Sensors the Key to Feeding Growing Population

There’s no question that the number of farms worldwide has drastically dwindled over the years, with the percentage of people working in agriculture to feed a booming global population plummeting into. But thanks to advances in sensors and other technologies, farmers are making measurable productivity leaps growing and harvesting food.

That was the gist of a Tuesday keynote speech at the Sensors Converge exhibition and conference at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara titled, “One Chance Per Year: Why Ag Tech Matters to Every Person on the Planet.” The keynote speaker, Willy Pell, is CEO of Blue River, an agricultural technology company that is now an independent subsidiary of agricultural machinery giant John Deere.

The role of technology in upgrading agricultural processes is not just a matter of whether one wants to automate or not, Pell told a packed audience. With far fewer people deciding to undergo the trials and tribulations of planting, growing, and harvesting crops with often smaller teams of people, farmers are compelled to adopt labor-saving technology such as automated tractors and systems that can efficiently perform tasks such as tilling soil and spraying herbicides. That technology has become more readily available from companies such as John Deere, as well as from Blue River, which offers robotic-based hardware and software that uses AI and machine learning that helps to make tedious agricultural processes more efficient.

Related:The Automated Farm, from Field to Office

Pell’s journey to heading a high-tech company in agriculture was not in his original plans. Pell said he originally hoped to leverage his extensive technology and business skills in a more visible field such as autonomous vehicles. But Pell, who originally joined Blue River as Senior Director of Autonomous Systems in late 2012 and became CEO over a year ago, surmised at the time that payback from autonomous vehicles would not be realized for many years, and saw architecture as a faster way to achieve growth while fulfilling the grueling but rewarding task of helping feed the world’s population.

Farming Tough Environment

While the success of many technologies depends on skill and processes, agriculture introduces variables humans have no control over, namely variations in climates and in the worst-case, natural disasters that are unforgiving to farmers, who every year have a short window to set up their fields for growing various crops. Moreover, Pell said farming was also a low margin business unlike other markets where innovation can reap huge margins.

Related:How To Build a Better Agriculture System with HMI

Still, Pell noted that agricultural technology can largely account for factors they will likely be ecountered, including trees, soils, and plants. With Blue River, whose technology relies heavily on vision and data, the products can be intelligent engineered for detecting anomalies that hinder crop growth.

Pell cited one of Blue River’s more significant technology achievements, See and Spray,  a robotic-based system that allows for selective spraying of crops. Pell said this system reduces herbicide costs by up to 70% while also increasing sparing crops from unnecessary chemicals, increasing overall growing productivity.

Pell said that Blue River’s technology plays a key role in John Deere’s goal of developing a fully autonomous farming system for corn and soybeans by 2030. The technology not only automates many tasks, but also creates a rich data collection and analytics network that requires the use of edge- and cloud-based systems to store and share information.