Immediate need in areas of water scarcity  

In agriculture connecting sensors for monitoring crops and water utilization.

Question's Follow up: Some statistics from BI Intelligence

Studies indicated (please refer to the attached link) that for the average farm, yield rose by 1.75%, energy costs dropped $7 to $13 per acre, and water use for irrigation fell by 8%. BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service , predicts that IoT device installations in the agriculture world will increase from 30 million in 2015 to 75 million in 2020, for a compound annual growth rate of 20%.

http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-of-things-smart-agriculture-2016-10

Is Internet of Things (IoT) the future of agriculture?

Agriculture productivity can be improved through the deployment of IOT.  Following are some use cases, case studies & solutions of IoT in agriculture inustry:

https://www.link-labs.com/iot-agriculture/

http://www.postscapes.com/smart-agriculture/

https://www.thingworx.com/ecosystem/markets/smart-connected-systems/smart-agriculture/

https://www.kaaproject.org/agriculture/

http://www.softwebiot.com/iot-use-cases/iot-solutions-for-agriculture-industry/

If we can successfully deployed & harnessed the IoT in agriculture industry, we can help better address famine / hunger in certain parts of the world - as per RG link below:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/increases_hunger_in_the_world_is_a_problem_to_be_solved_as#view=5878f9ef3d7f4bbfb51cf5fa

First Call for Papers to the 1st International Workshop on Intelligent Systems for Agriculture Production and Environment Protection (ISAPEP’17)

Co-located event in Intelligent Environments 2017

http://isapep.ucam.edu/

Immediate need in areas of water scarcity  

In agriculture connecting sensors for monitoring crops and water utilization.

It seems so. Particularly in precision agriculture . Sprinkler irrigation system could be a promising area.

---Internet of Things (IoT) refers to an emerging trend where more devices are connected to users and other devices via the Internet

---IoT enables “smart” networks that allow different devices to function together or independently

---IoT could help with things like fungicide application, animal health and supply management

What could a smart farm look like? Connected field-specific weather stations and soil moisture sensors could alert you when conditions warrant a fungicide application. Controlled tile drainage valves could open or close automatically according to conditions detected by sensors.

Performance and yield data can already be transferred wirelessly from many forms of farm equipment. Where this real time data goes and what it will connect to is open-ended. Drones? Robotic tractors? We’ll see.

Bio-monitoring devices that track temperature, heart rate, respiration and movement on sentinel animals in livestock herds will provide an early warning for animal health issues or stressors. Appropriate climate and feed adjustments could be initiated automatically or remotely. A bio-monitoring and messaging prototype product for horses called SeeHorse already exists.

https://www.fcc-fac.ca/en/ag-knowledge/technology-and-innovation/the-internet-of-things-implications-for-agriculture.html

Thanks for sharing the question. Yes, Internet of Things (IoT) seems to be the future of agriculture, in agreement with the views of the colleagues. But, the approval of the technologies of IoT by the farmers is another subject matter, taking into account the cost.

Regards

IoT is the future of everything. Acceptance and Application however is another matter on its own. Ethical and moral considerations, education and enlightening of the farmers and workers etc, political will of the governments with respect to application and policies etc. These are the issues that may hinder/delay its application.

Solving IoT Challenges for Smart Agriculture

The Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming the agriculture industry and enabling farmers to contend with the enormous challenges they face. The industry must overcome increasing water shortages, limited availability of lands, difficult to manage costs, while meeting the increasing consumption needs of a global population that is expected to grow by 70% by 2050. (Reference: FAO link attached)

New innovative IoT applications are addressing these issues and increasing the quality, quantity, sustainability and cost effectiveness of agricultural production. Today’s large and local farms can, for example, leverage IoT to remotely monitor sensors that can detect soil moisture, crop growth and livestock feed levels, remotely manage and control their smart connected harvesters and irrigation equipment, and utilize artificial intelligence based analytics to quickly analyze operational data combined with 3rd party information, such as weather services, to provide new insights and improve decision making.

https://www.thingworx.com/ecosystem/markets/smart-connected-systems/smart-agriculture/

http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/35571/icode/

IoT is the future of every region, especially those with deficit of vitally important natural resources and conditions. In arid and desert developing regions usually facing acute water scarcity, salinization and land degradation and high population growth rates.

