Smart Farming & IoT applications in ASEAN to reach USD 5 billion by 2024

The technological advancement continued innovation, and government support in most Southeast Asian countries are expected to reshape agriculture system to witness buoyant growth, thereby influencing the ASEAN’s smart farming and IoT applications market.

Considering such factors it is anticipated market will be valued at around USD 5 billion by 2024.

Definition / Scope
Market Overview
Market Risks
Market Trends
Industry Challenges
Technology Trends
Pricing Trends
Regulatory Trends
Other Key Market Trends
Market Size and Forecast
Market Outlook
Technology Roadmap
Competitive Landscape
Competitive Factors
Key Market Players
Strategic Conclusion
References
Appendix

Definition / Scope

Between now and 2050 the planet’s population is likely to rise to 9.7 billion. The Food and Agriculture Organization published a report which suggested that by 2050 agricultural production will have to rise by 70% to meet projected demand. Since most land suitable for farming is already farmed, this growth must come from higher yields.

Smart farming means a farming management concept using modern technology to increase the quantity and quality of agricultural products. The Internet of Things (IoT) has brought everything connected through the internet.

In simple language, IoT means a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals, or people that are provided with unique identifiers (UIDs) and also can transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

IoT technology is anticipated to play a significant role in increasing the current agricultural productivity to cater to the growing demand for food.

IoT in the agriculture industry incorporates IoT-based advanced technological tools, systems, equipment, and solutions to enhance operational efficiency, maximize yield, and minimize wastage of energy through real-time field data collection, data storage, data analysis, and development of control platform.

Table: Smart Farming and IoT Applications ASEAN Market Key Segments

BY APPLICATION	Precision farming Livestock monitoring Smart greenhouse Fish farm monitoring
BY COUNTRY	Malaysia Indonesia Thailand Philippines Rest of ASEAN

Market Overview

ASEAN agriculture is proving itself to be a powerhouse for the production and supply of important food items as it is home to the world’s top two largest rice exporters (Thailand and Vietnam) and has among the top three exporting countries for pineapples, bananas, mango, sugar crops, coffee, cashew nuts, and cassava.

ASEAN Smart Farming and IoT Applications market size was valued to be a $1.78 billion market in 2019. The market is anticipated to expand with a CAGR of 14.7% over the forecast period from 2019 and 2024.

Alongside the rise in the global population and increase in demand for food across the region have fuelled the adoption of new technology to optimize the agriculture production are the reasons for the gain of the estimated market size of approximately US $ 5 billion by 2024.

Despite these growth factors, major concerns are related to the agriculture industry comprise of lack of awareness among the farmer community and numerous small players that provide solutions for various stages of the agriculture value chain.

As a few of the agricultural processes achieve economic feasibility, the growth of the market is expected to be hampered during the forecast period.

Nonetheless, with growing penetration of smartphones and the internet among farmers is expected to raise the needed awareness about the use of IoT in agriculture and thus help in the development of the market.

The ASEAN Smart Farming and IoT Applications market is segmented by Application into Precision farming, Livestock Monitoring, Smart Greenhouse, and Fish farm monitoring.

IoT and smart farming have the primary objective to address agriculture-based issues and optimize the quantity and quality of agriculture production, by connecting farms through a single platform and making them more intelligent by sharing, storing, and analyzing the information.

Furthermore, industries are adopting advanced analyzing tools to understand growth opportunities in various sectors.

IoT is changing the competitive landscape of agriculture, as companies are investing in advanced technologies. Further, companies such as AGCO, AgJunction, CNH Industrial NV, Deere & Company, Trimble, etc. have been able to establish themselves as leaders.

The other prominent companies are Ci-Agriculture, Garuda Robotics, iGrow Resources, and Topcon Positioning Systems. Some of the major players are currently focusing on providing IoT solutions with advanced and innovative technologies.

As part of this strategy, the companies are engaging in various acquisitions, strategic partnerships, R&D, and focusing on expanding their business through new service additions and geographical presence.

Fig: Smart Farming and IoT Applications ASEAN Market Trend (in US$ Billion)

Market Risks

Though IoT is making a great place in the smart farming of ASEAN countries, there are several issues and risks a market player has to contend with. Some of these are:

Fragmentation of Agricultural Market:

The ASEAN’s agricultural sector is not dominated by a few major players but consists of many small players that offer solutions for various phases of the agricultural value chain.
Farmers find it difficult to achieve economies of scale through the deployment of solutions of only part of the agricultural process.
For instance, solutions on reducing costs for transportation or irrigation are in themselves of limited help in maximizing return on investment (ROI).

