11 January, 2012

Agricultural leaders have embarked on a brainstorming session with top communications specialists to discuss how smartphone applications can help around the farm.

The aim of the event - hosted by T-Mobile - was to raise awareness about how mobile technologies can improve everyday duties in the agricultural industry by making processes cheaper, more manageable and more efficient.

Topics such as security and livestock management - as well as health/safety matters - were all discussed, as these were recognised as the areas where technology could help from farmers throughout the UK the most.

Many practical ideas came out of the session; one of which was the implementation of QR codes - a scannable, detailed barcode - that could be sprayed onto a cow's hide to identify its provenance and vaccination history, reports Farming UK.

Another was an anti-rustling application that would be able to spot when livestock were on the move. This would be achieved by placing an infrared camera in the cattle field which detects an animal's heat signature. Should it move away, its heat signal would decrease, triggering an alarm to the owner's phone number or other landowners in the area for example.

Designing technological solutions for the farming industry has long been overlooked, according to Martin Stiven, vice-president for business at UK mobile network T-Mobile.

"I think the farming sector is one that high-tech organisations probably haven't spent as much time on as they could," Stiven admitted when speaking to BBC News.

However, not implementing the ideas generated at the brainstorming session would be a missed opportunity for the industry, he added: "The technology is there, it's about applying it. And it's about thinking about the particular issues that farmers have and building those specific applications that will help them."

Source: Vertical Leap