Smart Agritech

3Digital Farming: The New Era of Agriculture-Opportunities and Challenges

Anju Khandelwal¹* and Avanish Kumar²

¹Balaji Institute of Management and Human Resource Development, Sri Balaji University, Pune, India

²Department of Mathematical Science and Computer Applications, Bundelkhand University, Jhansi, India

Abstract

Agriculture has its direct effects on the economy of the country, farmers’ income, and the population who lives there. Therefore, an appropriate approach to do effective farming is required so that farmers have optimum results from their crops and cultivation. Digital farming enables the farmer to do so by using different tools and techniques. By using drones and sensors, farmers can spray pesticides, grid sampling can be applied to check the fertility of soil like using the global positioning system, yield monitors can be used to monitor the crop yield from time to time and feed the same data in software for later analysis and comparison, variable rate technology is also one of the techniques to control the rate of fertilizers, etc., and different precision farming techniques can be applied. The current pandemic situations raised the requirements of digital farming and the need for relative education on digital farming. In this chapter, the opportunities and challenges of digital farming are discussed: how digital farming techniques will help the nation or farmers grow their economy in a sustainable manner and what are the real problems that become challenges ...