The transformation of the agro-industrial complex under the influence of IT-technologies inevitably affects the state of related industries.
Agricultural engineering, the production of fertilizers and unmanned aerial vehicles, the training of new personnel for agriculture and the processing industry are now inextricably linked with the latest developments in the IT cluster. However, if earlier experts talked about the dependence of the agro-industrial complex on IT solutions, now there is a reverse trend: agricultural producers are already dictating to IT people what products they should develop.
Stress for everyone
Representatives of agricultural holdings and IT structures consider the digitalization of agriculture not a goal, but a means of increasing production efficiency. Without software solutions, today most of the top managers of the leading enterprises in the industry cannot imagine their work. However, this was not always the case. At agricultural enterprises, they recall the difficulty with which new technologies were introduced into everyday work.
“The lack of a systematic approach to business was one of the main problems,” explains Dmitry Semenov, head of the information technology department at the Gorin collective farm. - The situation began to change when they began to create infrastructure, purchased a large fleet of equipment and deployed a wide local network, almost XNUMX% connected all divisions to it. We had to conduct computer literacy courses for senior professionals. I understand that it sounds strange, but we could not do without it. However, now all this helps us to work more efficiently.
Electronic field maps with information on soil features that allow you to apply fertilizers point by point, which means saving where the soil does not need it, is constantly updated with new data. Unmanned vehicles appear literally in every agricultural holding. If they are not owned, then you have to order a survey of the fields and digitization of the collected material. Each movement of agricultural machinery is controlled from the manager’s office thanks to navigation systems. The monitor shows not only the movement of cars in the fields, but also the dose of the application of agrochemicals. And this, according to both programmers and landowners, is far from the limit of the digital transformation of the agro-industrial complex.
NOC platform
Prospects for the development of this sphere in the Belgorod region are associated with the work of a scientific and educational center created on the basis of universities and agricultural enterprises. A separate platform will be engaged in the development and implementation of digital solutions in agriculture and processing, as well as in logistics, promotion and popularization of domestic food products.
Electronic field maps with information on soil features are constantly updated with new data
“It was important for us to minimize the influence of the human factor on the distribution system,” says Aleksey Gazizov, representative of the Agropromkomplektatsiya holding. - We understood that the drivers of cars transporting goods can be distracted during working hours, solve non-working issues. And the buyers did not receive the goods on time. Sometimes this became the reason for penalties against our company.
Building a new system - digital, according to Gazizov, was not easy. However, now that control is carried out with the help of "smart programs", the company does not just save, but sees the effect of a more thought-out system of logistics and resource allocation. At the same time, representatives of the Kursk-Tver agricultural holding are looking closely at digital solutions of regional IT companies. The developers of software products at the Belgorod REC emphasize that their resources are open not only to fellow countrymen, but also to industry representatives in other regions and even abroad.
The dependence of agriculture on the IT cluster is growing. The latter offer software products that are very convenient to use, but the policy of most companies involves constant updating of software for which you have to pay. Farmers give examples where the old version simply stops working, which means that the agricultural business is forced to invest in new IT solutions. And it’s expensive.
"Brains" for "iron"?
Experts point out that this dependence has led to changes in the market for IT companies. Egor Berezovsky, Head of Precision Farming at Amazone, while talking about software products for more efficient crop production, noted that not all the equipment used in agricultural enterprises is capable of fulfilling the assigned tasks.
- For example, we see that nothing grows at a certain place in the field, which means that there is an opportunity not to apply fertilizers where they are still useless, - explains Yegor Berezovsky. “In addition, most of our fields are rectangular and the corners are not worked evenly when the machine is turning. The recommendation for droplet size for herbicides and insecticides is given per centimeter of leaf area, but practice shows that it is different everywhere. And no matter what standards we set, it turns out that those areas where the soil is visible are processed too carefully, and where there is one green mass, it is not enough. This is fraught with the spread of pests and diseases. Therefore, we have developed special machines that can vary the dose depending on the quality of the crops.
The expert emphasizes that without such machines the software will not work, therefore IT solutions in this case simply do not make sense. According to him, the future is not only for neural networks, but also for the modernization of the agricultural machinery park.
Viktor Kononov, General Director of CenterProgramSystem, notes: it happens that an IT company creates a seemingly non-core business - the production of agricultural machines that run on its own software. However, there are also opposite examples.
- Many companies - manufacturers of equipment or fertilizers are trying to buy an IT company or create their own division that will deal with the digitalization of its products, - says Viktor Kononov. - Today we are talking not just about mineral fertilizers, but about “smart” mineral fertilizers. It is important for us to know what kind of soil they are intended for, or, as the professionals say, which ones will be tasty for a particular area of arable land. The same goes for technology.
The top manager compares the dependence of machine builders on IT companies with a similar situation in the car market, emphasizing that this situation will exist as long as the IT cluster works for the mass consumer.
By the way
As soon as the question of cooperation with a specific business company arises - for example, a manufacturer of unmanned vehicles, the plant that supplies hardware to the market will try to acquire a company that produces the brains. According to Kononov, there have already been such cases, and, most likely, very soon it will be possible to talk about a corresponding trend.
Source: https://rg.ru/