From Smart Farming towards Agriculture 5.0: A Review on Crop Data Management

Verónica Saiz-Rubio,Francisco Rovira-Más

doi:10.3390/agronomy10020207

Verónica Saiz-Rubio, Francisco Rovira-Más

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10020207

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Journal: Agronomy	Publication Date: Feb 3, 2020
Citations: 433	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Universitat Politècnica de València

Abstract

The information that crops offer is turned into profitable decisions only when efficiently managed. Current advances in data management are making Smart Farming grow exponentially as data have become the key element in modern agriculture to help producers with critical decision-making. Valuable advantages appear with objective information acquired through sensors with the aim of maximizing productivity and sustainability. This kind of data-based managed farms rely on data that can increase efficiency by avoiding the misuse of resources and the pollution of the environment. Data-driven agriculture, with the help of robotic solutions incorporating artificial intelligent techniques, sets the grounds for the sustainable agriculture of the future. This paper reviews the current status of advanced farm management systems by revisiting each crucial step, from data acquisition in crop fields to variable rate applications, so that growers can make optimized decisions to save money while protecting the environment and transforming how food will be produced to sustainably match the forthcoming population growth.

Highlights

The agriculture sector is undergoing a transformation driven by new technologies, which seems very promising as it will enable this primary sector to move to the level of farm productivity and profitability [1]
Precision Agriculture, which consist of applying inputs when and where is needed, has become the third wave of the modern agriculture revolution, and nowadays, it is being enhanced with an increase of farm knowledge systems due to the availability of larger amounts of data
Agricultural management systems can handle farm data in such a way that results are orchestrated to address customized solutions for each farm. This aid for farmers in the form of digital solutions combines forces with robotics and artificial intelligence to launch the imminent idea of Agriculture

Summary

Introduction

The agriculture sector is undergoing a transformation driven by new technologies, which seems very promising as it will enable this primary sector to move to the level of farm productivity and profitability [1]. According to a market analysis, the factors that would facilitate the adoption of sustainable farming technologies include better education and training of farmers, sharing of information, easy availability of financial resources, and increasing consumer demand for organic food [4]. When applying these new technologies, the challenge for retrieving data from crops is to come out with something coherent and valuable, because data themselves are not useful, just numbers or images. Farms that decide to be technology-driven in some way, show valuable advantages, such us saving money and work, having an increased production or a reduction of costs with minimal effort, and producing quality food with more environmentally friendly practices [5]

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