Big data startup The Awareness Company (TAC) says the agricultural sector is increasingly embracing data for precision farming and farm security, as it drives efficiency and becomes more affordable, which is necessitating the use of data interpretation and visualisation services. 

TAC’s Hydra offering, for example, takes an integrated and holistic approach to agriculture and farming. Instead of focusing on a specific aspect of a farming operation, Hydra aggregates and interprets data from end-to-end.

TAC co-founder and CEO Priaash Ramadeen says agricultural security is about reducing loss of income and keeping businesses and families safe, while precision farming entails reducing risk and maximising product quality and profit.

He adds that data and technology can help farmers achieve both precision farming and security through awareness and visibility across the business, from the farmland to pack houses or processing plants through to insurance.

“Data and technology also allows for the sharing of data across the value chain, including farm workers, suppliers, offtakers and insurance companies. Data provides a deeper understanding of what is going on and equips the farmer with the necessary inputs to understand unique situations and challenges,” Ramadeen explains.

It helps the farmer remove uncertainty by supplementing their knowledge and experience with data-driven decision-making, thereby growing their operations to levels unseen in the past.

Ramadeen says data and technology improves the speed at which farmers can respond to challenges as well. He notes that through better awareness, the farmer can act immediately to rectify a situation and become more proactive, which helps to streamline farming operations.

“There are many variables in farming, and it is therefore imperative to use data to help shape, predict and anticipate the future. Data allows a farmer to compare historic yields and forecast future yields, likely droughts and whether crops are being overwatered.”

Ramadeen adds that data can also identify vulnerable access points to the farm that pose a security risk.

However, to process all of this data that is available across the value chain, it is critical for farmers to have the right tools to aggregate and make sense of the data.

“They need tools that are simple to use, and which can transform data points into actionable stories to support the decision-making process,” he explains.

To this end, TAC launched its Hydra data-agnostic solution, which collects data from sensors of different systems and aggregates it to provide agricultural security patterns and trends. This provides a historic view of operations and provides early threat warnings going forward.

From a precision point of view, data allows the farmer to automate reporting administration, through data that is logged from different devices across the farm and aggregated on to one dashboard, which visualises information for easy interpretation.

This simplified data can also be shared among the broader farming community to improve overall safety and security.

On the security front, artificial intelligence in cameras can analyse what type of movement triggered the alert and whether it is an actual threat or not, reducing unnecessary false alarms.

The technology also allows for real-time tracking of animals on the farm and monitoring of grazing patterns and other behaviours.

Ramadeen recommends that farmers who want to capitalise on precision farming and agricultural security use several sources of data to get a holistic view of the operation.

He assures that sensors are becoming ever smaller, cheaper and more readily available, with digital service providers such as TAC standing ready to assist.

The company’s security solutions include livestock collars, global positioning system trackers, camera traps, gate sensors and other forms of security data, while its other solutions focus on digitalising farming operations and producing data-driven insights.