Sunday, June 26, 2022

The Emergence Of Smart Agriculture & Its Impact On Cyber

 


I have to be honest here, I have no formal education or training in Cybersecurity.  All of the stuff that I have written, and posted, have all been self-taught.  In fact, I only took one class in computer science at Purdue, because I was an Ag Econ major.  Back in that day, email, the Internet, cell phones, etc. were all pretty much unheard of.  How did we get the job done back then?

Well, we formed study groups, and we actually learned how to communicate with another, face to face.  Ghosting people was very rare back then, unlike now.  If we had questions, we had to meet with our professors face to face, or attend help sessions. 

All the calculations we had to do were done by hand and a TI-30 calculator.  If we had to do research papers, well we had to find sources the old-fashioned way: Either searching through microfiche or the card catalog.

The closest we ever came to technological advancements was getting laser printers and getting Windows 3.1.  All of this I am telling you about is on the general level.  When it came to the Ag Econ classes, our common tools were the WSJ, textbooks, and the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet application that was available. 

Back then, the big topics were international trade with 3 panel diagrams on a chalkboard, the sustainability of agriculture on global basis, the future of the plan of the family farm and how to adopt a succession plan, learning how to predict grain prices and basing trades off of them, learning how to interact and deal with prospects and customers, learning about the economic order of quantity, etc. 

Using technology in agriculture was totally unheard of.  Sure, we were taught to some degree how to read weather maps in order to determine how any dryness or rain would affect crop prices, but Cyber in the farm was something nobody even fathomed about.  Now let is forward some 30 years later, and the agricultural world has done a total 360 degrees in terms of technological adoption.

Ag producers are now using things like GPS and Drones to keep an eye on their fields, especially during the planting and harvesting seasons.  Heck, many more of them are now using smart devices to keep track of grain prices and even place futures trades.  In fact, there is now a term which has been thrown into the Cyber technojargon mix and this is called “Smart Agriculture”.

When I first came across an article with this new slang, I was just about to start to laugh.  Sure, we have heard about smartphones, smart homes, smart homes, etc. but smart agriculture?  Yep, its true.  So how does one exactly define it? It can be as follows:

“Smart farming refers to managing farms using modern Information and communication technologies to increase the quantity and quality of products while optimizing the human labor required.”

(SOURCE:  https://www.iotforall.com/smart-farming-future-of-agriculture)

However, a big component of smart agriculture is the Internet of Things, or the IoT.  As I have written about in earlier blogs, this is where all of the objects that we interact with in both the physical and virtual worlds are all interconnected with another.  A good visual representation of smart agriculture can be seen below:


(SOURCE:  https://www.iotforall.com/smart-farming-future-of-agriculture)

Although the smart agriculture has not taken off as quickly as other technological industries have, there is still great promise for it.  In fact, this market is supposed to hit a value of $15.3 billion by 2025, which is only 2.5 years away at the time of this writing.  More information about this can be seen at this link:

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/03/22/1444017/0/en/Global-Smart-Agriculture-Market-Will-Reach-USD-15-344-million-by-2025-Zion-Market-Research.html

You may be wondering at this point; how can technology actually improve the state of agriculture and ag business?  It can make a huge impact, and the following are some examples:

*Collecting hard to track data like moisture levels, amount of raw input used in feeds, determining the quality of soil.

*Better tools for proper resource allocation.  In other words, making sure that the finite number of inputs are being used properly to produce the maximum grain yields possible.

*Using automation for such things as irrigation, and the spraying of pesticides.

*Making better planting decisions.  With IoT, ag producers can get very detailed and granular data to help make the best decisions possible, rather than relying simply on experience and estimating.

*Monitoring the climate:  Back in my day, the closest we ever came to any sort of accurate weather report was WGN 9 news and Tom Skilling.  But now, all of that has changed.  Ag producers now have access to very sophisticated sensors and controls to get a minute-by-minute play as to how their fields are doing under the current weather conditions.  They can also be set up so that crop conditions can be presented on a real time basis.

*IoT devices for the farm animals.  These can be installed into the pigs, cows, and other forms of cattle to get a constant gauge on their health.  After all, this is where we get the bulk of our food commodities from, so you want to make sure that your animals are all healthy before they reach the dinner plate.  By having them being monitored on a real time basis, you can ensure that this will happen.

*Using AI and ML.  These stand for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, respectively.  If ag producers are taught how to use these tools effectively, it be a great boon them for them when it comes to determining the right feed mixtures, and even predicting the weather. 

My Thoughts On This:

Well there you have it, a broad introduction to smart farming.  But keep mind that while this industry is expected to grow, it will be one of the slower ones. One of the reasons for this is that ag producers, on a macro level, are slow and resistant to change.  But it will happen.  One thing that might propel the rate of adoption is Cybersecurity.

The United States food distribution is a complex one.  There are many air gapped systems here, just like we find in the Critical Infrastructure.  So, as ag producers want to keep adopting newer technologies, they need to be aware of the Cyber ramifications of that as well.  For example, one area of weakness is that of Endpoint Security, especially when it comes to the IoT.

Even in Corporate America, this is a forgotten about topic, and because of that, Cyberattackers are finding their way in pretty quickly, and move laterally in a covert fashion.  Another caveat for smart agriculture is distance. 

The ag producer will need to get tools and resources that can not only be easily reached over miles of farmland, but they need to be maintained as well. Covering this great distance could be a problem at first.  Also, data privacy and leakages will be an issue here as well.  Depending upon how much is being stored and processed, they could be subject to the provisions of the CCPA and GDPR.

But just ow far can the ag industry be made digital?  Only time will tell.


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