ASEAN: Internet of things for smart farming

Malaysia is exploring the use of internet of things (IOT) technologies for agriculture in the ASEAN region, driven by collaboration between government and the private sector.

Serene Chan, Industry Manager, ICT at Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific, said Malaysia is leading the way in the use of IOT for agriculture in the region.

For example, remote sensing technology can reveal irregularities in crops before they can affect a large volume of produce, said Enrico Paringit, Program leader at the Department of Science and Technology’s (dost) disaster risks exposure assessment for mitigation (dream) project.

“The El Niño phenomenon was detected using remote sensing technologies,” DOST’s dream program will send up two micro-satellites from 2016 to enable the remote transmission of data.

Daily data feeds will be sent to a ground receiving station called the Philippine Earth Data Resources and Observation or PEDRO Centre in Subic, Zambales.

This will initially run for two years, providing crops and climate experts with information about a particular area’s vegetation conditions.