In the coming decades, the agriculture industry will be more important than ever. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, food production in 2050 will need to be 70 percent higher than it was in 2006 to feed the planet's growing population. To meet this demand, farmers and agricultural companies are turning to analytics and greater production capacity using the Internet of Things.

Technological innovation in agriculture is nothing new. Hundreds of years ago, people used handheld tools, the Industrial Revolution brought the cotton gin, and the 19th century saw the emergence of grain elevators, fertilizers, and the first gas-powered tractors. By the end of the century, farmers were using satellites to plan their work. The Internet of Things will take agriculture to new heights. Smart farming is already becoming more common, as farmers and high-tech agriculture are being standardized thanks to agricultural robots and sensors. IoT applications will help farmers meet the world's food needs in the coming years.

High-tech agriculture: precision and smart farming

Farmers have begun to use some high-tech agricultural technologies to improve their daily productivity. Sensors, for example, can give farmers access to detailed maps of topography and resources in an area, soil acidity and temperature variables. They can also use weather forecasts to predict weather patterns in the days and weeks ahead.

Farmers can use their smartphones to remotely monitor their equipment, crops and livestock, counting livestock feeding and production. They can even use the technology to make predictions about crops and livestock. Drones have become an important tool to survey a farmer's land and crop data.JohnDeere (a farm equipment manufacturer) has begun networking tractors to create a way to display crop yield data. Similar to unmanned vehicles, the company is working on self-driving tractors, which will free up farmers' labor and further increase efficiency.

All of these technologies contribute to precision farming, or precision agriculture, which uses satellite imagery and other technologies, such as sensors, to observe and record data with the goal of increasing production yields while minimizing costs and conserving resources.

The future of agriculture: the Internet of Things, agricultural sensors, agricultural drones

Smart farming and precision farming are taking off, but they may just be the forerunners of a larger use of technology in the agricultural world.Business Insider's Advanced Research Service predicts that the installation of IoT devices in agriculture will increase from 30 million in 2015 to 2020's 75 million, reaching a compound annual growth rate of 20 percent.

The U.S. currently leads the world in IoT smart agriculture, producing 7,340 kilograms of grain (e.g., wheat, rice, corn, barley, etc.) per hectare (2.5 acres) of farmland, compared to the global average of 3,851 kilograms of grain per hectare.

This efficiency should increase even more in the coming decades as farms become more connected.OnFarm, an IoT platform for agriculture, predicts that farms will have to generate an average of 4.1 million data points per day in 2050, up from 190,000 in 2014.

In addition,?OnFarm's multiple studies have found that average farm yields are up 1.75 percent, energy costs are down $7 to $13 per acre, and irrigation water use is down?8 percent.

Given all the benefits of IoT applications in agriculture, it's easy to see how farmers will increasingly turn to the use of agricultural drones and satellites.