Less economy and more cost:

The economy of some of the ASEAN countries is questionable to afford smart farming and the Internet of Things. Although, government and large scale industries can afford to adopt smart farming still the price of the Internet of Things is high for farmers and other farm workers.
The traditional agricultural devices require more effort but comparatively less expensive than the devices of the Internet of Things. It is often reported that a single user pays about $ 100 per year using such technologies.
This shows that the affordability of Internet of Things is still high for farmers and the market is narrowed by such high prices.

The Lag in the Adoption of IoT Security:

A major concern that surrounds IoT is the security and privacy of the data; this concern leads to loss of physical systems and data security.
Maintaining high levels of security is a significant challenge for the IoT. The number of IoT connections will increase at a CAGR of 16% from 6 billion in 2015 to 27 billion by 2025.
Despite IoT having a significant opportunity to scale and gain mass-market adoption, the lack of network security capabilities could hamper momentum. As the number of IoT devices and sensors increases, the importance of data and network security increases too.

Educational and economic conditions:

The market of Internet of Things (IoT) is directly affected by the customers’ economic and educational conditions. Smart farming is a scientific approach to the agricultural field and Internet of Things is modern scientific technologies. Farmers or farm workers who are well educated or knowledgeable can easily understand and use such new approaches to agriculture.
Moreover, the stronger the economic conditions of farmers, the more they tend to progress in agriculture and adopt scientific tools. Countries like Cambodia and Laos still have 16% illiterate male population: 30% illiterate female population and 13% illiterate male population and 28% illiterate female population respectively.
Many people in ASEAN countries lack education and have a low economic condition. The expansion and growth of the market of Internet of Things are very difficult considering the educational, informational, and economic conditions of people involved in agriculture in ASEAN countries. It is estimated that 18.6% of Cambodian people live below the poverty line whereas 1297.6 and 1508.8 are the respective per capita incomes (USD) of Myanmar and Cambodia.

Top Market Opportunities

Agriculture is of great importance in ASEAN countries. The world has been a small place with the development of communication and transportation.

This is where new, modern, and scientific smart farming and Internet of Things are adopted by agricultural sectors. The development of advanced and wide-ranging system solutions for maintenance is expected to offer productive opportunities for the growth of the market.

Cheaper cost of sensors and bandwidth:

Sensor prices have dropped to an average of 60 cents from $1.30 in the past 10 years. The cost of bandwidth has also declined steeply, by a factor of nearly 40X over the past 10 years.
The cost of processing has seen a sharp decrease of nearly 60 times for the past 10 years, thereby allowing more devices to smartly handle all the new data they are generating or receiving.

Widespread use of smartphones:

Farmers are increasingly reliant on smartphones and other intelligent mediums to keep up-to-date about the latest development in the agricultural sector.
Smartphones have become a remote control or interface for most applications ranging from healthcare to automobiles.
Also, the number of smartphone users has increased since the past years. The affordability of the smartphone has also aided its spread in ASEAN countries.

Alternative energy and ultralow-power technologies:

Farmers are growing increasingly dependent on technologies in their daily day-to-day activities.
Availability of power to supply most devices that require automation has been a challenge in ASEAN but new technologies for energy harvesting, ultralow-power devices have been a key enabler to IoT.
Some devices today can power themselves as they tap energy from the immediate environment. An example is wearable devices for body monitoring (temperature and heart rate) that can power themselves with energy from vibration, pulse, and heat.

Globalization and expansion of trade:

The agricultural trade is progressing in ASEAN countries and it is better exemplified by such achievements by ASEAN countries.
- Thailand and Vietnam are two ASEAN countries that are the world’s top two largest rice exporters.
- Also, Thailand and Vietnam are among the top three exporting countries for pineapples, bananas, mango, sugar crops, coffee, cashew nuts, and cassava.
- ASEAN countries are the top producers and exporters of palm oil, coconut and rubber and major producer and exporter of seafood.

Thus, ASEAN countries hold great importance in global trade. ASEAN countries are the fourth trading partner with the United States. Smart farming and Internet of Things support the demand and supply of agricultural products.

