‘Reap What You Sow’ with Agricultural Asset Management

Asset management is a system that has broad applications. It can be applied to almost any field from shopping, medicines, and well, you name it. For the uninitiated, asset management is a process in which assets are tracked and monitored using very specific methods and technologies. This is called asset tracking. Asset tracking uses different strategies and solutions to monitor and maintain the valuable physical assets is a business. One of the prime examples of asset management is inventory management in supermarkets and stores. No doubt, you have seen the cashier pick up items from your shopping cart and scanned them one by one. This is a form of asset management.

Asset management finds application in several different fields. One of the greatest applications of asset management lies in the agricultural industry. Asset management has a lot of scope in the agriculture and farming industry.

Agriculture is a very extensive field. There is a lot of inventory involved from tractors and irrigation equipment to harvests and livestock. In addition to being extensive, the agricultural field is also a very vulnerable one, being the most affected by the environmental elements. In such a complex and fragile industry, asset management has some very obvious benefits.

Let us take a look at some of the core benefits of agricultural asset management.

Tracking agricultural equipment

The agricultural field uses an impressive assortment of equipment. Using asset management techniques like GPS enabled tracking can help farmers and stakeholders keep an accurate and automated inventory of the machines and equipment used. This way, any damaged or missing equipment can be easily identified, and this improves the efficiency of all the agricultural processes involved.

For instance, there are a number of machines that are used for various processes during harvest time. Farmers have to keep track of the exact equipment and their numbers. If any of the machines are short in number, this could affect the entire harvest process. An asset management system, if enabled, helps farmers to locate and identify all the harvesting equipment and if any of them happen to be damaged or missing, it can be replaced in time.

Managing the produce and livestock

Once the harvest season is over, the next step is to gather the harvested crop, store it in suitable conditions, and finally, prepare it for distribution. Agricultural asset management can help farmers to keep track of the harvested crop, their location in different storage facilities, and how they are organized and distributed. This enables the produce to be distributed as freshly as possible. In addition, agricultural asset management can also help farmers to track and monitor livestock.

Planning and budgeting

Agricultural asset management helps farmers to analyze a variety of factors like farm budgets, crop rotations, type of seeds, and several others. In addition, farmers can also calculate risk analysis that is based on the produce. A combination of all of these factors helps farmers to plan their farming and agricultural activities accordingly so as to optimize profits and improve production.