I found this conference paper but could not download it yet:

Revathi Nukala ; Krishna Panduru ; Andrew Shields ; Daniel Riordan ; Pat Doody ; Joseph Walsh. Internet of Things: A review from ‘Farm to Fork’

Date of Conference: 21-22 June 2016

Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 04 August 2016

DOI: 10.1109/ISSC.2016.7528456

Publisher: IEEE

Abstract: Academic and industrial research in Internet of Things (IoT) has increased over the past several years. The Internet of Things aims to connect physical objects (Things) to the Internet using low power network connectivity that is embedded with sensors. IoT is becoming all-encompassing with “Smart” Cities, Homes, Grid, Transportation, Agriculture & Industry 4.0 just some of the application areas of IoT technology. This paper concentrates on the use of IoT technologies in the Food supply chain. The Food supply chain in the context of this paper includes agriculture, food processing, transportation & distribution right through to retail, from “Farm to Fork”. The demand for tracking, tracing and monitoring of fresh has elevated as instances of foodborne illness has increased. In this paper we attempt to contribute a review of state-of-the-art technologies and strategies that constitutes the IoT and how that applies to “Farm to Fork”. We describe the IoT's key enabling technologies including Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), Cloud Computing and Data Analytics. We present the research trends and challenges in the food supply chain industry, mainly focusing on fresh produce such as meat, fruits & vegetables. We then present applications of IoT technologies in Food Production, Transportation & Distribution and in Food Retail. We conclude the paper with plans for future work.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7528456/?reload=true

IoT for cows: 4 ways farmers are collecting and analyzing data from cattle!

IoT devices, especially in the form of wearables, have long been used to track human activity. Now, they're used to monitor cows. Here's how sensors and software are collecting data for farmers...

In the age of the digitized human, with smartphones, tablets, and fitbits tracking our every move, we have become used to the idea of data points monitoring our behavior. And, in fact, Gartner has projected that there will be 25 billion IoT devices on the market by 2020. But did you know that these devices apply not just to humans but to... cows?

In the field of "agritech," internet-connected devices are helping increase productivity and monitor the health of crops and livestock. Here are four ways that the "IoT for cows" works...

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/iot-for-cows-4-ways-farmers-are-collecting-and-analyzing-data-from-cattle/?ftag=TRE684d531&bhid=26515897512689358169344413145444

Dear @Khan Muhammad Thank you for your comments and attaching the review paper published in IEEE.

Dear @Ljubomir Jacić  thank you for interesting post on IoT for cows. Actually one of my graduate students is currently doing his PhD research on a similar topic: Design, development and evaluation of a pH nanosensor for use in wireless monitoring system of the rumen of cow. So we hope to get more help and direction in this area.

The following review paper is about "Recent advances in wearable sensors for animal health management". It concludes: Animal health is a serious global issue that demands apt scientific techniques. For this purpose, innovative approaches, like the use of biosensors for animal health management, has gained recognition. These sensors are at various steps of commercialization, but are making their way into the practical use and application in the domain of animal health. Some technologies for gaining an accurate health status and disease diagnosis are applicable only for humans. With modifications and testing in animal models, these innovative technologies are now being considered for their future use in livestock development and welfare. Precision livestock farming techniques, which include a wide span of technologies, are being applied, along with advanced technologies like microfluidics, sound analyzers, image detection techniques, sweat and saliva sensing, serodiagnosis and others. However, there is a need to integrate all the available sensors and create an efficient online monitoring system, so that animal health can be monitored in real time, without delay. Looking at an optimistic future of different wearable technologies for animals, including nano biosensors and advanced molecular biology diagnostic techniques for the detection of various infectious diseases of cattle, a large-scale adoption of the modern techniques discussed here is likely.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214180416301350

Dear Mahmoud Omid,

Surprisingly, in most developed countries, the main catalyst for the development of Internet of things it was agriculture. Innovative technologies are used primarily to provide power the Earth's inhabitants. Internet of things easily ensure a more stable and efficient production on the farm. There are many ways in which it helps in the organization of farming: this storage control, and water consumption, and pest management, and process optimization. Almost every step of innovations making life easier.

