A new wave of young farmers and entrepreneurs are revolutionizing the agriculture industry. The new generation is graduated, and aware of new techniques and wants to develop new products. New farmers can be more dynamic, take advantage of new technologies and open new markets.

One can witness changes started to occur in agriculture. The new generation has a more business-oriented approach becoming real entrepreneurs. Some applications and devices are developed that trigger alerts to allow preventive actions before the crop is harmed.

An Iranian agricultural meteorology startup is launched to ensure maximum harvest yields through weather monitoring across the farmlands and fields.
The startup team began its activities two years ago aimed to decrease effects and impacts of weather and climate on crops and increase the quality and quantity of crops with weather monitoring, the CEO and founder of smart agricultural meteorology startup Seyyed Mehdi Al-e Yaqub told the Tehran Times. 

The meteorite impact lead to a striking figure for damaged crops or decrease in agricultural products, he lamented.

“Even if we can save only one percent more crops with the startup, it can be beneficial for living of several people as well as the national economy,” he explained.
The startup’s application provide a service for farmer users according to the type of his or her crop and location with an accurate weather predictions in rural area, he said.

The startup provides web panel for the owners of industrial agriculture while the farmers with less than five-hectare fields can use the app, which provide them with necessary information with very simple user interface

The data is provided by the satellite data and some post-processing of weather forecasts and we use some numerical processing like artificial neural network (ANN) and artificial intelligence (AI) for long range weather forecast and fewer usage of hardware, he explained.

He said that the startup is very successful in long range weather forecast and working on probability of precipitation (POP) for long-term predictions.

The application provides necessary information in appropriate time in agriculture cycle of planting, growing and harvesting and the new stage programming, he said.

“For the owners of industrial agriculture, we provide web panels while for farmers with less than five-hectare fields, we develop an application, which provide them with necessary information with very simple user interface.

“We also provide SMS and voice messages for those farmers who do not have smartphone or are not able to use them,” he said.
Many farmers may not use smartphone, however, there is always a family member who have smartphone but using SMS and voice message sometimes work more than apps, he said.

“The startup is starting operations, however, we face some challenges for deploying sensors in the regions due to sanctions and following economic problems.  
“Now we are ready to deploy our sensors and modules in two pilot locations, one is for private sector’s gardening complex in Buin Zahra, near Qazvin and another is a state-run organization in Qomroud rural district in Qom Province, which will be operated until the end of February,” he explained. 

He said that although they do not run their application yet, there received positive feedbacks from farmers who they negotiated with in different parts of Iran about the utilization of their app.

Visitors at ELECOMP 2018 welcomed the startup, which deals with problems that they face with, he explained 

The 24th Iran International Exhibition of Electronics, Computer & E-commerce (ELECOMP 2018) was held from July 28 to 31 in Tehran.

According to Statista, the global market size of smart agriculture is expected to grow from approximately 9.58 billion U.S. dollars in 2017 to 23.14 billion U.S. dollars by 2022 suitable to their local conditions.  

Smart farming types include precision crop farming, livestock monitoring and management, indoor farming, aquaculture, and others (forestry and orchids). 
The smart farming market encompasses a wide array of solutions such as hardware systems, software, and services. 

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