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Introduction of Smart Agriculture

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-71069-9_14

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Chapter 14
Introduction of Smart Agriculture

Christian Zinke-Wehlmann and Karel Charvát

Abstract Smart agriculture is a rising area bringing the benefits of digitalization

through big data, artificial intelligence and linked data into the agricultural domain.
This chapter motivates the use and describes the rise of smart agriculture.

14.1 Situation

Agriculture is a central sector for all of us, but there are significant challenges that this
sector and the whole society face:
• A growing populationraises the demand for food “by roughly 50 percent compared
to 2013 agricultural output” [1].
• Globalisation is mixing food cultures.
• Healthy living and the elderly population are requiring different diets than before.
• Urbanization with an increasing demand for processed and high-quality food.
• Land abandonment due to growing urbanization.
• Limited and highly stressed natural resources—overused farmland becomes
degraded (e.g., soil erosion, unbalanced fertilizer usage), water resources are
threatened.
• Climate change affects crop growth negatively due to higher temperatures and
poses higher risks for yield loss by droughts and floods.
• New policies influence agriculture production, and changes in the subsidies system
can rapidly influence agriculture production [2].
Thus, the supply chain security of high-quality food products becomes very
relevant, while at the same time, the global demand for food is growing [3]. To

C. Zinke-Wehlmann (B)
Institute for Applied Informatics e.V. at the University of Leipzig, Goerdelering 9, Leipzig,
Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
K. Charvát
Lesprojekt-Sluzby, Ltd, Zaryby, Czech Republic

© The Author(s) 2021 187

C. Södergård et al. (eds.), Big Data in Bioeconomy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71069-9_14
188 C. Zinke-Wehlmann and K. Charvát

address these challenges, digitalization and data-driven approaches for agriculture

have emerged [4]. However, digitalization of agriculture is not only economically
driven, but also advanced by legal requirements, fertilizer ordinances and sustainable
management of natural resources [5].
Crop modeling, yield monitoring, satellite navigation, earth observation, and
cheap and high precision sensors are well-known examples of digitalization, or to
be more precise, of precision farming/agriculture and smart agriculture [6].

14.2 Precision Agriculture

“Precision farming makes use of information technologies in agriculture. With the

satellite positioning system and electronic communication standards, position and
time may be integrated into all procedures connected to farming” [7].
The goal of precision farming is to do the right things at the right places with the
right intensity—e.g., fertilizing [8]. However, it is an information-driven approach to
support the farmer’s decisions, mostly resulting in farm-management-systems. The
forecasted market value of these technologies in 2023 is 9.53 billion US dollars. With
the growth of technological possibilities and development (more sensors, the expan-
sion of Internet of Things, more data sources, e.g., earth observation and weather
forecasts), cyber-physical systems became relevant for agriculture [9]. The growth
of information came along with the demand for intelligent solutions.

14.3 Smart Agriculture

Smart agriculture is not only about bringing information technology in agriculture,

but rather more about creating and using knowledge through technology. Agricultural
machines and devices should be enabled by information technology to process and
analyze data—and finally, make some decisions, or prepare them semi-automatically
[4, 10]. It is based upon the rise of big data technologies [11], the Internet of Things
[12], satellite observation [13], linked data [14], and artificial intelligence [15] in all
the agriculture supply chain stages [5]. The forecasted market value of smart farming
worldwide is 23.1 billion dollars (including precision farming). The following chap-
ters in Part V underlines the importance of smart farming in terms of agricultural
productivity, environmental impact, food security, and sustainability, with applica-
tions in the areas of crops, soil, biodiversity, farmer’s decision-making, and many
more—in line with works like [6]. Concretely, the following chapters demonstrate
how smart agriculture can be applied.
• Chapter 15 demonstrates smart farming services based on IoT, EO data and big
data analytics. They are able to provide advice for fertilization, irrigation, and
14 Introduction of Smart Agriculture 189

crop protection in a flexible way to the farmers. The services promote sustainable
farming practices for better control and management of the resources.
• Chapter 16 presents an approach for genomic prediction and selec-
tion of biomass. The data came from several sources, such as phenomics, genomics
and sensors. The presented approach of smart agriculture provides the enabling
technologies and knowledge to support crop breeding companies.
• Chapter 17 introduces yield prediction models for sorghum and potatoes.
High-resolution satellite images were used to predict yields. Through the
presented smart farming approach, farmers can improve their business operations
through informed decision-making in planning field work, logistics and supply
chains.
• Chapter 18 demonstrates the variable application of nitrogen fertilizers on farm
fields based on satellite monitoring..
• Smart agriculture is not only about the primary supply chain; it is also about
services to protect farmers. Considering the current challenges related to climate
change effects and the increasing world population, insurance assessments
may ensure a higher resilience of agriculture. Chapter 19 presents a first step
towards data-based insurance for smart agriculture.
• To set up more environmentally friendly and efficient agricultural practices, tools
and services to support compliance management, e.g., CAP, is needed. Chapter 20
demonstrates how the processing and analysis of Copernicus satellite imagery can
offer compliance checking and a great range of supplementary information for
public authorities and farmers.
• The concluding chapter in this Part V summarizes the presented work and gives
a brief outlook on smart agriculture in the near future.

References

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Proceedings of the World Government Summit, Dubai, UAE, (p. 1113).
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Africa.
3. Tilman, D., Balzer, C., Hill, J., & Befort, B. L. (2011). Global food demand and the sustain-
able intensification of agriculture. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(50),
20260–20264.
4. Weltzien, C. (2016). Digital agriculture or why agriculture 4.0 still offers only modest returns.
Landtechnik, 71(2), 66–68.
5. Bovensiepen, G. & Hombach, R. (2016). Quo vadis, agricola? Smart farming: Nachhaltigkeit
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CRC Press.
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9. Rad, C. R., Hancu, O., Takacs, I. A., & Olteanu, G. (2015). Smart monitoring of potato crop:
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