How Smart Farming is Impacting Smart Cities.

How Smart Farming is Impacting Smart Cities.The smart city is meeting the smart farm, but the nature of technology necessitates this relationship will be symbiotic not unidirectional. Increasingly, the smart farm will be impacting the smart city. What could be a more significant impact than solving the problem of getting food to ever-growing urban centers which are increasingly dependent on transportation and logistics to feed their millions? Statistically, less than two percent of Californians feed the other 98%. In addition, those same Californians, those feeding the 98%, are also providing specialty items such as delicious strawberries, tasty almonds, and enchanting wines to a good chunk of consumers of those items around country and the world. One reason they are able to provide so much for so many is that California farmers have embraced technology to increase yields and conserve precious and expensive resources like water, energy and land. Yields have been increasing for decades due to the ingenuity of the growers and their partners in both industry and research institutions, who have helped make American farms, ranches and vineyards some of the most efficient and effective staple and luxury crop producers in the world. Today, as cities and their inhabitants become “smarter”, they will increasingly be fed by “smarter” farms. California is currently seeing a spillover of the newest technological innovations from Silicon Valley, into the Central, San Joaquin and Salinas Valleys; adding to the existing base of advancements in precision irrigation, spectral imaging, genomics, environmental, animal and plant sciences, and dozens of other areas of practice. Many of the applications in use in today’s cities will likely find their place on the farm or vineyard, especially when it comes to IoT (Internet of Things) technologies. more