TM 5G technology provides platform for smart agriculture

LANGKAWI, Jan 13 — With the advancement of 5G technology, salads that are commonly grown in cold climates and highland areas are able to thrive in hot weather and even more interestingly, it can be grown in containers.

This was among the success stories recorded with the implementation of a case study using the 5G demonstration project (5GDP) by Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) in the Smart Agriculture cluster here since October.

TM One Emerging Solutions and Innovation director Azrin Aris said the 5G technology enabled three key matters to be achieved, namely, high speed, low latency and the ability to connect more devices at one time.

He added the technology developed by the telecommunication company had enabled six types of highland vegetables to grow well in containers that were placed in the parking lots of the Langkawi District and Land Office.

“This smart agriculture offers a single display and real-time monitoring that provide information around the indoor environment’s key parameters such as temperature, humidity and selected plant parameters, which are critical for timely decision making and to ensure optimal growth conditions.

“The smart agriculture developed by TM is also integrated with automation to ensure the key plant parameters such as light, environmental and nutrient requirements for the crops are at an optimal level without having (someone) on the site to perform these manually,” he said when met recently.

Besides Langkawi, Azrin said the smart agriculture was also implemented in several locations in Selangor, which saw about 35 varieties of vegetables successfully grown.

“From the 35 types of vegetables, six varieties, among others, Boston Lettuce, Green Coral and Red Fire Lettuce are planted in containers in Langkawi. Many people asked why containers

“We can control the environment in the containers which enables the highland vegetables, or those which are often imported, to be grown in Malaysia.

“Why is this innovation important It is because TM supports the government’s aspiration to reduce the outflow of money through the imports of vegetables,” he said.

Azrin said the use of containers also enabled mobile smart farming to be implemented which meant that the vegetables could be grown anywhere, and that could reduce shipping costs and consumers could get fresh vegetables directly from the farms.

In addition, he added smart agriculture could also improve the productivity of vegetables grown in the controlled environment.

“This 5G technology can also help us to monitor all the necessary parameters such as temperature, nutrients and carbon dioxide. We can monitor them all to make sure the output of smart agricultural products are optimised,” he said. — BERNAMA

Source: Bernama