The "M2M/IoT Applications in the Agricultural Industry" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.
How will the market for agricultural M2M and IoT applications evolve in 2018 and beyond? Berg Insight covers the latest trends and developments in the emerging smart farming market. The researcher forecasts that the number of installed wireless devices for applications in agricultural production is forecasted to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 10.0% from 17.0 million connections at the end of 2016 to 27.4 million connected devices by 2021. Cellular connections amounted to 0.8 million at the end of 2016 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 30.2% to reach 3.1 million in 2021.
There is a broad range of wireless technologies used in agricultural production with different characteristics and use cases. 802.15.4-based standards comprise the most employed wireless technology due to its wide adoption in dairy cow monitoring applications.
The main application areas for cellular communication are machine telematics and remote monitoring via in-field sensor systems.
LPWA technologies are expected to achieve the highest growth rate and realize a significant market position in the remote monitoring and control segment. Berg Insight's outlook for the agricultural technology market is positive as agricultural production remains greatly underpenetrated by wireless IoT solutions. Manufacturers of farm and dairy equipment have traditionally chosen to partner with smaller and specialized players but increasingly focus on developing proprietary technologies.
In the crop production sector, a group of companies have emerged as leaders on the market for precision agriculture solutions. Major providers include Deere & Company, Trimble, Topcon Positioning Systems and Raven Industries. Other significant vendors include AGCO, Ag Leader Technology, DICKEY-john and Hexagon.
In the milk production sector, the world's largest dairy equipment vendor DeLaval offers its in-house developed activity monitoring system along with its milking and dairy farming infrastructure solutions. Important providers of sensor systems for dairy cow monitoring furthermore include Netherlands-based Nedap and The Allflex Group subsidiary SCR which both sell their systems to a number of leading dairy equipment manufacturers and genetics companies.
The increasingly complex technological environment that farmers operate in also demands dealers to offer a greater extent of services to integrate and support the range of technologies that are utilized in advanced production systems. As interoperability between systems remains as a challenge, the need for services and technical support from local dealers is likely to increase with continued adoption of precision farming solutions, in-field sensor systems and animal monitoring technologies.