Farm to Table with Big Data Analytics

Food is nourishment but it is also a complex adaptive system of people, practices, tools, and institutions that has been shaped since the invention of agriculture by every wave of technological change. But as much as we venerate the rich traditions around the origins, growing, selling, buying, preparing, and eating of food, there are some serious issues in the supply, production, and demand for food today. A growing global population and the diminishing set of natural resources on which they depend are forcing us to rethink the way we produce and distribute food. One promising approach to improving the quality of food and the efficiency of its production and distribution is the use of big data analytics, which has the power to solve major problems such as water conservation, food industry business issues, and may even encourage us to try new foods based on personal preferences.

Production

In less than a hundred years, large-scale farming has become the norm of food production, accounting for nine percent of the U.S. economy. Producing food at scale provides a way for us to feed more people, but it is beset with challenges such as the cost of land and managing the growth and health of thousands of plants and animals at a time. But big data is giving farmers the power to collect data that leads to improvements in crop yields, equipment management, livestock health, and even how we use water.

In fact, 92 percent of fresh water used by human beings is used in agriculture, and with recent droughts hitting some of the largest food-producing states such as California, it’s vital that we’re smart about how we use the water we have. Today, through efforts between Intel and the Earth Research Institute at the University of California Santa Barbara, it’s possible to analyze the data from satellite images to gain a better understanding of how much snowpack is present in mountain ranges during the winter. This leads to greater insight into how much of that water will be available for planting in the spring. For farmers, who have often watered crops based on traditional practices, sensors in the soil and on plants provide data that give an incredibly accurate view of when plants actually need water, improving the health and yield of crops and conserving precious water in the process.

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