How Asia Farms Are Digitalizing

Farming is one of the oldest professions. But it is now being led rapidly into the digital age through a combination of next-generation technologies that increase productivity while also improving food security.

On a global scale, the forecasts for growth continue to be almost exponentially bullish. The market for monitoring livestock, for example, is estimated by ResearchAndMarkets.com to be worth USD1.6 billion this year and could reach USD3.7 billion by 2030.

The growing implementation of sensors, smart tags, camera systems, and GPS devices is driving this. In addition, telematics is being used to capture data through sensors fitted to equipment such as tractors.

According to the IMARC Group, the global market for agricultural robots performing tasks from seeding and planting, aerial data collection, harvesting, and soil analysis reached USD6.3 billion in 2021.

The ASEAN region is one of the key markets for this transformation. Agriculture represented around 11% of the region’s GDP in 2020 and accounts for more than 30% of total employment in many regional countries.

At the same time, the region has proved vulnerable to the impacts of climate change which has caused crop and livestock losses of billions of dollars, a trend exacerbated by the pandemic disruptions.

Small holdings go digital

Even though many farms in Asia remain small and operated by cash-strapped family businesses, the region is proving to be a leading adopter of new technologies.

In Thailand, the Government is awarding grants of up to USD9,000 to farmers for digital projects, prompting a significant uptake in the use of drones for spraying and planning.

Drones are also being used in Malaysian agriculture. There, a new startup called Poladrone specializes in pest management for palm oil farmers with precision spraying.

Cloud-based services are to the fore in Vietnam, where MimosaTEK is coupling the cloud with precision agriculture, enabling smart irrigation systems which use smartphones to monitor the weather and optimize water use.

A young Vietnamese entrepreneur, Pham Thanh Toan, has founded MiSmart, which combines automated technologies with artificial intelligence to bring Big Data solutions to far management.

His inspiration was truly regional. Toan gained a master’s degree in AI in Japan, where farmers use drones to spray pesticides which deliver an efficiency 50 times greater than traditional methods. He teamed up with a friend who gained his Ph.D. studying in Australia.

Their goal is to bring digital agriculture to improve Vietnamese farming, surmounting challenges such as the local unavailability of critical components by manufacturing themselves. Their prototype UAV flew in 2020 and proved adept at lifting heavy objects and delivering a 25% productivity improvement on traditional methods.

In urban Singapore, there has been a focus on high-tech indoor farms, with one startup, Sustenir, claiming its farms can achieve yields that are 14 times higher than other farms.

AI Platform

It is not only startups at the cutting edge of new agritech technology. South Korea’s well-established LG Group announced this month that it had joined the Government’s new smart farming project with plans to build an AI-based platform and piloted at a farm near the rural city of Naju, around 350 kilometers from Seoul.

The Agriculture Ministry and its partners aim to create a 543,000 square meter intelligent outdoor farm typical to around 95% of the nation’s farms.

LNG’s IT solutions unit is building a platform to collect and analyze data on crop growth, soil, weather, irrigation, and damage from the disease.

A digital ‘scarecrow’ will be equipped with AI sensors, radars, and speakers and wave off birds and animals. The platform will also enable a fleet of drones.

As populations increase, climate change continues to impact, and food security becomes ever more critical, we can expect a growing momentum for these new technologies, particularly when 5G coverage becomes an enabling factor.

There are challenges and barriers, such as adopting data standards and access to capital for small holders. But the trend is only going one way, and by the end of the decade, this oldest of professions will be one of the most technologically advanced.

Lachlan Colquhoun is the Australia and New Zealand correspondent for CDOTrends and the NextGenConnectivity editor. He remains fascinated with how businesses reinvent themselves through digital technology to solve existing issues and change their entire business models. You can reach him at [email protected].

Image credit: iStockphoto/Pixfly