Cost optimization

Internet of Things allows you to engage in so-called precision farming. The idea is to define irregularities in the one field based on information geodata. By analyzing the information obtained, it is possible to plan the landing, the rate of fertilizer use and various protective chemicals. The system itself chooses where you want to add a particular component. As a result of cost optimization can save and protect the environment from unnecessary pesticides. Later, with the help of calculations you can even predict the amount of the produced crop.

Pest Control

With the help of special sensors the system also sees a number of harmful insects on a particular plot of land, and at the discretion activates sprinkling chemicals exactly where it is needed. Furthermore, it can analyze the behavior of insects to prevent crop damage.

saving water

working farmer can become unbearable Because of the drought. Watering - a very time-consuming and complex process, which greatly complicates life. This problem help solve special sensors that perform analysis of the soil and regulate watering. Thus irrigation process takes place in a well-calibrated proportions, without disturbing the soil.

Storage and processing

There is also equipment to help with a variety of sensors to analyze the state of the places where the crop is stored. Thus, with proper adjustment of the temperature and humidity, of farm works remain intact and fresh for a long time.

Regards, Shafagat

http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-of-things-smart-agriculture-2016-10?IR=T

A good list on IoT applications (mostly in agriculture) 

see attached link for full list

http://www.libelium.com/resources/top_50_iot_sensor_applications_ranking/

It’s time to look beyond the hype and get real about the IoT!

Excerpts from IoT Analytics: The top 10 IoT application areas – based on real IoT projects

As part of a larger effort to track the IoT ecosystem, we set out, mining hundreds of homepages, and managed to assemble and verify 640 actual enterprise IoT projects. Most of the IoT projects we identified are in industrial settings (141 projects), followed by Smart City (128) and Smart Energy IoT projects.

https://iot-analytics.com/top-10-iot-project-application-areas-q3-2016/

Dear Colleagues,

Good Day,

"IoT and Agriculture: How the Internet of Things is Changing Agricultural Operations

Posted by Davra Networks • Wednesday, August 26, 2015

When most people think about the internet, they do not immediately think about agriculture. Instead, most people think about their computers or their smartphones. Little do people know, Internet of Things (IoT) technology is allowing farmers to connect devices to the internet in order to improve agricultural operations. IoT technology is allowing farmers to leverage the internet to reduce waste, better pest control, streamline livestock management, and increase productivity.

Reducing Waste: With limited resources available for growing crops or raising livestock, farmers are constantly looking for ways to reduce waste. Conservations of resources, particularly water is of high importance, especially in the drought stricken state of California. Although traditional methods of conservation such as only irrigating after dusk can reduce waste, Internet of Things (IoT) technology can reduce waste and conserve resources even further. For example, smart connected sensors that are embedded in the soil can measure moisture and PH levels. These sensors connected to smart irrigation and smart fertilizer systems can then apply just the right amount of fertilizer and water to ensure optimal conditions for the crops to grow.

Better Pest Control: With the public pushing for more natural food and less pesticide use, farmers are increasingly looking to reduce or even eliminate pesticide use. Internet connected sensors and cameras will enable farmers to better monitor pest populations. In the event pest populations are reaching points where it is detrimental to crop yields, farmers can remotely release pheromones to control pest population without using synthetic pesticides.

Livestock Management: The cost of raising livestock continues to rise every year. At the same time, the public is also pushing for the more humane treatment of animals as animals reared in a humane fasion produce higher quality meat that is more nutritious. Under pressure to reduce costs and raise their livestock in a more humane manner, farmers are starting to turn to Internet of Things (IoT) technology. For example, farmers are able to embed internet connected sensors on their livestock that does not cause them discomfort. Using information from these sensors, farmers are able to monitor the overall health of the animal by analyzing blood pressure, heart rate, and other parameters. If any of these parameters where to veer outside of accepted ranges, farmers would be able to more quickly provide treatment to the animal.. Not only can these sensors help monitor the health of the animal, in some cases GPS technology can also help track the animal’s location. Location monitoring can be extremely useful to farmers rearing free range or pastured livestock as it would enable farmers to better account for their livestock."....

