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:
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment