Farmbot is using Orbcomm’s satellite IoT technology to help farmers throughout Australia automate their farming processes and save time and money while reducing their carbon footprint.

Farmbot is a provider of remote monitoring technology for Australian agriculture. It has selected Orbcomm’s satellite IoT technology to enable its smart agriculture offering, which helps farmers improve the visibility and management of their water resources.

Farmbot’s offering is powered by Orbcomm’s global satellite OGi modem and Inmarsat’s L-band connectivity to deliver remote monitoring of farm water supplies, including tanks, dams and reservoirs, and the capturing of images in real time. This integrates with sensors and an optional wired camera to deliver reports and trend analysis on water, diesel and trough levels, rainfall, flow and pressure rates, alerts for valve leaks or pump issues, livestock drinking habits along with staff movements using a safety-check-in module.

The rugged system has been designed to withstand the most remote and harsh climates and works across the entire Australian continent, including rural areas where cellular coverage is unavailable or unreliable.

By implementing Farmbot’s smart agriculture with analytics, farmers can increase the efficiency, productivity and safety of their operations, while reducing their carbon footprint and supporting more sustainable farming for the long term.

“We’re excited to partner with Australian agritech company Farmbot on helping farmers throughout the continent automate their farming processes and gain significant savings in time and money,” said Christian Allred, Orbcomm’s executive vice president. “By leveraging our state-of-the-art modem and Inmarsat’s ubiquitous L-band satellite connectivity, Farmbot can provide its customers with actionable data and key business insights to better manage their water supplies and create a safer, more profitable and sustainable farm operation, which is an important priority in our corporate social responsibility efforts.”

Farmbot has started deploying Orbcomm’s satellite IoT modems in the field, and expects to expand the deployment over the next few years.

“Orbcomm’s advanced satellite IoT technology is a gamechanger for the agriculture industry in Australia by providing two-way communications anywhere on the continent for small farms to large, multiple-site farming operations,” said Andrew Coppin, managing director of Farmbot Monitoring. “Together with Orbcomm, we’re able to eliminate the need for farmers to manually monitor their water resources and put them in control of their water ecosystems, minimising unnecessary travel, increasing their bottom line, reducing their carbon footprint and creating more sustainable outcomes.”