Please, see the rest of the article for more detail....

http://www.davranetworks.com/news/iot-and-agriculture-how-the-internet-of-things-is-changing-agricultural-operations

A Review Of: Cloud Centric IoT Based Framework for Supply Chain Management in Precision Agriculture!

Cloud computing is aimed at providing IT as a service to the cloud users on-demand basis with greater flexibility, scalability, reliability and availability with utility computing model. This new paradigm of computing has an immense potential in it to be used in the agriculture and in rural development perspective in developing countries like India. There are some crucial issues to be solved to successfully deploy cloud computing for these social purposes. With the evolution of cloud computing and its subsequent popularity, the service providers are coming up with very essay and affordable solutions for the end users...

http://www.techrepublic.com/resource-library/whitepapers/a-review-of-cloud-centric-iot-based-framework-for-supply-chain-management-in-precision-agriculture/

How the Internet of Things Helps Grow our Food by Maria Doyle

Here are three ways in which the IoT is aiding the business of agriculture for better results:

Sensors Measure Soil Moisture

At John Deere, the company uses an application called Field Connect that leverages satellite data for farming applications. The system uses sensors to monitor moisture levels and feeds the data to a web-based interface to help farmers make timely irrigation decisions.

Data is instantly available to view the soil’s moisture level and make the best business decisions about any measures that need to be taken. Studies indicate that 80 percent of food producers overwater their crops, which can reduce growth and yield and increase the chance of soil fungal disease. By connecting the data to the farmer, this issue can be eliminated and water is conserved. The data can also show when there is not enough moisture and irrigation is needed to maximize crop growth.

Drones Monitor Crop Height

A specific type of drone used in agriculture – known as a Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) – is flexible enough to detect pests, plant diseases, weeds, irrigation efficiency, and soil erosion.

Raymond Hunt of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently presented his research in agricultural mapping using sUAS systems to image crop conditions and damage.  Of particular interest is the topic of 3D mapping which is used to determine plant height, an indicator of plant health. Plant height indicates how fast a plant is growing, and stunted growth can be an indicator of stress.

When mapped out by a sUAS, specific fertilization can be applied (also by a drone) depending on the nitrogen requirement of the crops. Yield monitors – which are now standard on farm equipment – map out areas of high and low yield. Farmers then know that the high yield areas will require more fertilization the next year, which can be applied over a field based on GPS and GIS (Geographic Information System) data.

The benefit of drones is that they can gather high resolution images and are becoming a cost-effective solution, although there are still strict regulations on where they can be used and how high they can fly.

Predictive Weather Analytics Enable Better Decisions

The Deep Thunder Project is helping to maximize agricultural resources in a sustainable manner. Since 70 percent of fresh water worldwide is used for agriculture, better management of how it’s used will have a huge impact on the world’s fresh water supply.

Since most of agriculture is directly driven by weather, predicting future weather conditions can help farmers make proactive decisions. For instance, they can apply irrigation only when it is needed and not waste water if it’s going to rain.

Also, if farmers know they’ll have heavy rain the next day, they may decide not to apply fertilizer or pesticides since they would get washed away and the runoff can negatively impact the environment.

http://www.ptc.com/product-lifecycle-report/how-the-internet-of-things-helps-grow-our-food

Dear,

Certainly! In addition to agriculture, in all areas where the world needs to move forward and especially in increasing food production and distribution, it is one of the major problems to come. Greetings!

How people in developing countries may benefit from IoT?

1. Healthcare

It seems like almost every year, there is an extreme health crisis in a developing nation. But what if that could be prevented?

Wearable tech devices called “Sensor, Technology, and Analytics to Monitor, Predict and Protect Ebola Patients” (or STAMP for short) are in the United States and then scaled and shipped to international aid offices in Africa.

