Agriculture can significantly benefit from Internet of Things (IOT) and the smart sensors that constitute IOT technology. The integration of hardware and software allows farmers to measure things that previously could not be measured and use this data to instantly control ongoing farm processes. This is a big move from human observations, pen and paper, excel sheets and diagrams. In this IOT age, farmers can physically and intuitively interact with sensors, actuators and dashboards that autonomously handle high quality automated data. This fourth and final hackathon in a series of on-farm hackathons, that took place in the Netherlands, was targeted at taking advantage of smart sensors and internet of things technologies.

FarmHack.NL: on-farm hackathons in the Netherlands

A series of hackathons, supported by GODAN, took place in the Netherlands to encourage collaboration and cooperation between stakeholders for data and tech-driven innovation in agriculture. Each hackathon lasted 32 hours, consisting of coders, hackers and designers who worked on specific farmer challenges on the site of individual farms. Apart from IoT and smart sensors, the series dealt with visualisation and automation of ‘big’ farm data. The aim was to enable farmers to handle drone and satellite data, manually adjust variables in order to tailor machine instructions to deal with the challenge of operating in short supply chains.

Challenge

The fourth and final FarmHack took place at the pig research centre of Wageningen University. It looked into using sensors and the internet of things to improve the cost effectiveness of pig production and determine if affordable technologies such as Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Beacons can help make pig farming more sustainable. Participants were geared towards building the capacity of pig farmers to use sensor data to improve their competitive advantage. Their goal was to apply technologies that can help pig farmers adopt more progressive farm management techniques as well as efficiently connect producers to consumers. The underlying assumption is that a farmer will earn more returns on investment in technology if consumers are willingness to pay a premium price for a higher quality product. 

Gerardo (a participant): “We are trying to identify individual pigs within a group of pigs and track the weight of these pigs individually. We are using open computer vision, which is a tool available online, free to use and it contains a lot of simple computer vision algorithms that are helping us achieve our goal”

Results

The winning team created an app that communicates with beacons. Based on these beacons, the app can estimate time spent on each farming activity. At the end of the day, the farmer can use information recorded by the app to improve time management and efficiency in future farm activities. The team also envisioned a dashboard app that integrates data on feed, water use, growth and the environment. Currently, these are run as separate data flows.

The second team worked on automated pig weight measurement system using open computer vision that has algorithms that are freely available online. Current weight measurement techniques are time and labour intensive. Although there is a market solution available for weight measurement, this constitutes an additional expense for the farmer. The team hopes to reach their target audience by providing a cheap solution using open algorithms. Other teams explored the possibilities of using cheap sensors to measure and analyse local air quality and build a communication channel (VarkBook) that allows for sharing data with consumers and a Smart Boot. This will enable the farmer to keep his hands free while working in the stable. The boot also reads the RFID tag on the animal and instantly sends key information on that animal which is projected on a wall.