Partnership with the agricultural industry farming community in Snohomish County leverages 5G speed with applications to increase production, preserve natural resources and improve crop yield.
Expeto, the world’s leading Enterprise Wireless Networking platform, has partnered with technology leaders T-Mobile, Microsoft, Intel, Amdocs, Nokia, Dell and other innovators to create the 5G Open Innovation Lab. The project will showcase 5G-powered food resiliency applications, like soil and weather sensors, automated planting, harvesting automation, irrigation management and artificial intelligence (AI) analytics engines to offer unique insights that increase yields, improve profits and save valuable time.
Titled The Food Resiliency Project, Expeto partnered on an economic development initiative funded by a grant through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). This project establishes a virtual and physical space for Snohomish County to help food growers, and distributors with technology companies to collaboratively develop new capabilities that will improve the resiliency of the agriculture sector and minimize future food service disruptions for consumers and regional agribusiness.
“The field lab is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate practical applications which can make a meaningful difference in the overall yield of these farming businesses,” said Michael Anderson, CEO of Expeto. “According to the United Nations, food production will have to double in the very near future in order to meet growing population demand. Farming, as an industry, will have to leverage innovations, like we see in the field lab, to help farmers, and for that matter, participants from all verticals, to scale existing supply chains to meet growing market demand.”
This unique testing environment enables ruggedized edge networking and computer resources literally located in the barns of small farming operations. Covering large areas of land, the project leverages Expeto’s Enterprise Wireless Networking (EWN) platform and relevant partner innovations to put technology to work in the fields.
5G Open Innovation Lab General Partner Jim Brisimitzis adds, “Over the coming year, the Food Resiliency lab will work closely with farmers, Washington State University, and its partners to deploy applications and measure the outcomes relevant to improving the overall operations. The lab and its partners will publish the results to the global agriculture community and technology ecosystems to help improve food resiliency worldwide.”