These devices collect all kinds of patient data, from body temperature to oxygen saturation. Once the data collection is complete, doctors can ship it to a central location, where people can track a patient’s health over time.

In the short term, tracking a group of people or a city as a whole can help with disease containment, as well as migrant population tracking. Over time these sensors can help predict where an outbreak is going to spread, allowing enough aid workers to get to the infected area before it’s too late.

2. Water/Water Delivery

Billions of people in developing countries go through their day-to-day lives drinking water that is deemed unsafe for the human body.

IoT can help monitor both water quality, and water delivery. Municipalities can place sensors in the water streams to not only monitor acidity, but also alert municipalities when a water pump breaks, allowing for a quicker replacement time to ensure that an area’s citizens are still getting enough, and quality water.

3. Agriculture

There are many countries in the developing world that are still agriculturally based, and plenty of people still work out in the fields. But what if there was a way to aid them. IoT technology provides that capability. Business Insider suggests that 75 million IoT devices will be agriculture-related by 2020.

Farmers can easily use these devices, placing them in soil to track acidity levels, as well as temperature, and crop growth so they can create a successful harvest.

Additionally farmers can reduce physical labor by using crop-spraying drones and unmanned aerial vehicles that can drive themselves, inject fertilizer, space seeds based on soil fertility, and perform other farming-related tasks.

4. City living

Cities in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world are some of the most dense cities in terms of population across the globe. The problem is residents are not connected to one another.

Not only could IoT devices help with traffic flow, by regulating lights based on the number of vehicles on the road, sensors placed in homes can help warn residents of impending disasters like fast-moving fires, mudslides, or other disasters, helping to save lives, as well as personal property.

Final Takeaway: While still in its infancy, the Internet of Things has the potential to change connectivity in the developing world as we know it.  By embracing IoT devices and practices, some of the world’s most moribund countries can spur their own development. Could better connectivity help mitigate problems like the growth of extremism? We don’t know, but it’s already creating an impact in the developing world. 

Source: see attached link

In what ways have you noticed IoT make a difference in your life?

https://www.atomicreach.com/blog/the-4-greatest-ways-the-internet-of-things-can-benefit-the-developing-world/

Some good examples of IoTs for the domains of crop farming, wildlife management, forestry, livestock farming, ... can be found in the following paper:

 The internet of things in agriculture for sustainable rural development By Nomusa Dlodlo and Josephat Kalezhi

Abstract: Rural areas in South Africa and Zambia face a number of similar issues in the domains of agriculture, connectivity, water, transport, health and education etc., which calls for potentially similar solutions to be directed towards solving these issues. The intention of this research is to investigate the potential contributions of internet of things technologies (IoT) towards poverty reduction in these rural areas, in line with the needs identified in these communities and with emphasis on agriculture. The paper identifies examples of IoTs to mitigate the agricultural needs of these communities for the domains of crop farming, weather forecasting, wildlife management, forestry, livestock farming, market identification and rural financing.

Published in: Emerging Trends in Networks and Computer Communications (ETNCC), 2015 International Conference on

Date of Conference: 17-20 May 2015

DOI: 10.1109/ETNCC.2015.7184801

Publisher: IEEE

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7184801/

Dear Colleagues,

Good Day,

Please, see.....

Some more resources regarding IoT and agriculture.

Article Advance Agro Farm Design With Smart Farming, Irrigation and ...

Article Application status and developing trend of open field water-...

Article Internet of Things in agriculture

Article Developing Ubiquitous Sensor Network Platform Using Internet...

Conference Paper Vision and Challenges for Clasping Factual Potential of“Inte...

Conference Paper Implementation of IoT (Internet of Things) and Image process...

Article A Monitoring and Control System of Agricultural Environmenta...

Article A Testbed to Evaluate the FIWARE-Based IoT Platform in the D...

Dear @Ljubomir Jacić and All

Thank you for introducing very interesting real world applications of IoT in Agriculture. Here is another  good short summary with link attached.