Market Trends

Several factors are influencing the positive growth of the smart farming and IoT applications market. One of the key driving factors for the market growth is the ever-increasing demand for food across the globe.

This has raised the necessity for mass production and efficient production practices. Technology plays a significant role in achieving both of these objectives.

Increasing Demand for Food

The global population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. To produce enough food for the entire population, farmers must boost food production by 25%-70% by 2050.
Malaysia by 2025, almost 80% of the Malaysian population will live in urban areas, up from 74% in 2015, the highest urbanization rate among the developing ASEAN countries.
This increase in the urban population is expected to continue to be a significant driver for food in the future.

Drive to Reduce Wastage

There is a high degree of wastage in the application of agricultural inputs. For example, less than 50% of fertilizers used are absorbed by the soil or plants. The rest usually contaminates groundwater, resulting in wastage and pollution.
The consequence of using smart farming and Internet of Things is proven to be very positive. Smart farming has resulted in an increased number of quantitative crops.
There is no harm to the people, to the crops, and the environment while applying smart farming and using Internet of Things. Such positive outcomes attract other customers to use Internet of Things and approach smart farming for agriculture.

Growing Scarcity of Inputs

The production of biofuels has grown from 60 billion liters in 2007 to 130 billion liters in 2015; this has resulted in more and more cereals and oilseed being used for biofuel production instead of farming.
Freshwater availability is also becoming problematic due to increased urbanization. The devices used in Internet of Things collect the data regarding the need for crops like water, light, moisture in the soil, etc. and seek the solution. A device like drones monitors the crops in the ground and from the air.

Effects of Climate Change

The University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment found that climate change reduced global rice and wheat yields every year by 0.3% and 0.9% respectively.
Besides, the United Nations panel on climate change warns that agricultural activities contribute to a third of greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change will significantly impact agricultural production.
The midwestern U.S. and Eastern Australia will experience a decrease in agricultural production due to extreme heat.
These severe weather conditions will stimulate the deployment of IoT-based solutions in ASEAN’s agriculture to increase yield and improve efficiency.

Remote region farming

Another benefit of smart farming is it can go farming in some places where humans cannot reach or do not want to reach.
In remote places, smart farming can initiate farming, monitor the crops, and accelerate the crops’ productivity.
The information from remote places can be easily achieved through the signals collected by sensory devices, drones, etc.

Belief in nature than in technology

ASEAN countries comprise of people who are admirer, believer, and worshipper of nature. Agriculture is very scared to work for many farmers and farmworkers.
Many people in ASEAN countries consider agriculture to be a natural process and nature, only is responsible to control it. They do not believe in controlling rain, sunlight availability, drought, pests control, etc. to agriculture.
In these cases where belief and new experiments clash, belief tends to be very stern and win over others. The market of Internet of Things is declined by such people who solely depend on nature for farming.

New approaches are not easily understood

The use of technology is not an easy and comprehensible task for everyone.
Traditional farming has a deep-rooted connection with the farmers and smart farming would not be easily familiar and easier for them.
The farmers and other farmworkers need the proper knowledge, information, and skills to use the Internet of Things devices.

Fault data: Fault decision

If there are fault sensors or data processing engines, the output will be the faulty decisions by the devices.
This may lead to overuse of water, fertilizers, and other wastages of resources.
Thus, such defects in the devices do harm the farming and resources and can decline the belief of people in smart farming and Internet of Things.

Dependence on the internet

Internet is the core of smart farming and Internet of Things.
Smart farming depends on the internet very often and poor or no availability of the internet can hamper it very badly.
In some remote places where the internet is weak, smart farming does not play an important role there.

Industry Challenges

ASEAN smart farming faces many demand-sides and supply sides challenges that lend themselves to technological solutions.

Food demand-sides challenges:

Southeast Asia is a growing market of about 620 million people with a combined GDP of approximately US$3.5 trillion as of 2019. Rising population and necessity to lodge the expanding population across the globe is anticipated to be an important driver for the market by 2024.
The middle class in Southeast Asia is growing with surging urbanization and is projected to account for 65% of the population by 2030, thereby, spurring the demand for food.
Higher disposable incomes and increased purchasing power of the population is likely to fuel long-term investments and also drive demand that was erstwhile deferred.
Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines have the largest population and also host the fast-growing middle-class population, which will drive the demand for food.

