Colombia. Schneider Electric, a global specialist in energy management and automation, today announced that it is connecting more than 4,000 weather stations in rural areas to provide a more holistic view of rural weather patterns across the United States.
Leveraging on the IoT- and Big Data-enabled WeatherSentry platform, the company presents a more accurate climate forecast that increases the efficiency, profitability, and bottom line of the U.S. agricultural industry, including farmers, and landowners.
WeatherSentry's specialized sensors capture ground-level weather and land conditions that will be used to create reliable, localized forecasts about temperature and rainfall. This Schneider Electric platform generates more rural agricultural data than any other provider.
"Despite the abundant technological advances made in agriculture over the past century, climate is still a high-cost, high-risk variable that impacts every corner of the industry," said Ron Sznaide, vice president of cloud services at Schneider Electric. "Eliminating assumptions from weather events enables farmers, farmers and landowners to make better operational and financial decisions that contribute directly to the sustainability of the operation and ultimately to their health.
As the impact of climate change intensifies, climate change-related events affect crop productivity and health. WeatherSentry's patented Geographic Information System (GIS)-based alert system provides real-time data to enable farmers to plan their crops, optimize land and water use, and prioritize activity based on 15-day forecasts, with the goal of reducing waste, increase safety and increase efficiency.
"We recognize the importance of IoT and Big Data technologies in mitigating climate change and solving one of the most critical challenges for farmers around the world," Sznaider said. "The Internet of Things will revolutionize how we approach sustainable food production and we are excited to be at the forefront of supply and precision technologies that help meet this global need."
WeatherSentry has been shown to be between 40% and 63% more reliable than other sources on climate. Schneider Electric currently provides climate services to more than 100,000 users in the agricultural industry worldwide. The company actively develops solutions that measure the impact of climate on agriculture and explores new business models to deploy these solutions across the globe.
