Precision Agriculture in Crop Production
Precision Agriculture Versus Smart Farming
As smart machines and sensors crop up on farms and farm data grow in quantity and scope, farming processes will become increasingly data driven and data-enabled. Rapid developments in the Internet of Things and cloud computing are propelling the phenomenon of “smart farming.” While precision agriculture is just taking in-field variability into account, smart farming goes beyond that by basing management tasks not only on location, but also on data, enhanced by context- and situation awareness, triggered by real-time events. Precision agriculture is a data-driven farm management approach that optimizes inputs (water, fertilizer, pesticides) based on real-time field variability, improving efficiency and sustainability. Smart farming is a broader technology-driven agricultural concept that integrates IoT (Internet of Things), AI, robotics, and big data analytics to automate and optimize the entire farming process. Smart devices extend conventional tools (e.g., rain gauge, tractor, notebook) by adding autonomous context-awareness, using all kinds of sensors, built-in intelligence, capable of executing autonomous actions or doing this remotely (Table 1.1).
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