Connected agriculture, also known as digital farming, refers to the use of technology to improve agricultural production, with farmers able to monitor crops and livestock, collect data in real-time, make informed decisions, reduce waste and improve yields.
According to Countrepoint’s Global Connected Agriculture Market report, connected agriculture device shipments will grow by 30% annually – rising from $23 million in 2022 to $187 million by 2030.
Counterpoint said that the large farms and livestock and manpower shortages in certain countries are driving the need for connectivity, with China expected to be the top market for connected agriculture products.
The connected agriculture market’s crop farming segment is expected to grow at the quickest rate (41% CAGR) during 2023-2030, followed by drones and robots, tractors, and livestock monitoring.
“Drones are emerging as a key technology supporting agriculture primarily for visual inspection, spraying and mapping. But the current usage is very low due to the non-availability of skilled manpower, insufficient battery life and high computational costs,” Senior Research Analyst Soumen Mandal said.
“Similarly, the usage of robots in agriculture is still limited due to technological challenges and high prices. However, there will be significant potential for drones and robotics going forward, especially in China, Europe and North America.”
Senior Research Analyst Akshara Bassi said that increased penetration of market devices will be incredibly popular for livestock farmers in the coming years,
“We expect the smart livestock market to grow at 18% annually over the forecast period driven by lower pricing, mass availability of affordable connectivity options, low maintenance of the devices and subsidies by governments to digitize agriculture,” Bassi said,
“Increase in labour wages and shortage of labour also drive the farms to automate some of the tasks without impacting their productivity.”
Moreover, Associate Director Mohit Agrawal said that the adoption of the technology by farmers may still face several headwinds.
“The lack of technology awareness among farmers, small landholdings and inadequate cellular network coverage in farming areas are the key challenges for connected farming. As a result, the penetration of connectivity in farms will remain below 10% even in 2030, and a significant proportion of the connected nodes will rely on non-cellular technologies.”
Drones won’t completely replace tractors anytime soon. Their payload is limited to about 20 gallons, not nearly enough to handle the hundreds-of-pounds-per-acre fertilizer applications required between harvests. But they’re certainly capable of displacing the expensive, wasteful crop-dusting of herbicides and fungicides still performed by airplanes and helicopters across millions of acres.
Whereas crop-dusting spreads chemicals that bleed beyond the edges of the fields, drones deliver the chemicals in fine mists directly into the crop without overspill. The nimble flyers can work around obstacles like powerlines and trees, drastically increasing the efficiency of chemical applications.
While the advantages of agrodrones are significant, the two largest tractor producers — Deere & Co. in the US and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. in India, have begun to invest only half-heartedly in drones, which are currently a tiny fraction of John Deere’s $52 billion empire. The titans of mechanized agriculture may be slow to recognize it, but the era of flying tractors has arrived.
