Smarter Decisions and Data for Agriculture powered by LoRaWAN®

​This past month, we had the opportunity to participate in a series of webinars organized by our technology partner LoRa Alliance, in which Data in Agriculture was the central theme.
Various smart agriculture and animal wellness solutions were presented focused on showing real-life use cases and exemplifying how LoRaWAN networks truly enable efficient deployments to extract and process any type of data in the agricultural industry, even with limited or no connectivity available.

On this occasion, our VP of Sales had the privilege of moderating these panels, and at the same time, our CEO and Founder Lucas Funes presented an extraordinary use case in which we demonstrated how it is possible to reduce pre-wean mortality up to 17% through the access to real-time data powered by LoraWan protocol.

It is undoubtedly a very exciting time for the Agriculture Industry to enhance all the various solutions that are fast making progress in terms of productivity, efficiency and sustainability. Here are some of our most important takeaways from the insightful discussions.


 
Connectivity and long-range in the most remote places
LoraWan has managed to make a great contribution to the industry through its long-range wireless sensors that send data from the farm to the cloud, through public or private networks connecting over distances of up to 15 km from sensors with batteries that last up to 10 years. This results in lower maintenance costs, connectivity in remote areas with scarce infrastructure, and giving farmers valuable information to make decisions and scale their businesses. This connectivity infrastructure is helping the IoT solutions truly take-off in Agribusiness and help by doing it in a seamless and cost-effective way.

The importance of data integration from disparate data sources
There is a reality today in agribusiness, and it is that while technology ​solutions ​continue to emerge, multiple sensors, databases, and other sources of data generate valuable information to great use of those managing these complex processes. ​As this acceleration on ​​adoption ​continues to happen, another major challenge arises which is the need to improve the way data is managed and visualized.  To fully embrace its power, each data source ​needs to be interrelated​ and put at the disposal of those responsible for the day to day decision making in a simple way. Integrated​ing data sources saves time, effort, and helps agribusinesses truly achieve the full potential of their existing infrastructure. 


An opportunity for "self-service" IoT​
Each agriculture organization knows with precision the characteristics of the challenges they face and what their ideal solutions look like. Even though technology can help fix many of those challenges, it often requires an extra effort from farmers to understand what are the solutions that better serve them. So, one of the challenges of technology adoption is really moving the conversation from a technological one to a problem-oriented one. To do that, we need to continue to share success stories and build technology that makes it even easier to deploy and prove their ROI from the get-go.
​
The LoRa Alliance has a large number of partners around the world who provide solutions to farmers in the process of implementation and adoption of its technologies. These solutions are particularly much more affordable for medium-size farmers that want to start improving their current processes with a moderate budget. As LoRa Alliance partners we have the ability to help farmers customize a solution in record time. Webee technology the time can be shortened to just weeks or even days, obviously, this can vary according to the size of the project, but it is a fact that LoraWan allows this flexibility and optimal use of time.
​
​See the webinars in both Spanish and English in the links below.