The global agricultural challenge is becoming more about information than it is about labor or land. Across a large portion of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, smallholder farmers must make critical decisions like when to irrigate, or how much fertilizer to apply, without reliable, real-time data. This issue is not a lack of skill, but an information gap that leads to inefficiencies at scale, including over-irrigation, unnecessary input costs, and yield losses driven by uncertainty.
A lack of reliable connectivity further deepens this challenge. Even though precision agriculture has advanced rapidly in industrialized farming systems, farmers who produce a large portion of the world’s food still cannot afford it. Ubiquitous coverage is unlikely in the future due to the economics of deploying infrastructure in sparsely populated areas.
A practical alternative is demonstrated by a pilot project in Centurion, South Africa, run by the Earth Allies Restoration Network in collaboration with SES and IoT provider Advannotech. To transmit environmental data in near real-time, the initiative deployed satellite-enabled IoT systems in a greenhouse training environment. These systems combine soil and climate sensors with satellite connectivity. Satellite links allowed for continuous monitoring of conditions like temperature, humidity, and soil moisture in areas where cellular networks were inconsistent. As Hans Geldenhuys, Director, Sales Africa at SES said:
“Through this project we have demonstrated that satellite-enabled IoT in agriculture will assist farmers in making data-driven decisions for higher yields and sustainability, irrespective of location.”
The impact of this pilot was primarily operational, shifting irrigation from fixed routines to real-time responses that reduce waste and improve consistency through continuous monitoring. Overall, this pilot shows how satellite connectivity eliminates an infrastructure constraint and enables data-driven, scalable agriculture in regions where terrestrial networks are not practical.
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