The Digital transformation connects people on one platform that could not talk or interact with each other. In the retail industry, eBay and Alibaba are just two of many examples. In the healthcare industry, there are online platforms like Lloyds Pharmacy from celesio that enable an online doctor-patient interaction. For Digital Farming, there is as well a lot of potential for farmers, suppliers, customers, and collaboration partners to interact, make business, and benefit from each other.
What are the opportunities to exploit?
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Facebook is an example of how face recognition works. Similar technology can be used for plant disease recognition. Farmers can take photos of their plants that show the symptoms and upload them on the Digital Farming platform. The photo is analyzed on the platform and the disease is identified
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After the identification of the disease, the farmer receives a recommendation on how to treat it and which product to use for it. To be trustworthy, a platform should not only offer products from one company but from different ones
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Certain pesticides might also be offered to farmers that have not actively searched for itthem or uploaded a picture of disease symptoms. This is because their regionally close neighbors might have done so and the disease is known for spreading easily
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Mass data analysis and collaboration are also important for identifying the effect that the product has on the plants. Machines on the field might automatically oversee the curing progress of areas that have been treated and the effectiveness of certain products to cure plants might be analyzed and the results shared with other farmers
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Being able to do such analysis requires the right machines and integration platforms. However, there are not many standards in the market so far. Digital Farming platforms could support here by providing an overview of which manufacturers support which standards. This could heavily help a farmer to understand which machines he can purchase and which will be able to communicate with the other components already purchased.