The use of IoT enabled sensors in the agriculture industry is propelled by the need for efficient utilisation of depleting resources. The demand for smart sensors in this industry is also driven by the focus on reducing food wastage and meeting the growing food demand globally. Countries around the world are working on transforming the agriculture industry by leveraging IoT to streamline and optimise their farming activities. In particular, this focuses on monitoring of crops and agricultural land for soil condition and local environmental data. The use of smart sensors not only helps in efficient farming resource management but also in improving crop yield. Crop and soil monitoring, water management, and weather monitoring are some of the use cases of IoT in agriculture.
The report provides a detailed definition of the sector, analysis of market development and profiles of the key vendors in the space. It also provides a summary of the current status of adoption and Transforma Insights’ ten-year forecasts for the market. The forecasts include analysis of the number of IoT connections by geography, the technologies used (including splits by 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, LPWA, short range, satellite and others), as well as the revenue split between module, value-added connectivity and services.
A full set of forecast data, including country-level forecasts, sector break-downs and public/private network splits, is available through the IoT Forecast tool.
The report examines key factors that are influencing the development of the market, including:
This section of the report begins with an explanation of how the agriculture industry plays a vital role in the global economic development, followed by an explanation of how crop management solutions (including connected sensors) can be used to streamline farming activities, thereby increasing yield significantly and reducing production cost, which in turn, will help in feeding the growing population (which is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050).
This subsection talks about the importance of lowering food wastage by various means such as deploying agriculture IoT solutions, which helps in the early detection of pests and diseases. It also discusses the adoption of IoT-based efficient water management solutions to deal with the decreasing water supply, needed for agricultural activities (it is estimated that implementation of water management solutions can save 25%-30% of the total water used in agricultural fields). It also talks about deploying IoT solutions to reduce GHG emissions from the agriculture sector. For instance, in the UK, these technologies can reduce 4.8 million tonnes of CO2 emissions from agriculture per year.
This subsection primarily focuses on the deployment of IoT solutions for more efficient farming practices (such as hydroponics) to tackle soil and water-related challenges. For instance, in India, UrbanKissan used hydroponics to grow saffron in Telangana, a region typically unsuited for saffron cultivation. This led to a 40-fold reduction in space requirements and a 20-fold increase in efficiency compared to traditional farming.
It also refers to the hindrances to IoT uptake in this sector (like the low costs of traditional agricultural methods and using satellite imagery to capture high-precision images) and delves deeper into the advantages (like identifying nutrient deficiency) and disadvantages (such as being challenged by weather conditions) of using satellite imagery.
This section discusses how IoT solutions can cater to the increasing demand for organic food (arising from the increasing consciousness about how food is grown). For instance, a combination of crop monitoring and supply chain tracking can reduce food fraud (which is a global issue now, estimated to be worth around USD40-50 billion).
This section mentions the connectivity technologies deployed in these crop management solutions, like a mix of cellular, Short Range, and LPWA, and the reasons which make these technologies favourable options (such as LPWA networks offering the possibility of connectivity to farms with no or poor cellular network connectivity).
This section talks about some of the initiatives taken by different countries towards the promotion of IoT usage in smart farming. To cite an instance, in the US, the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (in partnership with Microsoft and Esri) launched the Data Innovations project to use IoT and other technologies to assist farmers in accessing real-time information on farms.
Some examples of relevant IoT deployments have also been included here, like Château Kefraya (a Lebanon-based winery) deploying a Libelium sensor network to monitor soil and climate data to better understand their impact on grape production, eventually allowing the production of higher-quality wines via faster, efficient, and accurate decision-making enabled by real-time collection of data.
This section of the report focuses on the challenges faced by the aquaculture industry in general (including overfeeding of fish, resulting in an inaccurate assessment of the volume of required feed) and explains how such issues can be effectively dealt with by deploying IoT solutions (as they help in better and efficient management of fish feeding via real-time monitoring of water conditions). It also takes into consideration other critical issues faced by the industry, such as increasing ocean temperatures and unseen unpleasant weather situations, and discusses how IoT sensors can help in such situations (by notifying farm operators of changing water conditions, allowing them to act accordingly).
It then talks about the negative environmental impact of fish farming and charts how IoT sensors can curb such damage, as smart sensors identify waterborne problems such as algal blooms and pollutants, thereby saving the local environment. It also delves into the limits and barriers put by countries to curb pollutants caused by fish farms (like the US, which has imposed the Clean Water Act to regulate pollutants released into waters).
This section has also explored the utilization of connectivity technologies (including satellite technology) in IoT devices and discussed their suitability in this context. It also mentions some examples of relevant IoT deployments in this application, such as Westpac (a New Zealand-based shellfish producer) using Libelium’s sensors (distributed by Adroit) to monitor the water quality of the mussels and witnessing enhanced speed and accuracy of meteorological information collection and salinity information.
The key vendors section lists some of the main providers of products and services related to the market such as Alliot Technologies, eFishery, Goanna, Libelium, Microsoft, Quadlink, Sensoterra, and Skylo. The report provides profiles of the various vendors including aspects most relevant to this Application Group, such as product offerings, pricing, financial results, and technology.
In the market forecasts section, we provide a summary of the forecasts from the Transforma Insights IoT Forecast Database:
The report charts the growth in the number of agricultural connected devices which will grow from 9.6 million in 2020 to 110 million in 2030.
Transforma Insights forecasts are compiled on a country-by-country basis. This report includes a regional summary, showing splits between Australasia, Greater China, North America, Europe, Japan, Latin America, MENA, Russia & Central Asia, South East Asia, South Korea, India & South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Transforma Insights’ IoT forecasts include splits between the various connectivity technologies as follows: 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G mMTC, 5G non-mMTC, LPWA (non-mMTC), Satellite, Short Range, and Other.
This section discusses which technologies will be used in the agriculture application group.
This part of the report discusses the market growth in terms of revenue (module revenue, service wrap revenue, and VAC revenue). Transforma Insights estimates that the revenue in the Agriculture Application Group will grow at a CAGR of 26.3%.
