ICT Innovations and Smart Farming

Agriculture plays a vital role in the global economy with the majority of the rural population in developing countries depending on it. The depletion of natural resources makes the improvement of the agricultural production more important but also more difficult than ever. This is the reason that although the demand is constantly growing, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) offers to producers the adoption of sustainability and improvement of their daily living conditions. ICT offers timely and updated relevant information such as weather forecast, market prices, the occurrence of new diseases and varieties, etc. The new knowledge offers a unique opportunity to bring the production enhancing technologies to the farmers and empower themselves with modern agricultural technology and act accordingly for increasing the agricultural production in a cost effective and profitable manner. The use of ICT itself or combined with other ICT systems results in productivity improvement and better resource use and reduces the time needed for farm management, marketing, logistics and quality assurance