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The connected cow, wine by drone and rice-cams. All are becoming a realityas the drive for more efficiency and higher yields in farming is helping createan edible Internet of Things.

Technology usually associated with business and tech geeks the cloud, bigdata analytics, machine-to-machine communication and even drones isbeing used to make food production more efficient.

It all starts with smart planting; farmers no longer buy just any tractor. Guidedby GPS satellite guidance systems, 30-tonne automated planters fromagricultural machinery company John Deere can plant 24 rows of seeds to adepth of exactly 1.5 inches, and plant them three inches apart. All of thishappens at 16km/h, with real-time data transmitted into the cloud. Itsdesigned to waste fewer seeds, improve yields, and take advantage of thebest possible growing conditions. It can also all be controlled via the SeedStarapp on an iPad by an operator whether theyre on the farm or not.

The food cloud is being pioneered in Asia by Fujitsu in one of its oldsemiconductor plants. To bring precision to agriculture on an unprecedentedscale, Fujitsu has created its Akisai concept in Wakamatsu, FukushimaPrefecture, Japan. Built on Microsofts vast global Azure platform for cloudcomputing, Akisai gathers data from around a vast greenhouse.

Various data is collected from sensors that provide information on things likesoil temperature, humidity, light levels and rainfall, says Richard Marquardt,spokesperson at Fujitsu Japan in Tokyo. This data enables farmers to accessaccurate information on growing conditions enabling them to implementchanges to increase yields. Since everything is controlled, the crops aregrown in consistent conditions, and the yields are entirely predictable.

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LIFESTYLE (/LIFESTYLE) TRAVEL & LEISURE (/LIFESTYLE/TRAVEL-LEISURE)

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 21 February, 2016, 8:00amUPDATED : Sunday, 21 February, 2016, 8:00am

Jamie Carterlife@scmp.com (mailto:life@scmp.com)

Fitbit for cows, drones to monitor plants howtech is changing the worlds food systemsTechnology is helping farmers develop new and efficient ways to produce food

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A remote sensing drone made by PrecisionHawk monitors air quality and takes highlydetailed images of the changes in vine density, which combines with sensors on theground that measure temperature, humidity and soil moisture, eliminates the need toguess how much water the plants need.

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The sensors can examine the crops surroundings to reveal information such as soiltemperature, humidity, light levels and rainfall.

The Akisai cloud was created primarily to cultivate low-potassium leaf lettuce .It can last for several weeks and still remain perfectly fresh, tastes great, andcan also be eaten raw by dialysis patients and people with chronic kidneydisease, says Marquardt. So what part does the cloud play? A vast networkof sensors around the farm together determine the best conditions forproduction, precisely control the atmosphere, and even regulate the activeingredients included in liquid fertilisers. Akisai is also being used to grow ricesuitable for sake brewing, specifically for the famous Dassai brand. Since therice needed for sake is difficult to cultivate (yields are unpredictable, andfalling), sensors are placed in fields to constantly monitor atmospherictemperature, humidity, soil temperature and soil moisture, a daily photographof the crops is taken, and data on the final harvest is collected. The resultsmight seem more likely to please a data scientists rather than a farmer, butsuch precision means yields go up. There are test trials in Vietnam andTurkey, too.

Another alcoholic cloud is on the rise in drought-hit California, wherewinemakers at Hahn Wines are using drones to save water. Again, its aboutgathering data; these remote sensing drones also called unmanned aerialvehicles (UAV) monitor air quality and take highly detailed images of thechanges in vine density, which when combined with sensors on the groundthat measure temperature, humidity and soil moisture, takes the guessworkout of watering the crops.

The drone is a flying computer and has the artificial intelligence to make thebest possible decisions in-flight to collect consistent and accurate data everytime, says Patrick Lohman, VP of Partnerships at PrecisionHawk, which isworking with Hahn Wines using its PrecisionHawk Lancaster UAV. Its muchmore effectively than if a human was flying the aircraft manually, he adds. Itsan almost completely automated system, sending all data back to theDataMapper cloud for automatic analysis and insight.

With climate change making weather more unpredictable, and resources likewater more valuable, technology like this could be the answer. The theory isthat farmers can use this technology to both save money and produce morefood to meet the ever-rising demand. Increased yields at the farm levelthrough other Internet of Things applications such as soil moisturemonitoring, weather pattern analytics, and the use of drones should alsoincrease supply of food, says Isabel Chapman, Principal Analyst at MachinaResearch.

However, once that food is produced, more technology can be used to stopwaste, and its here that continuous connectivity is proving difficult for the foodindustry to resist. Global food trade is a reality you are just as likely to eatEcuadorian prawns in London as you are North American beef in Hong Kong but a lot of food gets spoiled in-transit. Spoiling is a major reason whyimported food is expensive. So one of the most obvious ways of using newtechnology is by attaching tiny communication sensors to containers forremote tracking on apps and software. That way, a consignment of food canbe tracked in real-time as it travels from source to plate. Its especially usefulto do that in the so-called cold chain, where refrigerated food can now beseen at every stage of its journey. For example, if a container of prawnsarrives in Hong Kong two days late, and spoiled, theres a digital audit trail; itwill be obvious which farm, warehouse, airport or container ship caused thedelay, or even where the refrigeration broke down, or where the door wasopened.

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Apps provide real time audit trails, notifications, and monitoring of shipmentsfrom producer to retailer, says Chapman. Each partner in the chain can haveaccess to all information as the shipment is in transit.

Its like a black box recorder on a plane, and it allows food producers to makepromises they can keep.

Although this kind of communication normally using a sim card as well asother sensors can be a relatively simple technique, it isnt just technology forthe sake of it. Its also helping with new food traceability regulations.

Governments are starting to become more proactive in food supplymonitoring, inspection and enforcement, says Chapman. The catalyst is anew Food Safety Modernisation Act (FSMA) in the US, which sees the biggestchanges in food safety in the last 70 years. So what? Since the food industryis truly global, China is watching very closely; the US was Chinas secondlargest export market for agriculture in 2010. It regulates the entire foodchain, all the way back to producer and this legislation has internationalimpacts, she says of FSMA, adding that the US has been working for anumber of years with the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection andQuarantine (AQSIQ) in China make sure both countries can verify thestandards of the others imported food.

So what about that connected cow? Its not wearing Apple Watch, butsomething close. A service within Fujitsus Akisai called Gyuho, where high-tech fitness devices similar to the Fitbit, Jawbone or the Garmin Vivofit come

in.

Cows walk more when in estrus and by attaching pedometers to them,ranchers can better assess breeding receptivity, says Marquardt of theservice thats designed to drastically increase efficiency in animal husbandry.Gyuho projects have already begun in South Korea, Poland, Romania, andTurkey.

Whether its activity trackers, drones, networked farms or SIM cards in thecold chain, were fast making a meal out of new technology.

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