, will be driving the envisaged boom.

This new wave of technology innovations and capabilities is sure ushering a Third Green Revolution into the Agricultural sector. It is worth knowing that the practical application and leveraging of the afore-mentioned technologies and innovations by farmers is simply coined as “smart farming”. In other words, smart farming is the extensive use of integrated ICTs for agricultural endeavours and purposes. This is no more a hype, but has become realizable  and achievable not only in the more developed economies but also in developing countries like Nigeria, where the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) had been on an exponential increase for the last two decades. It is therefore no wonder that many scholars and IT experts opine that “IoT, Big data and Smart farming are the future of the World’s agriculture”

Subsequent brief write-ups through this blog handle will discuss and communicate some of the breakthroughs in smart farming.