The Malaysian Pineapple Industry Board (LPNM)has advocated the use of more technology to help the country’s industry improve production.
According to a report from the Malay Mail, Sahruddin Jamal, chairman of LPNM, said the decision to expand the use of technology and use Internet of Things (IoT) to increase efficiency was part of efforts to meet the challenges of the rapidly changing global agricultural sector.
“What is most important for this IoT technology is that it can save farm operating costs through accurate data on actual needs required by pineapple crop,” Jamal said.
Ber One Agro is one grower that has already incorporated IoT to its 16ha operation using a system called Smart Tani and Jamal explained how it had helped.
“With this Smart Tani system, local data collected by sensors in crop plots will be sent to a Sigfox Cloud network system which is then collected in a platform called SATU Dashboard,” Jamal said
“All data will be able to be seen and evaluated easily through smartphone applications or tabs wherever we are to determine the real needs in the field.
“This way, the farm owners will be able to carry out the work on the farm by delegating it to their employees without having to be present at the farm.”
Jamal said IoT wasn’t the only technology that could help Malaysian pineapple growers and combined these technologies could increase the country’s production area by 4,000ha in the coming years.
“Technology in the pineapple sector also includes technical aspects in crop management such as fertilising using drones, fertilisation methods such as using foliar fertiliser, the use of machinery such as boom sprayer, induction technology, pollination, weed control management, post-harvest management and others,” he said.
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