Telematics For Agriculture And Farming Industry

Telematics for agriculture looks like precision farming, automated wage calculation, and safer vehicle-cattle harmony on multiple farms.

Yes, agriculture and farming are predominantly manual industries needing a lot of physical work. 

However, the agricultural industry was also an early adaptor of technology. Be it for crop maximisation, boosting farm technology, or maximising land use. A defining factor of modern-day farming is the equipment and vehicles it uses – from ploughs to tractors. 

So, when IoT and telematics software come together into a fleet management system, the possibilities for the agriculture and farming industry maximise. 

In this blog, let us look into how smart farming using telematics technology works, and how these new tech are transforming the agricultural industry. 

Role of Telematics for Agriculture and Farming Industry

The use of telematics software is majorly responsible for bringing forth a new era for the agricultural and farming industries – an era referred to as smart farming or agriculture 4.0. 

Using telematics in farming makes it go beyond the traditional manual procedures and works its way into smart, efficient, and data-driven practices. Telematics finds innumerable applications in agriculture, optimising operations and achieving sustainable growth. 

Let us look into some applications for agriculture businesses that come with using modern fleet technology: 

• Precision Farming: The use of GPS tracking in agriculture makes precision farming possible. Therefore, farmers are able to make more calculated and exact decisions instead of relying on good sense and guesswork. Farmers can now create detailed field maps, track ploughing distance, and calculate daily progress, resulting in low resource wastage. 

• Equipment Monitoring and Maintenance: The biggest role played by technology in agriculture is helping farmers get a clear view into their vehicles’ functioning. It allows them to monitor their fleet, track metrics like fuel consumption and equipment health – all from a distance! It is this proactive approach that ensures timely vehicle maintenance and minimum fleet downtime. 

• Agribusiness Fleet Management: Fleet management software in any industry enables vehicles to perform better. Even in agribusiness, telematics-powered fleet management helps managers assign better ploughing or fertilising routes to vehicles while ensuring that they’re consuming the least resources. 

• Asset Security: Remote farm management can be tricky business because vehicles are susceptible to theft on large farms. However, with the power of IoT, farmers can leave that worry behind as the real-time visibility promotes the vehicles and equipment to be under constant vigilance. 

• Data-driven Decision Making: Through telematics systems, farmers get a clear look into how their fleet is working. By collecting real-time data and insights of the operations, they can make informed decisions based on accurate information about their crop, equipment, and fields. 

Advantages of TrackoBit’s Telematics Software for Agricultural and Farming Industry

If you’re looking for a robust fleet management solution for your agricultural fleet, you should look into TrackoBit. Why? Because with years of experience in developing telematics software and serving clients for their fleet management needs, we have a strong understanding of any agrifleet related requirements you might have. 

But enough with blowing our trumpet! We’ll let the software speak for itself. 

In this section, let us look into the features TrackoBit offers for agricultural fleets and how you can benefit from them.

Operational and Functionality Benefits

• 24×7 visibility of equipment: Stay in control of the real-time location of vehicles along with their running status. TrackoBit also allows remote monitoring capabilities, allowing farmers to always be updated on the equipment use on the farm and beyond.
• Precise farm area calculations: Smart farming using telematics using telematics software doesn’t suffer from human errors. Instead, TrackoBit’s Concave Hull method allows automated area calculation for accurate measurements.
• Automated wage calculations: Farmworkers can get paid daily according to the work done on the farm through automated area and wage calculations. This massively reduces the administrative burden from the farm fleet managers.
• Geofencing for asset security: TrackoBit empowers farmers to define secure zones for their assets. Therefore, they are sent alerts instantly if any encroachments or theft occur on the farm.

Optimising Equipment Use and Performance

• Strategic allocation: With TrackoBit’s farming telematics software, farmers can strategically allocate equipment farms based on their work requirements. This intelligent allocation ensures that each equipment is used to its fullest potential.
• Tracking vehicle performance: Tracking vehicle Performance: Farmers gain valuable insights into the equipment’s performance through GPS farm mapping and vehicle OBD data. The software can track parameters like engine hours, idle time tracking, and fuel consumption. Therefore, by identifying patterns and working on them,  they can optimise usage.
• Fuel monitoring systems: Our advanced fuel monitoring system tracks fuel consumption in real-time, enabling farmers to optimise fuel usage across their fleet. They can identify fuel-heavy equipment and implement fuel-saving measures to significantly reduce operational costs.
• Vehicle maintenance: When farmers install the right hardware into their vehicles, they will get untampered data from them, helping them get timely maintenance reminders. These reminders help them take the right measures at the right time to ensure equipment longevity, minimise breakdowns, and stay compliant with safety regulations.

Maximising Asset Security

• Fleet safety features: TrackoBit’s telematics software brings advanced safety features such as a parking mode, lock/unlock alarms, and battery disconnection alerts. When farmers know they’ll get notifications whenever something goes wrong in the fleet, they can rest assured that your fleet is secure on or off the farm.

• Driver behaviour monitoring:  Driving behaviour makes or breaks fuel budgets and vehicle health. So, monitoring it is crucial to maintain effective operations on the field. Our software allows you to track driver behaviour patterns such as speed, harsh braking, and acceleration. Identifying and addressing these driving patterns enhances both safety and efficiency for vehicles and drivers.

Practical Cases of Using Telematics in Farming

Everything sounds all good and jolly till now, right? But you might be wondering, are there any strong practical reasons for me to invest in this software? What are some real-life examples of using farming telematics software? 

So, in this section, we will talk about exactly that – some practical ways you can leverage the software to simplify day-to-day farming operations.

Calculate Ploughed Area and Depth 

You can use telematics software to introduce GPS in agriculture efforts. And with this GPS, farmers get information on automatically calculated areas that have been tilled on a farm. 

The coolest thing here, though, is that the software will not calculate the area the vehicle has been on, but the actual area ploughed. What’s more – the agricultural fleet management software brings visibility for the real-time ploughing depth involved. 

The more the depth, the higher the pressure on the engine and fuel consumption. Therefore, you will get a better idea of how much maintenance and fuel a vehicle needs.

Maintain Vehicle and Cattle Harmony

Each telematics software comes with geofencing capabilities. Therefore, farmers can restrict some areas on the farm that are reserved for cattle grazing. This way, the farming telematics software will send alerts whenever vehicles enter forbidden areas. 

This is an important thing to do on a farm to ensure cattle and vehicle harmony. The software makes sure that neither cattle disturb the vehicles nor vice-versa. 

Reducing Fuel Budgets

Telematics software plays a pivotal role in reducing fuel budgets for agricultural fleets. 

Farmers can optimise routes through GPS for agriculture businesses to minimise unnecessary fuel consumption. Advanced fuel monitoring through these software provides real-time data on fuel consumption, identifying vehicles consuming the most fuel. 

By promoting responsible driving practices, fuel consumption is reduced, making the fleet more  economically sustainable.

Summing Up 

Using telematics in farming is one of the best things you can do to make sure the agricultural and farming industries are able to suffice the pressure they face in today’s world. Telematics really has taken traditional farming and propelled it into a smart farming direction charged by robust equipment and fleet management software!

So, if you’re looking to supercharge your business and make the crop production and management go from 10 to 100, you should check out TrackoBit! With its powerful concave hull and wage calculation features we bet you’ll never have any complaints about your farms’ operations anymore!

Ayushi Nagalia

Ayushi Nagalia is a Senior Content Specialist at TrackoBit. She is passionate about music, writing, and reading. When not abusing her keyboard, you will find her lost in her playlists or organizing things.

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