Smart farming

Smart farming , digital farming or e-farming (also known as Agriculture 4.0 or Farm 4.0 in German-speaking countries ) describes the modern use of information and communication technologies in agriculture . However, the term only includes a subset of digital process technologies in the context of digitization in agriculture .

Areas of application and tasks

Smart farming deals with:

• the automation of work processes and the reduction or reduction of monotonous work and manpower , e.g. B. through the use of robots , autonomous driving , automated feed distribution, remote-controlled agricultural drones and unmanned vehicles (e.g. when removing pesticides ) and the use of assistance systems
• Machine learning , e.g. B. with field robots , which should recognize where they can pull weeds, fertilize or place seeds
• Easier control, regulation and measurement of processes (e.g. measurable feed dispensing, expanded sensors for husbandry and production, video surveillance or fitness trackers for the cows)
• connected devices and vehicles ( Internet of Things )
• the management and control of work processes on mobile devices such as a smartphone or tablet
• the use of renewable energies
• the use of big data and smart technologies
• Digitization processes in agricultural administration and in the management and equipment of the IT infrastructure

Criticism and perception

Smart farming is seen by some authors as an opportunity to get the problem of overpopulation and world hunger better under control. The increase in operational process efficiency is given at an average of eleven percent. The costs could be reduced by an average of seven percent. 48 percent also reported savings on fertilizers, and 42 percent use fewer pesticides thanks to the technologies.

A big problem, however, is the high initial and acquisition costs. Many farmers or employees in agricultural businesses also lack the necessary knowledge about the new technologies, and 52 percent say that they do not know what an investment is actually worth for. Although three quarters of farmers say they have already dealt with smart farming, 44 percent state that they have not been adequately informed about it. Only a third are also willing to invest in training for their employees. In Germany, the Smart Farming World project - cross-manufacturer networking of machines in agricultural crop production with the help of a service platform from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and partners such as Telekom , RWTH Aachen , Logic Way, the Grimme Group , the German Research Center for Artificial intelligence and CLAAS , promoted.

See also

• Precision farming
• Bioinformatics

Web links

• http://www.smart-farming-welt.de/
• Smart Farming: Big Data on the Farm - Economy - FAZ
• Smart Farming: How digitization is revolutionizing agriculture - wiwo.de
• Smart farming: the digital farm - techtag.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Quo vadis, agricola? Smart farming: sustainability and efficiency through the use of digital technologies , study by PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH, p. 15
2. ↑ PricewaterhouseCoopers: Study on Smart Farming: Agriculture is playing a pioneering role in digitization . In: PwC . ( pwc.de [accessed November 27, 2017]).