What is Agritech/SmartFarming?

So what is Agritech, is it the same as Smart Farming and what connection does it have to Smart Homes and Home Automation?

Agritech is a broad label used to identify technologies that can assist with farming, specifically Agriculture, although it’s fair to say they can be applied on animal husbandry farms small and large in many cases.
Home automation is broadly speaking a system of networked devices such as lighting, sensors, entertainment systems, security, and appliances connected to a central ‘hub’ with some capacity to trigger actions based on certain conditions. We could define a Smart Home as the specific devices that have internet access often referred to as Internet of Things (IoT).

Where the Smart Farm differs from the Smart Home.

Farms have some things in common with domestic properties, but typically differ in two key areas:

• The volume, complexity and weight of equipment.
• The distances between everything is typically larger.

Most Smart Homes will contain appliances and devices less than 100kg and position most of them within a space of less than 500sqm, their power supplies will range between 240v and 5v. Effectively, this means all the devices can all get reliable network and power easily and usually can be unboxed and setup within minutes.

On the average Farm even the distance between the infrastructure and buildings will stretch the capability of domestic WiFi networks. Not all the structures have reliable power supplies. Many buildings are metal (not great for WiFi) and the equipment isn’t often available with any ‘Smart’ capabilities.

For an example, I purchased a new Japanese tractor in 2021 and it has no smart capabilities yet our dishwasher does. And here lies the causation for me to get involved in smart farming. There is a problem (or opportunity) to apply some technology for a hopefully better outcome.

Now at this point I would like to make it known I believe that most home smart home devices and home automation is superficial. In my experience the majority of smart home systems are automating creature comforts and home entertainment. I did not become interested in computers until I saw them achieving something interesting and useful. I am not a gamer, computers were always a tool and IoT devices are somewhat stupid computers.

Case in hand. The beforementioned dishwasher can be started via a phone application remotely, although needs to be loaded with dishes manually making the feature somewhat redundant. It only truly useful feature is alerting us to low levels of drying agent which sadly isn’t information it will share meaning I must proactively open the app to check periodically.

Most of these ‘smart’ features manufacturers offer is simply part of their marketing to sell units. When you think about it, a product should be redesigned from the ground up to be truly automated. We saw this with the rise and quick death of smart fridges. Simply adding a web browser to the door wasn’t going to achieve much.

So, as I see it; home automation and smart devices primarily exist because it allows companies to gather extremely valuable data on our behaviour. We are selling out our privacy for the convenience of turning a lamp on and off from the couch.

So why bother using IoT on the farm?

Farmers have a more sophisticated understanding of needs vs wants. They have to. Farming Equipment is diametrically more expensive, it’s heavy and there is never enough time to get everything done, especially maintenance. This is all before we start talking about the commercial advantages of efficiency gains. You try selling a farmer snake oil.

So what are some examples practical outcomes?

I’ll talk about what I know. I have a strong connection to water management possibly from living in a dry continent. On my farm ‘Rushbrook’ we have several water sources and depending on the weather, a need to move it from one part of the property to the other. The challenges for us are trivial compared to some large properties further out west, the longest distance between out fence lines is 1km and we have a main water connection at one end. It is however a domestic feed and too expensive for irrigation.

There were some solutions available commercially we could have implemented to assist with the management of our grid. They were however too expensive to make commercial sense for the volumes we typically use and they did not support the aggregating of data centrally and were only able to be installed on above ground water sources.

Problems are opportunities and I began work designing a solution for my needs using a design pattern approach to create a solution that could be reused.

Along comes ‘Tank Commander’ the modular water management device.

Based on an ESP32 microprocessor, a low-cost, low-power systems can run on a small solar array if required and be installed on almost any water source. They can work seamlessly together and be fully automated and gather water usage and importantly detect leaks!

Now as way of disclosure. I have been providing advice and delivering IT solutions for 30 years and although having detialed understanding of the problem is helpful, it is in no way necessary.

The only learning curve, albeit a steep one, was the electrical engineering aspects. Building computers, weatherproofing, programming I’ve been doing forever.

I am hoping to release this as a self installed product in the near future with a retail price less than $1000AUD. I have two working prototypes in the field actively managing our house water, there is a grey water management system in development.

Other Smart Farm systems I didn’t make from scratch.

We run a security system using an array of cameras and smart lighting switches. The system can distinguish between people, vehicles and animals in both daylight and darkness. It will support the turning on of flood lights, alarms and alike. It could be used to activate the veranda lights when you enter the carport. Or ensure an intruder has clean plates and glasses (sic).

Climate. We have a commercial grade weather station along with a handful of systems that can be triggered by certain environmental thresholds. Automation is much more useful with data, and you get data from sensors. I have temperature sensors literally everywhere. We get temperatures throughout the year from -4°c to 45°c.

In summing up. I’d always recommend you prioritise your needs before automating. Be prepared to get your hands dirty. Be pragmatic.