Significance of GIS Technology in the Agriculture Industry
GIS is a powerful technology that has created a huge impact in various industries with its tools and applications. Likewise, GIS applications have a huge significance in the agriculture industry, which is the backbone of the Indian economy. As we are in the digital era and every industry relies on technology, agriculture is the only industry lagging behind, which could be a serious problem in coming years. New forms of agriculture must be based on the latest technologies like GIS, as it can help in tackling major issues like climate change, the minimum scope of arable land expansion, dwindling water resources etc.
GIS applications along with other technologies can create a revolution in agriculture, which has already been proven for decades, yet there are many parts of our nation where traditional methods of agriculture are followed, which has been OK for a long time. To explain the significance of GIS applications in agriculture, we need to have basic information about this technology, and then we can understand how vital it is. You can take the help of a GIS application development company or platform to get the necessary information in detail.
- Role of GIS in agriculture:
The basic role of GIS in agriculture is to analyse the farming land and put that data into a map that can be utilised by farmers. Along with GIS and other technologies like remote sensing, GPS, etc., crop productivity is increased through precision farming as farmers have required information like crop position, soil type, topography, etc. as GIS tools take images through drones and satellites and visualise them on maps using various data capturing techniques. This helps farmers to make use of every acre of the farming land without damaging it. Over the past few years, GIS applications have increased as farmers prefer new ways of farming, i.e., digital farming, with the rise and advancements of technology. This created various opportunities in the GIS application development industry as developers wanted to contribute to building apps that help with precision farming.
Significance of GIS technology in agriculture applications :
Let us focus on a few applications which are built using GIS technology and others to help farmers produce more crop yield with less effort and less investment.
- Crop health monitoring applications:
It is very difficult to manually calculate the health of a crop, but GIS technology, along with remote sensing, came to the aid and solved this issue. Because applications built with these technologies assist farmers in focusing on crops that can reduce farm yield,This is possible as environmental conditions like humidity, air temperature, etc. across the fields are assessed using satellite images and the input information. Both are paired together through GIS tools, which improve precision farming. Building these applications is not easy, but more companies or businesses prefer experts and professionals from the GIS application development industry to build quality and effective apps.
- Insects, pest, and bugs control applications:
Insects, pests, bugs, etc. play a negative role in agriculture as they damage acres of farming land. Farmers use pesticides and other preventive measures to protect their farms, but there are many cases where crops are damaged. This is because it is impossible to identify every bug or pest with the human eye, and even farmers can be late to react. That is when technology can help farmers resolve this issue. One way to use technology effectively is to build applications using GIS and remote sensing, as it helps in identifying bugs before infestation. This is possible because plants react to an infestation when the temperature is high. These updates can be received on smartphones and farmers can take the necessary actions to ensure the crops or plants are free from insects, pests, etc.
- Land assessment and land use planning applications:
The major challenge in agriculture is to assess the perfect land to farm in today’s era as fertile land is shrinking and there is major construction of heavy buildings. The best way to tackle this challenge is to make use of GIS technology to assess the quality of land using various applications. Please use this Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach in GIS to effectively plan land usage.Many researchers use this approach and different features of GIS like soil fertility distribution, soil type, satellite data, climatic conditions, etc. for assessment of land sustainability, which can increase crop productivity. But most companies or organisations lack experience in this technology to implement this approach successfully. But they make smart decisions by tying up with some of the top and experienced GIS application development companies or platforms, as they will help in building apps to assess land sustainability with ease.
- Precision Farming:
It is a concept of improvising farming by increasing the crop yield in which the latest technologies are used to replace the traditional methodology of farming. In precision farming, the sensors play a role in collecting the data from the field. The best way to collect the data from satellites and sensors is to use GIS as it helps in shaping the collected data into viable information through data capturing techniques. This helps farmers interpret and manage the data easily. Along with GIS, the other important technologies are GPS, VRS, etc., which play a role in precision farming. This way, farmers can make informed decisions, which is good for crop yielding and productivity.
- Advantages of using GIS in Agriculture:
- Crop sown area estimation, a major factor of agriculture, becomes easy with GIS and remote sensing.
- Crop damage assessment becomes easy with the implementation of drone image analysis using GIS and its tools.
- GIS aids in the prediction of real-time risk assessment forecasts, which aids farmers and researchers in crop protection.This is done by NAT CAT(natural catastrophe) modelling.
To sum up, GIS plays a very crucial role in agriculture, and GIS application development experts or professionals are very important to guide in implementing GIS tools and features effectively to build applications that take agriculture to new standards.
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