Amazon Web Services Partners with Yara

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is partnering with Yara, a Norwegian agricultural fertilizer producer, to optimize their capabilities of their daily functionalities, which will improve the capabilities’ better fertilizer being produced across the 28 sites in which it is made. Fertilizer optimizes crop production, which is crucial to being able to produce enough food to feed an increasingly overpopulated world, whilst trying to minimize the environmental costs. Here, IoT technologies will play a key role in achieving this, as it also does in many other sectors.

The rapid rate at which the world’s population is increasing is a very significant driver for the use of IoT technologies within the agricultural market. The rate at which the world’s population is growing is applying more pressure for larger yields whilst upholding high quality products to come from farmers globally, which fertilizer is providing a helping hand in doing so. Yara has a mission of responsibly feeding the world, whilst protecting the planet for the future, meaning that their fertilizer is carefully produced to ensure that there are no major imbalances imposed upon the earth’s ground. 

Yara is utilizing AWS’s expertise in machine learning so they are able to predict the quality and composition of products, improve the balance of site utilities, and to be able to manage their machines more efficiently by determining when machines are in need of repair, so that production can continue to be working at optimal levels. In addition to the software-based enhancement taking place at Yara, drones and other robotics are being introduced to ensure the safety of employees so that working at heights and in confined space can be avoided.

The success of an agricultural business is not completely in the hands of the farmers themselves, but also those that produce and manufacturer the products that assist farmers in producing both a high quality and quantity of stock. Therefore, it is crucial for those working behind the scenes in the agricultural world, so to speak, are working in an efficient manner so that they are able to produce what is expected of them to help the agricultural industries continue to produce the mass amount of food and stock required to feed the ever-growing population.

Cloud computing is increasingly more cost efficient in most instances for companies, as they are not required to purchase and maintain the physical hardware required to house the capabilities that cloud computing offers. The benefit of this business decision is that there is no initial investment nor do businesses need to have a waiting period whilst the hardware is installed and set up. Not only this, but cloud computing services enable businesses to have access to all of the services they specifically require, by paying for a completely custom service specific to their business needs.

Yara is one example of a member of the ecosystem within agricultural services that utilizes technology to improve their working practices. The use of technologies, such as AWS, is included in the technological evolution of the agricultural market. On the farms themselves, technology is becoming a part of the norm, especially as younger farmers come into control of the day-to-day running of farms. A variety of different solutions are available for the agricultural market including soil sensors, to read the pH levels and moisture level of soils used within the farming land, as well as the use of robotics and drones to assist with the fertilizer distribution and for efficient machine work on farms. Technology helps farmers prevent unwanted events from taking place, based on the technology and the specific data points that are available due to these technologies. AWS will help Yara be able to ensure that their production will be efficiently managed and therefore continue to produce their fertilizers at the optimum output.