Microsoft wants to apply advanced technologies to agricultural development, while ensuring demand for food production is increasing globally.
According to blockchain news site Cointelegraph (UK), Microsoft has just completed an agreement to develop a new technology to improve the efficiency of the agricultural sector in Brazil. The project called FarmBeats uses blockchain, drones, IoT (Internet of Things), AI (artificial intelligence) and big data to improve productivity. Over the years, FarmBeats has been deployed on farms in the US, India, New Zealand and Kenya. With this technology, the production process saves 30% of the required water.
Sharing with Brazilian magazine Epoca Negocios, Ranveer Chandra, the creator of FarmBeats, said that agriculture has recently been left behind in the interests of new technologies such as big data, AI and blockchain. He thinks that although small, agriculture sees more digital transformation than some other industries.
"When it comes to agriculture, Brazil is one of the first countries to come to mind. We develop FarmBeats to use technology applied here and in many other countries," he said.
Ranveer Chandra examines the soil at Dancing Crow Farm in the US.
Epoca Negocios says that FarmBeats' technology is important in the context that farmers are struggling to survive, and face competition from changes and increasing production needs around the world. According to Ranveer Chandra, in the next 30 years, agricultural production needs to increase by 70% to meet global food demand.
This scientist has called on the Brazilian Government to take advantage of the technology and have a similar subsidy to farming equipment and fertilizer. FarmBeats claims that in addition to helping farmers use resources more effectively, they can enhance accuracy and productivity by providing important statistics on soil temperature, humidity and nutrients.
According to Microsoft, many studies have proven the need for a significant increase in world food production by 2050. However, the amount of additional arable land is limited and the water level is also gradually decreasing. While technology can help farmers, adoption is limited because farms often lack electricity or access to the Internet. Besides, farmers often do not know much about technology.
FarmBeats was born towards an end-to-end approach, from sensor to cloud, to solve the problems of agriculture
The goal of FarmBeats is to enable data-based farming. Project pursuers believe that data combined with farmers' knowledge and intuition can help increase farm productivity and reduce costs. However, they consider it very difficult to get data from the farm. By using new technologies, Microsoft expects to be able to build unique solutions to the problems of the agricultural industry, thereby building sustainable food for the world in the near future.
Last time, Microsoft made some breakthroughs with blockchain technology. In May, the US tech giant also launched a new set of Azure Blockchain development tools for ethereum - supporting developers who are building applications online. Also in May, the company announced it was building a decentralized identity network using a bitcoin network called ION.
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Truong Sanh