If agriculture goes wrong, nothing else will have a chance to go right in the country – M.S. Swaminathan (Father of Green revolution).
Agriculture is a primary activity of the economy that includes growing crops, fruits, vegetables, and flowers and rearing livestock. It plays an important role in the Indian economy. More than 70% of rural households depend on agriculture. It contributes 17% to Indian GDP and provides employment to almost 58% of the population. The share of agriculture in GDP increased to 19.9% in 2020-21. Agriculture was the only sector that proved resilient during the covid -19 pandemic, as it is the only sector with a growth rate of 3.6 % in 2020-21 and 3.9% in 2021-22.
Evolution of Agriculture:
- About 11,500 years ago during the Neolithic period, people learned to grow cereal and root crops, and they soon started to settle down to life based on farming.
- About 10,000 years ago Goats, sheep, and chickens were among the earliest animals to be domesticated.
- In the 15th and 16th centuries, a period of discovery introduced new varieties of plants and agricultural products. From Asia coffee, tea, and indigo, and from America potatoes, tomatoes, corn, beans, peanuts, and tobacco.
- During the 1950s and 60s scientists, developed new strains of high-yield wheat and rice. They introduced them into Mexico and part of Asia.
- India since the Indus valley civilization is known for agriculture, the first evidence of growing cotton was found here. Rice and Barley were also produced. Middle age saw irrigation channels, and land and water management systems with the aim to provide uniform growth. There was slight stagnation during the modern period.
- After independence, During the First five-year plan India invested in all sectors equally to know what we are good at. It was concluded that Agriculture is India’s strength and it will grow on its own but the major increase in production happened due to an increase in land areas.
- Growth came down when India had massive drought and famine and all the money was invested in 2nd five-year industrial plan and lost in war. India’s economy got crumbled and the country was on verge of a hunger crisis in 1964.
- Britain did not support it, and Russia was not in the condition to help, Americans were questioned due to the Nonalignment movement but later provided bad quality PL480.
- India needed food security and the Green revolution was introduced in 1966 and the focus was agriculture. It provided us with the idea of sustainability and today we are the largest producer of wheat, edible oil, potato, spices, and rubber. A further revolution like pink, brown, golden, etc. kept the agricultural development in check.
5G Technology:
5G is the fifth generation mobile network. It is the latest update that will replace or augment LTE (Long term evolution) connections. It has very high reliability, spectrum bands, and speed. It offers a very low latency rate and massive capacity. It also increases energy efficiency and better network connections.
5G will provide a download speed of 1Gbps, which is 100 times of existing data
It works on three band spectrum:
- Low band spectrum – Large area coverage and a speed limit of 100 Mbps
- Mid band spectrum- Higher speed tan low band but the area covered has limitations
- High band spectrum- Highest speed of all three but extremely limited coverage. Evolution of 5G:
| 1st Generation |
|
| 2nd Generation |
|
| 3rd generation |
|
| 4th generation |
|
| 5G technology |
|
Advantages of 5G:
- Improve accessibility to mobile banking, healthcare, and telemedicine services
- Policymakers can empower citizens and it will help in transforming cities into smart cities.
- Internet of things, smart cities, smart agriculture, energy monitoring, and industrial automation will help in economical betterment.
- Used in agriculture and smart farming.
- Support medicinal practitioners in performing advanced medical procedures.
- It will help in the digital growth of the country which help in employment generation
- For entertainment and multimedia
Problems with Indian agriculture:
- Instability – Agriculture is highly dependent on monsoon.
- Land ownership- Inequality in land ownership, most holdings are small and uneconomic
- Subdivision and fragmentation of holding.
- Condition of agricultural laborers, surplus labor, and disguised unemployment
- Inadequate use of manures and fertilizer and use of poor quality seeds.
- inadequate use of efficient farm equipment
- Agricultural credit and indebtedness of farmers
Role of 5G technology in agriculture:
With the rapid invention of 5G technology and increasing digital services and advanced technology, we are very close to witnessing a technological revolution. Apart from internet speed, 5G can also open new avenues for business and other fields.
Some industries like agriculture still have not received the benefit of technological advancement as agricultural fields still rely on conventional agricultural practices but merging technology with conventional farming techniques will bring revolution to the agriculture field.
- Agriculture sensors: Sensors like optical sensors, electrochemical sensors, and GPS sensors help in mapping farms and crops even at a minute level and preserve resources
- Smart irrigation- Agriculture is highly influenced by irrigation. The amount of water and timing of when to irrigate is equally important. 5G will help in reading soil regarding moisture content, soil pattern, and salinity and provides farmers with needed information.
- AI-powered machines- Farmers connecting machines through 5G help them to get data about position and function and do the needful in their absence.
- Livestock management- Geo locations help farmers to monitor the health of their cattle and activities. The data regarding food intake, and fertility will help farmers in better management of cattle farming. IT can work through wi-fi and Bluetooth and 5G in case of large farms.
- 5 G-enabled applications help farmers with the weather conditions, rainfall, agriculture market, prices of seeds and pesticides and all is just possible by connecting their smartphones with 5G.
- Data aggregation- 5G holds strong potential for data collection and it helps corporates farm for building private 5G networks from micro-monitored crop management systems which help in getting real-time information about needs and deficiencies.
- Drone operations– Drones are less costly than tractors and give more useful information about crops and 5G will increase their efficiency to collect HD images and high speed will help in the functioning of AI drones. It is included with a crop sprayer and weed sprayer, it identifies the affected area and sprays the pesticide.
- Farms leveraging IoT to help growers minimize operation costs, it is targeted to install 12 million agricultural sensors globally by 2023
- Precision farming- Most of the time a particular patch of the land need treatment and we end up treating the whole land which causes more damage this happens due to the unavailability of data and 5G will help to give accurate information and farmer can act accordingly on a proper patch of land.
- Connected cows and calving- In 2017 “Moocall ” sensor by Vodafone alert farmers when a calf is born. 25,000 calves have been born safely. Combining IoT and 5G will do wonders.
- Reduce water consumption- Vodafone has introduced a worldwide IoT Network grid which reduced 40 % irrigation and such function will improve due to the development of 5G.
Challenges of 5G technology
- Incompetent technological advancement in most parts of the country.
- e-waste generation because all the old equipment needs to replace which doesn’t support 5G.
- Data protection issues.
- The number of users will be a challenge due to the swift upsurge in broadband consumption and network congestion.
- Infrastructure-intensive development will be very costly.
- Telecom firms will have excessive financial stress.
Solutions:
- 5G can operate on a low band spectrum as well as other spectrum bands. Its extensive range can be useful in rural regions that will overcome the Incompetent technological advancement.
- The government can support this by regulating the price consumers pay by managing the spectrum design. It can also assist telecom firms in establishing networks that are accessible and sustainable.
Conclusion:
“Investments in agriculture are the best weapons against hunger and poverty, and they have made life better for billions of people.” – Bill and Melinda gates foundation.
5G might take more time to roll out completely and to be accessible in remote areas and new technology will reduce the workforce with the introduction of automation but farmers can think beyond working on farms and focus on marketing and planning.