Supply-sides challenges:

Lack of Connecting Services for the Agricultural Market:

Connections remain to be a key hurdle as connecting services in agriculture have not yet reached the technical maturity level seen in other verticals, such as retail and automotive.
However, connectivity providers are on a constant pursuit to expand services for the agricultural sector by partnering with other players.
Agricultural IoT devices need to send and receive data over fast, reliable wireless connections, which mean that the availability of mobile broadband in rural areas is a critical factor.

Data privacy and security:

A major concern that surrounds IoT is the security and privacy of the data; this concern leads to loss of physical systems and data security. Maintaining high levels of security is a significant challenge for the IoT.
The number of IoT connections will increase at a CAGR of 16% from 6 billion in 2015 to 27 billion by 2025. Despite IoT having a significant opportunity to scale and gain mass-market adoption, the lack of network security capabilities could hamper momentum.
As the number of IoT devices and sensors increases, the importance of data and network security increases too.

Data Management for Agricultural Decision Making:

Data aggregation and data management is a troubling obstacle for the smart agriculture market.
One considerable barrier in the efficient use of data is the lack of industry standards for data management applications in smart agriculture-based solutions.
Currently, Big Data solutions by companies like MySQL and Hadoop, deal with scale, capacity, and processing tasks. In connection with other companies like Several nines, software management is becoming ever easier.

COVID-19 challenge:

COVID-19 holds a potential threat to significant segments, like the IoT manufacturing industry. The sales pipelines for firms are drying up as companies become more cautious about procuring new services, starting new projects, or buying IoT hardware.
The key players have enhanced the level of technological innovation, and with the outbreak of COVID-19, a majority of operations have been compromised. This has forced players to function in a non-optimized manner, as a result of which they are looking for innovative areas that can improve their revenue by a small percentage.
Covid-19 may lead to a digital divide between those who cut digital initiatives and those that prioritize them. Those that were just sailing along with some digital initiatives but didn’t take it too seriously, now fall behind, while others pull ahead and may find new digital business models that put them in a leading position in smart farming during the forecast period.
Moreover, COVID19 is expected to create new challenges in agriculture. To meet this demand, IoT will play an important role, as farmers, agricultural companies, and government organizations are turning to IoT and smart farming.
For example, agricultural drone manufacturer XAG Co. Ltd. and Huawei converted 2,600 smart robots and drones into disinfectant sprayers.

Technology Trends

The technology and innovation report captures noteworthy technologies that are transforming agriculture into a smarter environment through the whole platform of connectivity. Examples of such technologies include smart sensors, wireless sensor networks, cognitive computing, Big Data, and artificial intelligence (AI).
The ability of IoT to provide real-time data, as well as perform monitoring and tracking functionalities will lead to smart agriculture of the future that is fully connected, eco-friendly and drives on improved productivity and efficiency. IoT establishes strong connectivity between the operational and digital platforms.
Increasing demand for automation technologies in the retail vertical to enable faster checkout and enhance overall customer experience is driving the growth of the market for smart beacons. As more and more agricultural firms adopt IoT, smart technology, and automation, their chances of witnessing a security incident rises.
As the agricultural firms look at optimizing operations, reduce operating costs, increase control over distributed operations, and face an increasing compliance requirement with regulations, they cannot stay away from adopting IoT.

Pricing Trends

Soaring operating costs are a growing concern for farmers. Precision agriculture might be a key component of sustainable intensification.
This combines remote sensing, IoT devices, robotics, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies into an integrated high-resolution crop production system.
A technology-driven crop is anticipated yield improvement of 70% is achievable by 2050 via a combination of precision planting, fertilizer application, irrigation spraying, and autonomous driving applications, with adoption starting in developed markets.

Regulatory Trends

ASEAN governments, agriculture development authorities, and state-owned enterprises are enjoying further cooperation with agro-processing organizations, financial institutions, and food and beverage manufacturers to promote the growth of sustainable agriculture initiatives.

These initiatives aim at increasing productivity, food security, and efficiency of agricultural processes.

Besides, government initiative to use remote sensing technology to collect ground data information and satellite image to detect agriculture conditions in the region is expected to further boost the market growth.

Particularly in the ASEAN region, the role of smart farms is not well researched and understood. The farmers there are not well informed about the smart farming strategies, national policies, and also of go-to-market activities of suppliers.

