Mobile Technology opens Opportunities for Primary Industries

Mobile Technology opens Opportunities for Primary Industries

Mobile computing has fundamentally changed the face of business around the world. The recent release of smartphones has been a game changer for many. Businesses now take it for granted that emails can be checked, news read, documents signed or video streamed, all while on the morning commute.

From a recent Cisco’s Visual Networking Study, smartphones were found to be using on average 342 MB of data each month in 2012 and this was projected to increase to a whopping 2.66 GB per month in just four years. This data usage rises substantially though if bringing in 4G (a big jump in mobile data speeds) to the mix. Smartphones are also projected to generate over 60% of all New Zealand’s mobile data by 2017. The experts also agree that rapid mobile adoption is still in its early stages.

It’s not only the office environment though where mobile communications are making a difference to business productivity and profitability. Mobile technologies have also had a major impact on how businesses are run within New Zealand’s primary sector. For farmers, forest managers and horticultural growers, the level of innovation from mobile technologies has been, and will continue to be, a game changer. Whether its satellite imagery of plantation forests, GPS tracking and real-time scheduling of transport and logistics, or soil management through wireless sensor monitoring and automated systems, our primary sector businesses are benefitting from improved mobile communications.

In forestry for example, an Irish forestry technology company, TreeMetrics is leading the charge in connecting forest managers and wood harvesting contractors using mobile communications. Significant funding has been supplied through the European Space Agency for a EU-wide research project into forestry measurement and data analytics. The company has been developing a real-time forest intelligence service, with the lofty goal of bringing live 3D forestry data to mobile devices and machinery across the globe.

TreeMetrics use air-borne and terrestrial LiDAR to provide accurate assessments of standing wood volumes. The company takes the stand inventory data and provides real-time information to wood harvesting machines with cut instructions based on orders and the quality of the wood resource in front of them. A device has been installed on board wood harvesting machines to transmit real-time information about the trees being felled. Details are being relayed back to foresters through ESA’s Inmarsat IsatM2M satellite and communications system. Mobile communications are core to this new development.

For New Zealand famers and horticulturists, irrigation is essential and a raft of innovative technologies using mobile technologies and smartphones have been unveiled in the last few months. Wireless point to point systems for remote monitoring and control of devices such as pumps and tanks, modular wireless networks to capture and monitor microclimates in crops and machine to machine systems that have been designed to monitor and track weather are changing how land owners and managers are running their business.

Mobile technology is also at the forefront of the trucking industry’s future. The use of handheld devices including smartphones, tablets and GPS devices has already become a crucial part of life on the road for drivers and in the office for fleet managers. Transport operators are harnessing mobile technologies to improve their fleet management, scheduling and safety for financial success and to comply with the numerous regulatory changes that have recently been introduced.

Because mobile technology is changing so rapidly, what’s being rolled out in industries like forestry, agriculture and horticulture is also being replicated by a number of other key industries in New Zealand’s primary sector. This is an exciting time for the industry, as mobile applications are opening up a new wave of innovations and productivity gains for businesses within the primary sector.

For the first time, Wellington will be hosting this year’s inaugural MobileTECH Summit 2013 on 7-8 August. This new event is designed to showcase current and upcoming mobile innovations best suited to New Zealand’s principal food and fibre sectors. The focus is on technologies that can be adopted now, whether it’s on the farm, in the greenhouse or out in the forest. The underlying principal is that these very new technologies can now be applied across a range of industries and that those working on the land - and in the forest - can learn from each other.

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