MetService and BloomSky at Farming2020 – improving farm productivity with location-specific weather data
Wellington 6 May, 2017
Agrigate dairy portal partner, MetService, plans to install BloomSky weather data devices on the LIC Innovation Farm in
the South Waikato ahead of Farming2020 which takes place there from Tuesday 9 May to Thursday 11 May 2017.
The 2017 Farming2020 Event
Farming2020 is designed to showcase some of New Zealand’s leading AgTech businesses and solutions operating within a
digitally connected working farm environment. The event will highlight how digital innovation is impacting on
agriculture’s long-term future to a diverse audience; industry representatives, other tech innovators, investors, media
and invited international guests. Farming2020 is one of the feature events of NZ TechWeek 2017.
Agrigate Dairy Portal
Agrigate is a joint venture between Fonterra Farm Source and LIC. The dairy portal combines all the key data farmers
need to make faster and smarter decisions on one, easy to use online dashboard.
MetService provides weather data to the dashboard. Access to historical weather data combined with real-time weather
observations from the BloomSky field devices allows benchmarking studies and greater seasonal insights through data
analytics.
In the near-future, this information will be used by MetService and BloomSky to power highly accurate hyperlocal weather
forecasts that’ll boost farm management and productivity.
MetService and BloomSky at Farming2020
Angus Swainson, MetService General Manager, Media, is attending Farming2020.
His presentation on Wednesday will highlight how analysis of high-quality, location-specific data is set to improve
on-farm performance. He will demonstrate how the functionality of the solar-powered BloomSky Storm and Sky2 smart
weather camera systems provides real-time awareness of farm weather.
Every 5 minutes via a WiFi network the BloomSky devices transmit temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed
and rainfall data to a farmer’s laptop, tablet or smartphone accompanied by high-definition photographs from wherever
the devices are located on the farm.
Working in conjunction with the other Agrigate data providers, MetService sees opportunities to develop products that
will combine data from multiple sources to increase farmers’ understanding of weather impacts on their operations.
Quotes
“One of keys to success in the Internet of Things (IOT) and Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWAN) or Low-Power Networks
(LPN) will be companies partnering together effectively to create digital ecosystems that deliver mutual benefits.
“MetService believes that technological advances in real-time weather data acquisition and hyperlocal forecasting
promises to provide the agribusiness sector with user-defined weather insights that’ll boost improvements in farm
management and productivity.
“We are actively working with partners, including BloomSky, Fonterra and Agrigate, with the aim of building a
country-wide weather network that will support not only New Zealand’s agribusiness sector, but also the evolution of new
technologies and devices that integrate vital weather services to provide deeper insights of the farm environment.”
ENDS