How Temperature and Humidity Affect Farming in Tropical Southeast Asia?
Farming, the activity of growing crops or raising livestock, has played a major role in the birth and expansion of the human civilisation for many years, especially in Southeast Asia, as agriculture accounted for roughly ten percent of its ASEAN’s GDP in 2018. Agriculture, fishery, and the forestry sector is also a key source of jobs in ASEAN, employing about 104.3 million people.
The region’s population is around 600 million currently, and is projected to increase to 720 million by 2027 by the US Bureau of Census. With the combination of rising income, population growth, and increased urbanisation, the demand for meat, especially poultry and pork, has risen. This has led to an increase in livestock production and as a result, led to an increase in demand for feed grain in Southeast Asia.
As a naturally well-endowed country, Thailand boasts 127 million acres of land, with 52% of it suitable for agriculture. Thailand is also among the world’s leading exporters of staple foods and commodities such as rice, sugar, and cassava, as agriculture is a key component of its economy, contributing to about 8% of its GDP.
Furthermore, agriculture is also a key provider of jobs in Thailand, with employment in agriculture reported at 31.6% in 2019, according to the World Bank. The future of the industry is bright, as crop production is projected to increase with the expanded cultivated areas and increase in genetic research.
Nonetheless, recognising its potential, the state-owned Bangkok Bank of Agriculture Cooperatives has recently announced plans to invest US$33 billion in the agricultural sector in 2020, specifically for the purpose of integrating modern technology into agricultural management, also known as smart farming.
However, there are a few hurdles to overcome, such as the falling global prices for commodities, increasing shortages for water and labour, inefficient use of pesticides, and also the adverse weather conditions. Being extremely susceptible to weather and climate changes, Thailand’s agricultural industry suffers frequently from droughts and floods, affecting crop yields and farmers’ income.
Thailand is not alone to experience difficulties with adverse weather, as climate change affects the entire world. In fact, Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most vulnerable region in the world in terms of adverse climate change impacts that can undermine crop production stability and livestock growth. With the increased temperature and changing precipitation patterns, the effects of global warming, agricultural productivity may drop.
Malaysia, on one hand, has to deal with extremely high humidity levels due to its location being close to the equator, while Indonesia, on the other hand, suffers from falling food production due to erratic weather patterns and “drier than usual” weather in 2020.
This spells trouble for the agricultural sector in various countries, as drought and heat creates grain shortages and driving up prices, while also increasing animal water consumption, when there is limited water availability.
Heat and humidity may also compromise an animal’s immune system, making it more susceptible to diseases and stress, increasing animal mortality rate. Logistics also take a hit, as flooding creates difficulties for manure management, while flooded roads may impact labour supply, and moving feed or animals in and out of the farm.
Getting the temperature and humidity right is extremely important, and it can make or break an agricultural operation, and as we move into the age of Internet of Things, smart sensors and transmitters help us measure the exact conditions of the growing environment, such as the wind speed and direction, the temperature changes, air pressure which can indicate a thunderstorm, and humidity to help farmers make better decisions about water usage. It also helps in the other parts of value chain such as transporting and storing of perishable goods.
FOX-TECH enables farming, logistics, cold chain, and manufacturing owners to monitor, track, and improve their operations by using the data analytics IoT Platform. FOX-TECH combines secure, low power consumption, efficient data structure, and high sensor accuracy devices with its cutting-edge platform to simplify IoT for everyone. FOX-TECH is empowering business owners to have the required temperature and humidity changes alerts when it is needed, while also providing a global coverage for monitoring.
Temphawk, an industrial grade temperature and humidity monitor designed by FOX-TECH is meant for a variety of industries, of which includes specialty agricultural and farming. After a dairy farm installed Temphawk, the quality and quantity of the cow’s milk increased, leading to a rise of at least 12% of milk yield and a saving of at least US$ 30,000 per year. Hiring a farm hand is never easy these days, thus optimising the time use of farm hand is critical to the bottom-line of the business. The reduction of time in measuring temperature manually has given the farm hand additional time to milk the cows, increasing the milk yield. The 24/7 alert notification feature also allows the farm hand to turn on the air-con whenever necessary, increasing the quality of life of the cows and reducing unnecessary use of electricity. Read more about the case study here.
- Real-Time Monitoring 24/7: Set push notification alerts to your temperature and humidity levels.
- Long Battery Life: Temphawk can last up to 12 months on a single battery charge.
- Designed for Harsh Environments: With an IP67 rating and temperature measurement from -40ºC to +125ºC.
- Easy to Maintain and Deploy: On average, users of Temphawk spend less than 1 hour a year maintaining our devices.
- Food Safety Compliance Report Ready: Platform can provide HACCP and ISO2200 compliant reports for temperature-sensitive perishable goods. Reduce the time spent by 80%.
- Data-Efficient Structure: Large data types can be compressed into less than 12 bytes.
Temphawk has also proven its usefulness for specialty crops monitoring, as it can withstand the harsh conditions of the sun and the rain, while monitoring different locations in the greenhouse at the same time, alerting workers in case of the need to turn on the irrigation system.
Being able to track remotely would mean that the farmers are free up to do more valuable operating tasks. Being an IP67 certified device means it can withstand harsh condition which may be present for specialty crops especially those up in the mountains or under the sea. This potentially has helped our client to reduce at least 15% of perishable goods loss. Read more about the case study here.
As ASEAN’s agricultural sector continues to flourish, an investment into smart technology such as FOX-TECH’s Temphawk would help save time and energy, while making efficient use of resources. This device could potentially be a boon to the region’s crop and livestock production.
Learn more about what our partners and clients said about FOX-TECH here.
Some other news about FOX-TECH
· Channel 8 Mediacorp — January 30, 2020: 8视界 Channel 8 News 焦点 | 台湾创新科技 放眼东南亚
· DIGITIMES — July 15, 2019: 台灣IoT新創團隊FOX-TECH 成立18個月拓展業務至24國
· DIGITIMES — July 16, 2019: Taiwan startup Fox-Tech develops temperature, moisture big data platform
· Taiwan Tech Arena — June 17, 2019: Meet SparkLabs Taipei’s Toughest Duo From Batch One
· e27 — April 3, 2019: Meet the Southeast Asian startups participating at the Sydney Landing Pad programme
