Agriculture may seem a world away from urban smart cities, but it’s equally transformed by IoT – and it faces even tougher connectivity challenges due to remote locales. Smart farming deployments use connected sensors and devices to monitor crops, soil, livestock, and equipment, helping farmers maximize yields and efficiency. IoT sensors are now measuring temperature, humidity, soil moisture, light levels, and more across farms - and in real time. They feed this data to farm management systems that can, for example, automatically turn on irrigation when soil moisture is low or open greenhouse vents if temperature rises too high. Drones rove overhead capturing thermal images of fields to spot pest infestations or irrigation leaks. Tractors and combines come off the factory line with telematics units that stream engine and yield data to the cloud. All these technologies share one need: connectivity across large, often rural areas. 

However, rural broadband coverage is notoriously sparse. “Rural broadband is a global issue. Countries like Australia, Brazil, and the US all struggle with connectivity on farms,” says Jonathan Riley, head of AGCO’s Fuse smart farming division. AGCO, one of the world’s largest farm equipment makers (brands include Fendt, Massey Ferguson, etc.), has been actively working to get farms connected. They participated in ConectarAGRO initiative, which aims to bring LTE/5G coverage to 500,000 farms via partnerships with telecom providers. Riley explains that with new machines increasingly equipped with LTE/5G, "entire fleets will be able to communicate, data can be transferred in real-time, and advanced capabilities can be developed. We're connecting the entire operation...to capitalize on the land more effectively and efficiently." In other words, pervasive wireless broadband on the farm – backed by fiber backhaul – unlocks everything from autonomous tractors to precision crop management. Where fiber is not available, satellite links and LoRaWAN mesh networks are also employed, but the trend (especially with 5G) is to extend terrestrial fiber-fed networks outward into farming regions. 

One innovative use case at the intersection of agriculture and environmental stewardship is wildlife monitoring through IoT sensors. For instance, researchers and farmers are now deploying acoustic sensors to track bird populations, whose activity can indicate ecosystem health (and agricultural pest patterns). An example is the Bugg acoustic monitoring system developed at Imperial College London. Bugg devices – basically rugged IoT sound recorders with solar power – are being placed in fields and forests to continuously listen for bird calls. The audio is uploaded in real time via cellular networks to an AI cloud that identifies species and counts calls. In a recent project, over 100 such devices are mapping bird migrations across Europe, providing valuable biodiversity data. “Audio sensing systems such as Bugg allow us to monitor biodiversity on vast scales in a cost-effective way,” explains Dr. Sarab Sethi, the project lead. Crucially, the Bugg system proved “robust and reliable in collecting and transmitting high-quality audio data even in harsh environments” like Norwegian forests and tropical mountains. This reliability comes from careful engineering of the edge connectivity: each device uses a local SIM card to push data to the cloud in real time, and if coverage is spotty, it buffers data to upload when a connection is available. The success of such projects shows how IoT can aid agriculture and conservation hand-in-hand. Farmers could use the same acoustic sensors to detect pest birds or animals on their land, for instance – but it absolutely requires networks that reach beyond city limits. Edge connectivity solutions like private LTE nodes (with fiber backhaul) placed on farms, or even portable satellite/fiber hybrid units, can fill the gap where public infrastructure hasn’t yet arrived. 

The benefits of connected agriculture are significant. Studies show that IoT-driven precision farming can increase crop yields while using fewer resources. Farmers gain real-time insight into weather and soil conditions, enabling them to irrigate or fertilize exactly when and where needed. Livestock can be tracked for health and grazing patterns, reducing labor. And supply chain tracking from field to market becomes possible, improving food safety. All these require that sensors, drones, and machines on the farm have an unfailing data link to edge or cloud servers. AGCO, for example, offers a service called AGCO Connect that uses telematics on each machine to let farmers and dealers remotely monitor engine hours, maintenance needs, and even perform software updates on tractors in the field. Without connectivity, those high-tech tractors are effectively offline, and opportunities to optimize operations are lost. This is why AGCO and others are lobbying for rural 5G rollouts and partnering to create private farm networks. In practice, many large farms today install their own towers or Wi-Fi mesh and then use a fiber or microwave link to get back to the internet. Edge connectivity in agriculture often means building from the ground up – a hybrid of fiber, cellular, and IoT-specific networks – to blanket hundreds of acres with coverage. The challenge is steep, but the return is a more productive and sustainable food supply.