Strong policies regarding smart farming are still lagging in most of the ASEAN countries. Smart farming policies encourage farmers and other farmworkers to know and use IoT devices and adopt smart farming but when strong policies related to smart farming are lagging, their market is highly affected.

The increase in cyber-attacks and new vulnerabilities being discovered (e.g. Zoom’s security issue) is leading companies to rethink their security setups. The current security focus may soon lead to new and stricter security regulations which in turn may lead to an upcycle in cybersecurity in the medium to long-run.

Other Key Market Trends

Lack of interest in human resources in doing labor:

In ASEAN countries like Singapore and Malaysia, human resources want to do progressive works and not labor works.
Fewer people are willing to spend their time and energy on something which a machine can do in a short period.
The development in such countries calls for the need for smart farming and Internet of Things. Such countries with the high GDP among the ASEAN countries tend to spend more on technology like Internet of Things and help for their market growth.

Green Revolution:

It’s a suite of technologies and farming practices involving high-yielding crop varieties, agro-chemicals (fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides), irrigation, and mechanization. Industrial-scale agriculture, often using genetically modified (GM) crops, has delivered many benefits, but there are costs too.
These include high levels of inputs (which can become pollutants if inefficiently applied), the development of resistance to pesticides and herbicides, and the use of large, expensive, and environmentally damaging farm machinery.
These and other issues have sparked interest in sustainable intensification, where the goal is to increase production from existing farmland while minimizing environmental damage, thereby maintaining the land’s capacity to continue producing food, and also helping to preserve biodiversity.

Market Size and Forecast

ASEAN agriculture is proving itself to be a powerhouse for the production and supply of important food items as it is home to the world’s top two largest rice exporters (Thailand and Viet Nam) and has among the top three exporting countries for pineapples, bananas, mango, sugar crops, coffee, cashew nuts, and cassava.

Alongside the rise in global population and increase in demand for food across the region have fuelled the adoption of new technology to optimize the agriculture production are the reasons for the gain of the estimated market size of approximately US $ 5 billion by 2024.

ASEAN SMART FARMING AND IOT APPLICATIONS MARKET KEY SEGMENTS

The ASEAN Smart Farming and IoT Applications Market are segmented by country and application. Based on the application, the market is divided into Precision farming, Livestock Monitoring, Smart Greenhouse, and Fish farm monitoring.

ASEAN Smart Farming and IoT Applications Market by Application

The Precision farming & Livestock monitoring segments dominate the ASEAN Smart Farming and IoT Applications Market and are expected to retain their dominance throughout the forecast period (2020-2024).

Precision farming:

The precision farming segment is presumed to witness the highest growth over the next five years, following an estimated CAGR of 17.7% from 2020 to 2024. The market is expected to reach US$ 2.4 billion by 2024.
Growth in this segment can be attributed to the developing IoT and information and communication (ICT) technologies to optimize returns and ensure the preservation of resources.
It entails the obtaining of real-time data on the conditions of crops, soil, and air. This approach aims at ensuring profitability and sustainability while protecting the environment.

Livestock monitoring:

The livestock monitoring segment, which includes a global positioning system (GPS), and sensors are anticipated to be a rapidly growing segment.
IoT in livestock helps growers to monitor livestock health by detecting illness and taking the preventive measure is anticipated to drive the market growth during the forecast period.
The segment spending a total of $600 million in 2019 and will see the fast growth over the five-year forecast period (2020-24) with a CAGR of 17.1 percent.
The livestock monitoring market is expected to grow from over $600 million in 2019 to US$ 1100 million in 2024.

Smart greenhouse:

The ASEAN smart greenhouse segment control microclimate conditions to maximize the production of fruits and vegetables and its quality.
The market was worth US $510 million in 2019 and will reach $810 million in 2024, growing at CAGR of 10.8%.
The smart greenhouse has allowed farmers to cultivate crops with minimal human intervention.

Fish farm monitoring:

The monitoring is the mechanism to monitor various aspects corresponding to the fish farm that offers real-time information to farmers to facilitate decision- making.
The Fish farm monitoring market as a whole was valued at US $400 million in 2019 and will reach $660 million in 2024, growing at 11.1%.
The growth in this segment is due to the reduced operational costs and enhanced productivity.

Fig: Smart Farming and IOT Applications in ASEAN Countries Trend by Application (In US$ Billion)

ASEAN Smart Farming and IoT Applications Market by Country

The leading ASEAN countries using smart farming and Internet of Things are Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Philippines.

