To ensure sustainability and availability of food, urban farming is growing in popularity in most urban areas. With the global urban farming market expected to reach US$ 236.4 billion by 2023, community gardening tools and home gardens are generating more revenue for small-scale farmers today. Urban Agriculture produces 20% of the world’s food, keeping everyone in urban farming globally engaged.
According to the UN World Food Program, a single square meter area can provide potentially 20 kg of food per year. Moreover, urban farming is seen as a possible solution for the effects of climate change by providing green infrastructure options and consequently, it can play an important role in global food security.
Today, technology is enabling the development of next-generation urban farms like AbyFarm, a local agritech player. AbyFarm is a Singapore-based agri-tech company with a fully integrated unmanned self-sustainable smart farm-to-table platform. Aby Farm uses intelligent AI cloud-driven machinery — IoT, sensors, machinery, blockchain, data analysis, high-tech self-regulating farming system to attain high yield, high sustainability, and high traceability for food security.
AbyFarm collaborated with SPTel, an IoT-as-a-Service provider to address some of the challenges in agritech, especially in sourcing and identifying appropriate applications, sensors, and technologies. Most farms often end up using multiple IoT devices from different vendors, with hefty investments made on multiple platforms.
Susan Loh, VP, Marketing and Business Development, SPTel.
SPTel’s platform addresses these challenges with its multi-protocol platform that provides an integrated platform for urban farms to monitor and manage various sensors and applications, regardless of their gateway deployment requirements. The integrated platform allows urban farms to connect IoT sensors that can transmit data for key variables that affect plant health and growth, such as temperature, humidity, and nutrient levels.
“As urban farms become a vital component of Singapore’s ‘30 by 30’ vision, IoT technology will continue to prevail as a core enabler of smart farming in Singapore. Enabling smart urban farms such as Abyfarm to leverage IoT to reduce manpower requirements and improve crop yield will be critical to the long-term success of Singapore’s urban farming program,” said Susan Loh, VP, Marketing and Business Development, SPTel.
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