Planting the future

The progress of modern technology affects every aspect of human endeavor, including agriculture. The digital age, which allows for the widespread use of the internet and mobile devices, has proven beneficial not only to huge enterprises but also to agribusiness owners/farmers. While new tools and technology have always been essential for agricultural operations and food production, the development and use of innovative farming technologies are currently driven by pressing challenges. The most important one is food security: the International Monetary Fund estimates that by 2050, food production will need to rise by 70% to keep up with the world’s population growth. Precision farming, or smart agriculture, is centered on using cutting-edge technology (sensors, big data, satellites, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things) to track, automate, monitor, and analyze agricultural processes. Utilizing these cutting-edge technologies has continued to increase production levels, lessen the labor for farmers, and even lower the cost of agriculture. Smart agriculture is becoming the center of innovation in many developing nations to boost their economies because of its increasing significance and value. Smart farming offers a lot of potential, but there are still issues like high implementation costs, worries about data security, and low digital literacy among farmers. This chapter has outlined the ongoing revolution in digital farming by examining the state of smart agriculture today, its essential technologies, its applications, and the challenges farmers face in the smart farming age, thereby identifying the research gap in the intelligent farming system.