Malaysia:

Malaysia is leading the way in the use of IoT for agriculture in the ASEAN region. The market for smart farming and IoT in Malaysia was approximately US$ 1,150 million in 2019 recording a CAGR of 14.6% over 2020-2024 mainly driven by an increasing demand for food, urbanization and on-going R&D efforts.
Malaysia is exploring the use of internet of things (IoT) technologies for agriculture in the ASEAN region, driven by collaboration between government and the private sector.
The Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic Systems (MIMOS) has created several solutions that cater to agricultural development. For example, it has developed a sensor called Mi-MSCAN TpH to collect environmental data.

Philippines:

In 2019, the market for smart farming and IoT in Philippines was valued at approximately US$ 960 million. The market is anticipated to grown at a CAGR of approximately 12% between 2020 and 2024 and is expected to reach US$ 1,360 million by 2024.
Urbanization and rising disposable incomes along with changing climate are some of the major factors driving growth in the Philippines smart farming and IoT industry.
The Philippines is using remote sensing to aid the country’s rice production, using satellite imagery and ground data processing to generate information on agricultural conditions.

Thailand:

The market size in Thailand was valued at approximately US$ 555 million in 2019 and it anticipated reaching a value of approximately US$ 813 million in year 2024.
Thailand’s state National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (NECTEC) is applying IT and electronics technology to build smart farms, focusing on four main agricultural products: rice, cassava, rubber and sugar cane.
Thailand 4.0 policy aims to revolutionize the majority of the country’s industry through digitalization is one of the major factors driving growth in the Thailand.

Indonesia:

According to World Bank, Indonesian agriculture sector comprises of 13.3% of the total GDP. Despite being a large contributor of Indonesian economy, the agriculture does not have the capacity to catch up to the escalated demand for food with its current farming performance.
The market for smart farming and IoT in Indonesia was valued at approximately US$ 395 million in 2019. The market is anticipated to grown at a CAGR of approximately 15% between 2020 and 2024 and is expected to reach US$ 681 million by 2024.
Despite being the third largest cocoa producer in the world, the unpredictable climate change is causing inefficient production. However, with the application of IoT devices, such as sensors and drones will enable to access climate forecasts and collect crop data.

Rest of ASEAN countries:

The market size for smart farming and IoT in rest of ASEAN was valued at approximately US$ 128 million in 2019 and it reached a value of approximately US$ 188 million in year 2024; registering a CAGR of approximately 11.7% from 2020 to 2024.
The IoT revenue in Singapore is projected to be $714 million in 2025.

Singapore’s position as the hub for IoT technology in ASEAN as infrastructures has been laid out to support IoT deployments in both the public and private sectors.

Fig: Smart Farming and IOT Applications in ASEAN Countries Trend By Countries (In US$ Billion)

Market Outlook

ASEAN’s overall IoT spending in agriculture is projected to reach to US$ 4.96 billion by 2024 from US$ 1.78 billion in 2019, driven by lowered cost of technology as a result of on-going R&D in IoT, and efforts by various governments of the countries across the region to increase the quality and quantity of agriculture production.

By application, the precision farming segment is expected to grow at a significant growth rate throughout the forecast period

The precision farming segment is anticipated to dominate IoT in the agriculture market during the forecast period, accounting for around 48% of the overall market revenue by 2024.
This market segment is estimated to grow from over $1.27 billion in 2020 to about US$ 2.4 billion in 2024 at CAGR of 17.7%.
Precision farming enables IoT, information technology, and communication to revolutionize the global agriculture sector, by optimizing its production and efficiency.
Livestock monitoring and integration of IoT system technology for the detection of livestock location and health are also expected to grow significantly during the forecast period.

The most critical success factor all these segments depend on secure, scalable, and reliable end-to-end integration solutions that encompass on-premise, legacy and cloud systems, and platforms.

Technology Roadmap

The ASEAN’s agriculture market is moving towards digital transformation, with IoT-based solutions used along with smart logistics, automation, and machine learning to transform the way goods are manufactured, stored, and delivered. Thus, the companies that proactively invest in these technologies will be able to operate more securely and profitably across the supply chain.

Many technology standards rely on a lively exchange and decision-making of a group of experts. The on-going COVID-19 makes more difficult for these experts to work together, which is resulting in delays in new technology standards.

