Cost of Production:  Automated Cost Tracking

Using smart farm technology to reduce costs and track operations ensures the competitiveness of Nova Scotia’s agriculture and seafood operations. With tighter than ever margins, production efficiency is the key to remaining profitable.

Manually tracking and entering operating costs can be time-consuming. With the support of the province’s Building Tomorrow Fund and in-kind development services from Amazon Web Services team, Perennia has been developing smart farm software to automatically track and share production costs with farmers and processors using cloud technology. The technology uses smart sensors attached to equipment such as electric power panels and water pipes to track the usage of resources such as fuel, water and power. Metrics are accessible via Amazon’s cloud service.

This technology will provide business owners with a clearer understanding of costs so they can make more informed business decisions. The software has a flexible modular design to meet the unique needs of each operation, and its responsive web design is easily accessible on any device.

In 2020-21, Perennia continued development and established a wide variety of beta testing field sites to gather information to shape future development and commercialization of the software.  Stay tuned for more information as we work to refine this new tool, and make it available for industry in the near future!