By Brad Haire
University of Georgia
Farmers will soon be able to open gates, track livestock, steer
tractors and control other farm jobs by computer, says a
University of Georgia researcher.
As more rural areas gain high-speed Internet access, a farmer
could do all this and not even be on the farm, said Stuart
Pocknee, a precision agriculture program coordinator with the
UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Internet farming
“A farmer could be out of the state at a meeting or even on
vacation and pull up his farm’s Web page and farm,” said
Pocknee, who works in the National Environmentally Sound
Production Agriculture Laboratory in Tifton, Ga.
Internet farming seems a novel idea now. But it’s really not
that far-fetched, Pocknee said.
Fast communication technology is already being used for many
applications. Factory machinery can be accessed and controlled
by a technology worker outside the factory. A person can call
home to start or stop appliances or the air-conditioning system.
A simple home security system can call for help when it senses
someone breaking in.
Technology may never replace some farming work, he said. But the
tractor made farming easier and more efficient than the mule-
driven rigs of the early 1900s. Modern communication technology
could do the same in this century.
Wireless work
Wireless Internet communications have the greatest potential for
on-farm use, he said. Wireless simply means there’s no physical
connection between a sender and the receiver. They’re connected
by radio waves.
UGA’s precision agriculture team has pilot wireless
communication projects established on farms now. One allows a
farmer to remotely monitor his vegetable packing shed operation.
Another will allow a farmer to do the same with his irrigation
system.
UGA scientists and researchers nationwide will join wireless
industry representatives at the Wireless Networking Forum June
16-17 on the UGA Tifton, Ga., campus. They’ll discuss the future
for this technology in agriculture.
“Only a few researchers are looking at this technology right now
for agricultural use,” Pocknee said. “We want to bring those
researchers together with wireless industry technology people to
learn more of the potential of cutting-edge tools and what
agriculture needs to make them work.”
Wireless technology products of the past haven’t transferred
well to farm use, he said. But newer products have greater
potential. They’re more versatile, inexpensive and easier to
use.
Many variables have to be overcome on a farm, such as trees,
hills and extended distances. But it can be done, he said, if
there is an interest within the wireless industry and
agriculture.
“We just want to raise our hand, in a manner of speaking, and
let them know we’re here and that potential exists,” Pocknee
said.
