What? M2M’s role in agriculture. Remote control of grain silos for Fedea, Argentina (a major Argentinian grain and farm products producer).

The problem:

• Fedea stores grain, such as soyabean, in large silos waiting for transport and distribution. Silo-bags are different from traditional silos. They offer quick but temporary storage and they don’t have any devices installed to control humidity or add dry air to the grains stored.
• Spoilage occurs quickly if humidity and moisture is too high. This is especially the case with soyabeans and high oleic sunflower due to their high oil content.
• In addition, the silobags are 600/700km away from company headquarters.

The solution:

• Fedea had already installed weather stations in the farms near the silobags which are very useful during cultivation and harvest to monitor rains, air humidity and temperature.
• However, the weather stations don’t inform what happens inside the silobags with the grains.
• Fedea is now trialing the use of GPRS modules installed in the silobag with four different sensors measuring temperature, humidity, CO2 and O2.
• They are integrated into a cloud-based platform which allows the customer to monitor the grains inside the silos online and configure alarms if humidity levels get too high.

Benefits: Grain quality control, reduced loss of cereal due to quality issues, better logistics for exportation and more information on what happens inside the silo bags without having to travel 700km to check them