IoT Solutions for Precision Farming and Food Manufacturing: Artificial Intelligence Applications in Digital Food

In many respects, farming and food processing have lagged other industries when it comes to adoption of innovative technology. Whilst bioengineering has brought about seeds with much higher yield and less need for water and nutrients, it is only now with IoT that farmers can work on the intensive use of natural resources to increase the sustainability of their operations. In the last ten years, high-end machinery has evolved primarily to the benefit of larger corporations, with the introduction of satellite driven machines, sensors and all components of precision farming. The most recent IoT advances bring about a level of simplification and cost reduction that enable all farmers to benefit and a true adoption of prescription agriculture. In this conference presentation, we will examine a practical case of a Malthouse, where careful modeling of how CO2, Temperature, Humidity and PH vary in the three steps of the malting process, enabled an artificial intelligence system to prescribe different setting and schedules. The end result is malt with higher content of starch and proteins, which in turn means higher alcohol in the downstream process. A second example on the cultivation of Medical Marijuana, where similarly but in a more complex fashion (138 variables) the artificial intelligence supported the tuning of many settings and schedules, is presented only in the conference.