For example, 3GPP announced that the all-important Release 16 for 5G was delayed by 3 months due to COVID-19, and subsequently, Release 17 will also be delayed. It should be expected that the works of other such organizations (e.g. IEEE) will run into similar issues and further delays will occur.

Smart logistics:

Smart logistics uses technology to help distribution companies manage their fleets more efficiently by reducing costs for farmers and distributors, cutting fuel use and related carbon emissions, and potentially preventing food losses.
Devices in trucks communicate with a central hub via machine-to-machine (M2M) connections, providing information on truck movements.
Logistics companies supporting input providers, agro-dealers, or processors can combine this with information about delivery schedules, loads, trips planned, routes, and the number of pick-ups to minimize truck movements. Fewer trucks on the road and fewer trips mean less fuel is used.

Traceability and tracking system:

The technology can be used to track individual food products through the supply chain from grower to retailer.
Detailed tracking improves supply chain efficiency and helps smallholder farmers, food distributors, and retailers provide the traceability that is increasingly demanded by consumers.
Traceability can also help to identify and tackle chemical, hygiene, or animal disease safety issues more quickly. In 2020, 0.8 million farmers could be connected to the service.

Mobile management of supplier networks:

Food buyers and exporters can use mobile phones to manage their networks of small-scale growers and help field agents collect information.
Support organizations and governments could benefit from electronic records about conditions for farmers in the region.
Managing grower networks could save 0.1 Mt of carbon in 2020, with an anticipated 0.6 million connections to mobile supplier management services.

Distribution Chain Analysis

The distribution chains for agricultural inputs and products are complex and fragmented, with large networks of small-scale farms, retailers, aggregators, distributors, and exporters. This complexity, combined with inadequate communications, leads to gaps in information and inefficiencies.

The IoT Platforms are expected to become a high point in the development of IoT in agriculture. In general, transfer of the agricultural value to services based on software, hardware, and data.

The maturity of cloud computing and big data grants the IoT platform with characteristics of small investment, short development time, and easy deployment as well as advantages in the data processing.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 on supply chains, it can be expected that one COVID-19 IoT impact will be that companies will need to change their supply chain strategies. Companies will re-think some of their single-supplier and single country of origin strategies that have helped them to cut costs when things were stable.

The pandemic shows that it is too risky in times like these to rely on one or a few sources.

As supply chains get disrupted and demand patterns change, real-time supply chain visibility is proving to be extremely important. Providers of IoT technology are making use of their data and updating the public on what is going on in their IoT networks.

Competitive Landscape

ASEAN’s IoT and the smart farming market is highly competitive. The market players vary by economic stature, industry, and operating strategy. The industry has seen many mergers and acquisitions of small start-ups over recent years.

The market is fragmented in nature and is headed towards consolidation. The global players have an upper hand, years of experience, and are efficient operators.

The market is fragmented due to the majority of the manufacturing companies across the globe are using IoT after the current evolution of industry 4.0. This makes the market highly competitive and allows companies to provide services in IoT.

The Internet of Things in the agriculture market has a highly fragmented vendor landscape. The lucrative prospects within this market are also attracting a large number of new industry players.

This competition is resulting in heavy investment by the top players into research and development to differentiate them from the rest.

Competitive Factors

The emerging digital ecosystem requires a shift towards collaboration. The key players are increasingly introducing advanced products, which are leading to drive the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the agriculture market.

These players are entering into collaborations or strategic partnerships for business expansion, which is increasing the level of consolidation.

IoT advocates or early adopters claim location intelligence and streaming data analysis to deliver the greatest business benefit. Conversely, IoT early adopters aren’t expecting to see as significant benefits from data warehousing as they are from other technologies.

Consistent with previous studies, both the broader respondent base and IoT early adopters place a high priority on reporting and dashboards. IoT early adopters also see the greater importance of visualization and end-user self-service.

Various companies are focusing on organic growth strategies such as product launches, product approvals, and others such as patents and events. Inorganic growth strategies activities witnessed in the market were acquisitions, and partnerships & collaborations.

These activities have paved the way for the expansion of business and customer base of market players. The market payers from the internet of things agriculture market are anticipated to lucrative growth opportunities in the future with the rising demand for internet of things agriculture in the market.

