AgDataBox API – Integration of data and software in precision agriculture

Abstract

Precision agriculture (PA) is a set of techniques of agricultural management that, with the use of information and communication technology, considers the spatial and temporal variability in the fields with regard to soil, atmosphere and plants for the best management of the crops, seeking to obtain the best result according to its potential. For a better performance of PA it is necessary to obtain information quickly and safely, therefore computational technologies have been applied to different crops in various countries. Software has been designed to solve specific problems by allowing the integration of computational applications for use in the agricultural environment. Such software makes an important contribution to farmers and researchers, allowing a deep analysis of agricultural data. The present study aims to develop a computational web tool that allows the storage, integration and management of agricultural data through specialized software. Through the Internet and HTTP requests/responses, the tool provides an interface that other software packages can use to send and receive different types of agricultural data (spatial and non-spatial), thus integrating multiple applications. It offers several advantages, specifically reducing application development time and integration. Such applications can be developed in different programming languages and used in different environments. As one example, two types of software (one mobile and another web) were integrated using this computational tool. Keywords: Web service API, Agricultural data, Agricultural management, Smart farming technologies