How GIS can help the agriculture industry
The agriculture industry is the backbone of any country. Without a well-developed and thriving farming industry, it will be difficult for a country to grow and prosper. However, in recent years, agriculture production is fighting against all odds to survive. Plagued by floods, droughts, poor farming techniques, and knowledge and being affected by swarms of insects, the agricultural community seems to be losing its edge.
While the government in every country is trying to make improvements to ensure better crop yield, these factors along with many others are continuing to take a toll on the agriculture industry. The growing debt and no quick solutions have resulted in farmers and their families committing suicides every day.
In such trying times, a Geographic Information System (GIS) can be incredibly helpful in getting the agriculture industry back on track. Let’s explore to understand how GIS can help the agricultural industry.
What is GIS?
GIS stands for a Geographic Information System. It is a framework that can be used for capturing, managing, storing, manipulating, and even analyzing all types of data, especially geographical data. The system has its foundation on the science of geography, indicating that a certain portion of the collected data is spatial. To put it simply, data which has been captured has in some way been referenced to certain locations on the earth.
Apart from the collected data, GIS systems also provide tabular data which is known as the attribute data. This attribute data is usually defined as being the additional information that is attached to each of the spatial features.
The ideal combination of these two data sets is what allows GIS to be a highly effective and efficient problem-solving tool that works through spatial analysis.
Farmers and agricultural communities around the world have turned towards GIS software to help them get their industry back on track.
Let’s take a look at how GIS is transforming the agriculture industry worldwide.
Application of GIS in the Agriculture Sector:
The use of GIS in the field of agriculture is not a new phenomenon. With the agriculture sector being the backbone of all economies, it is no wonder then that any kind of beneficial changes introduced in this sector will have a larger corresponding impact on other sectors of the economy as well.
A GIS infrastructure is proving to be a boon for the agriculture industry as it is allowing the community to map and project not just current data, but also future data related to fluctuations in temperature, crop output, precipitation levels, and more.
When farmers are capable of mapping the geographic and geologic features of a potential or current farmland, it allows farmers to work together with scientists to create more efficient and effective farming techniques. This is going to have a definite increase in overall food production, especially in those parts of the world that are dealing with malnutrition and where people are struggling to produce enough food for themselves and others.
GIS has shown that technology, when used smartly and competently, has a crucial role to play in building sustainable agricultural practices. GIS has also successfully added great value to the agriculture sector by streamlining the processes.
How GIS is helping the agriculture industry:
- Soil Analysis:GIS data can be used to carry out soil analysis. It also allows you to get a spread of historical farming practices in that area to understand what would be the best crops to plant, where to plant them, and what measures need to be taken to maintain the proper soil nutrient levels that serve best for the plants.
- Agricultural Mapping:The advent of this highly efficient geospatial technology has made it possible to better understand as well as manage the natural inputs in farming. GIS technology substantially helps determine what the effective crop yield would be, carry out soil amendment analysis, and also identify soil erosion possibility and remediation techniques beforehand itself. Such type of accurate and reliable crop estimates has helped decrease uncertainty that accompanies the sector.
- Precision farming:Precision agriculture is a farming concept that makes available geographical information to better understand and determine field variability to ensure the best possible use of a farmer’s inputs and thus maximize the output from a farm. With the use of GIS, it is now possible for farmers to more accurately determine what inputs their fields require, where exactly it is required and in what quantities.
Source: GPS4Us.This information facilitates farmers to efficiently use certain expensive resources such as pesticides, herbicides, and of course, fertilizers. It also ensures more effectual use of water. Farmers who use GIS technology in precision farming can easily increase their farm’s yields along with lowering their operating costs. Hence, it increases their overall profits. - GIS technology has also allowed farmers to carry out crop forecasting and thus manage their agriculture output with the use of multispectral imagery that is collected by various satellites. GIS also makes it possible to analyze and visualize the agricultural environment and farmers can then plan out their workflows to give the maximum benefits.
- GIS also helps the farming community to reduce costs and increase production at the same time by allowing for better management of their land resources. This reduces the risk of marginalization and also reduces the vulnerability of the marginal and small farmers.
How GISKernel can help the Agriculture Sector?
GISKernel provides specialized services and consulting to harness the power of GIS to build a sustainable, yet profitable, agriculture business for you. We can help you with mapping of the geographic terrain, collecting data about current and future levels of temperature, crop yield, precipitation levels, and much more, helping you grow your crop production significantly.
GISKernel makes use of a variety of different spatial, temporal, and spectral resolutions to provide you with better data on:
- Crop assessment and crop health
- Crop mapping and yield estimation
- Soil and irrigation amendment analysis
- Irrigated landscape mapping
- Agricultural mapping for getting an in-depth vegetation cover and monitoring
- Suitability assessment studies for understanding best crop fits
- Erosion identification and remediation
- Elevation models for efficient water drainage
Our GIS platform can help you plan end-to-end smart solutions for a new farm plot or an existing farm terrain, along with suggesting sustainable practices that can be adopted.
GISKernel works in a number of different industries such as Agriculture, Automobile, Oil and Gas, Telecom, Public Safety, Municipality etc. We are looking forward to serving you in the best geo-spatial way possible.