The key players have been exploring the market in new regions by adopting mergers & acquisitions, expansions, investments, new service launches, agreements, collaborations, and joint ventures as their preferred strategies.

These players have been exploring new geographies through expansions and acquisitions across the globe to avail of competitive advantage through combined synergies.

Key Market Players

The key market players operating in ASEAN’s IoT and smart farming industry include AGCO, AgJunction, CNH Industrial NV, Deere & Company, Trimble and others. The other prominent companies are Ci-Agriculture, Garuda Robotics, iGrow Resources and Topcon Positioning Systems.

Company Profiles of Key Market Players:

AGCO:

Agco was founded in 1992. The Company’s line of business includes the manufacturing of farm machinery and equipment.
The Company offers equipment, sprayers, tools, and tractors, as well as harvesters, seeders, balers, and forest trailers.

AgJunction:

AgJunction Inc. designs and manufactures global positioning systems (GPS).
The Company offers its products for positioning, guidance, and machine control applications in agricultural, marine, and other markets.

CI-Agriculture:

CI-Agriculture offers agriculture productivity with data analytics by developing HARA, a smart farming platform.
It is expected to enhance the productivity of agricultural companies that works with smallholder farmers by giving insights on-field potential, farm inputs management, and anticipation of pest and disease.

CNH Industrial NV:

CNH Industrial NV through its brands, designs, produces, and sells trucks, commercial vehicles, buses, special vehicles, agricultural and construction equipment.
Besides, the company is also involved in engines and transmissions for those vehicles and engines for marine applications.

Deere & Company:

Deere & Company manufactures and distributes a range of agricultural, construction, forestry, and commercial and consumer equipment.
The Company supplies replacement parts for its products and those of other manufacturers.
Deere also provides product and parts financing services. Deere and Company extend its services and products worldwide.

Garuda Robotics:

Garuda Robotics is building a platform to enable the next generation of drone services and applications.
The company offers ground and air robotic vehicles, enterprise-scale web services, and situational awareness user interfaces to build drone platforms.

iGrow Resources :

iGrow is a marketplace that helps underemployed farmers and under-utilized land to produce high-quality organic food and sustainable incomes with cloud-based agricultural management software.
iGrow is building scalable and efficient organic farms funded by urban people around the world.
The company connects farmers, landowners, and the backers to create food organic plantation, and sell the crops directly to the customer like the highly networked supermarket.

Raven Industries:

Raven Industries, Inc. manufactures precisions agriculture products and information tools including GPS, field computers, assisted-steering systems, and other field management technology.
The Company offers high-performance plastic films and sheeting for industrial applications.

Trimble Inc:

Trimble operates worldwide. Trimble Inc. provides advanced location-based software solutions.
The Company integrates its positioning expertise in GPS, laser, optical and inertial technologies with application software, wireless communications, and services to provide complete commercial solutions.

Strategic Conclusion

ASEAN is expected to witness the moderate CAGR in the internet of things (IoT) agriculture market during the forecast period. Initiatives from the government sectors are leading to encouragement among consumers to adopt this technology.

The growing population and incomes of consumers in this region, coupled with urbanization are factors accelerating the growth of the internet of things market in the region.

Apart from the increase of amount and variety of devices in use, the major development areas of IoT are the development of network technologies specific to IoT, security, miniaturization and device integration, minimizing energy requirements, software functionality support and user-friendliness, usage of open source software and open hardware devices.

The demand for the growing population can be successfully met if the key players, as well as small farmers, successfully implement agricultural IoT solutions.

In terms of ASEAN’s digital agriculture journey, it has been ascertained that mobile connectivity and applications are enabling farmers to have access to market-related information, digital financial services, and innovative services such as tractor sharing.

Furthermore, the combination of ICT solutions such as precision equipment, Internet of Things (IoT), sensors, geo-positioning systems, data analytics, and drones is changing how traditional farming is conducted in Africa.

The key players will want to build more resilience to be better prepared in case another pandemic rattles the world. Additional investment in digital infrastructure can be expected to get accelerated or intensified.

References

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https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/RAVN:US
https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/TRMB:US

Appendix

List of abbreviations

AI: Artificial intelligence
CAGR: Compound Annual Growth Rate
IoT: Internet of Things
MIMOS: Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic Systems
NECTEC: National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre
ROI: Return on investment
SEA: Southeast Asian
SMEs: Small and Medium Enterprises
UIDs: Unique identifiers