Whenever, we speak about farm and the virtual media, one thing strikes in the minds of most of the Facebook users around the Globe and that is “FARMVILLE”. However, for those who don’t know about it, farmville is nothing, but an online game, which has become a success as the favorite pass time among facebook users.
We are facing so many challenges in the agriculture sector throughout the world, but we don’t give a damn about it. We have never spent a minute of our minds, thinking as to from where do we get our foodstuffs or how are they made, though it is the very basic ingredient of our survival. I would like to thank the creators of farmville to make people know about farming and enjoy at the same time, although it’s in the virtual world. This popularity of farmville shows that the act of farming is still in our genes.
This has led me to the quest of finding whether we can, really farm through virtual media at the comfort of our houses by playing a game like farmville and really grow food products in farms, which might be in any odd place in the world. Like you can own a farm in some odd region of this world and sitting in a coffee shop having a sip off coffee in a posh locality in a city of your choice, you are able to farm your fields and grow actual crops. You might be thinking, I am kidding. But think in a rational manner and you will get the answers.
Let me make it easy for you by explaining it with examples and already available technologies as to how it can be done. Below is the list of requirements, which will be handy to achieve our goal.
- A laptop or a Cell Phone with internet will be required
- GPS enabled driverless tractor
- Of course a farm field to grow your crops.
You see only the above is needed to start off your venture into telefarming. First, in order to check out the weather condition, whether its suitable for you to start off, you can check many of the online sites like weather.com, which provides regular updates on the weather forecast in the region you want based on zipcodes.
Now, you need to remotely control the computer of the tractor through your computer which can be easily done through various software which are readily available and can be configured. Also, the tractor vendors might have that option too.
Another video about a GPS guided tractor.
For tractors, you can get it from any of the vendors like novariant.com, deere.com,etc, out there in the market, who provides GPS driven tractors, which are very precise in their work. Also, professors like Jay Katupitya at the University of New South Wales is working on Driverless tractors, which can be controlled from your computer, placed anywhere. Are you worried whether such tractors are available at your place, even if you are not able to get one you can use the existing ones available and modify them according to your needs with the help of some engineering college students and giving them as their project. I know there are numerous engineers looking out for such projects to work on.
So, now I guess you have gain some confidence in saying “yes” it is possible to have Farmville in real, through which you can play and really grow crops out there in your field and feel the difference. This might have inspired few of you out there to get into this field, which really requires innovation and people like us to bring a difference.
Imagine you are sitting in US or Australia and growing crops in some odd place in Africa and that too from the comfort of your home. Can you believe it, we have already entered the future, since we have all these technologies readily available to us. World cannot be more flat than this. Just the first step is needed, and you will find the real farmville in existence, which will be played through the Farmbook similar to facebook in the future.
Hope this article has brought some new opportunities for entrepreneurs to plunge into and we might see another game like farmville for the real world . Though it looks futuristic, but think again it is possible even today with the existing technologies.
I would say the ball is in your court.