The Internet of Things is Driving Smart Agriculture

POSTED ON APRIL 5, 2016 BY MASKEDFROGGENIE

IoT is enabling data-driven smart agriculture. The IoT is a network of technologies which can monitor the status of physical and other objects, capture meaningful data, and communicate that data over a wireless network to a computer in the cloud for software to analyze and help determine action steps. Typically, each data transmission from a device is small in size but the number of transmissions can be frequent. IoT involves many, many things interacting with each other to produce actionable information.

Summary: The IoT can be used to help determine when, where and how much water is needed in agricultural irrigation in times of El Nino as well as drought. It can also help livestock farming be done smarter. Deployment of an IoT network can make energy use more efficient and less costly in many aspects of farming.  Although the IoT cannot change the type of soil where a crop is grown, it can provide actionable information to make water use more efficient and less wasteful, particularly in places where water is scarce.

https://www.svagtech.org/wp/2016/04/05/the-internet-of-things-is-driving-smart-agriculture/

This is the project that I do follow:

GAUChO: A Green Adaptive Fog Computing and Networking Architecture!

https://www.researchgate.net/project/GAUChO-A-Green-Adaptive-Fog-Computing-and-Networking-Architecture

Surprise: Agriculture is doing more with IoT Innovation than most other industries ByJAHANGIR MOHAMMED, JASPER DECEMBER 7, 2014

Despite great investor interest in agriculture technology, it’s a little known fact that farming has been, and continues to be, among the most fertile laboratories for Internet of Things (IoT) innovation and large-scale adoption.

Here are a few ways in which the agriculture industry has emerged as a key testing ground for IoT strategy, and with significant success.

1) Productivity

The field of precision agriculture, a practice that uses analytics to optimize farming decisions, is a gold mine of opportunities for IoT innovation. Today, it’s more critical than ever to maximize yields from every acre of land dedicated to food production.

Wireless, cloud-connected systems aid in this crop yield maximization, automating everyday agriculture operations and providing real-time monitoring and data analysis for smart decision making, day-to-day and season-to-season. Connected equipment from companies like Topcon Precision Agriculture leverage GPS, monitoring and electronic controls to help farmers continually analyze and improve performance.

2) Pest Control

As the organic movement gains popularity, the food and agriculture industries have taken increasing interest in finding effective and relatively inexpensive alternatives to pesticides.

Pheromones are particularly useful when they are paired with the power of IoT. Wireless sensor networks like that of Semios monitor pest counts, and when it detects that the pest population is too high, its metered pheromone delivery system automatically activates and disrupts the mating patterns of pests. This minimizes, and in some cases completely replaces, pesticide use.

3) Conservation

Farming in the face of water shortage has historically been a challenge, demanding extensive technical knowledge and mastery of complex data collection and irrigation systems. For effective drought response, farmers require precise, real-time information to help minimize waste, prevent over- and under-watering and proactively manage water costs.

Enter enterprise-grade IoT software. With embedded wireless devices and soil monitoring systems like that of Smart Watering Systems and Observant, farmers can measure moisture, detect leaks and more efficiently manage energy usage, all in real-time.

4) Continual Value

For agriculture solution providers, the greatest challenge — and opportunity — is offering service beyond product. Fundamentally, farmers care about results. Agriculture technology needs to deliver new, incremental value throughout the product lifecycle, akin to the subscription-based software industry’s task of continually adding features and functionality after releasing a title.

John Deere was among the first agricultural equipment manufacturers to embed connectivity into their products. Whereas, in the past, a sale marked the end of a transaction, the sale of a connected machine signals the start of a long-term relationship. With John Deere’s fleet telematics solutions, farmers can track their machines and analyze actionable data in real-time. Responses to that analysis are automated to optimize crop yield, ultimately boosting productivity from season to season. Insight and automation like this enable farmers to program exactly what and where each piece of equipment will plant, fertilize, spray and harvest for an area as small as one by three meters.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/07/surprise-agriculture-is-doing-more-with-iot-innovation-than-most-other-industries/

Phenonet: harnessing digital agriculture!

Phenonet collects, processes and visualises sensor data from the field in near real-time. It is helping plant scientists and farmers identify the best crop varieties to increase yield and efficiency of digital agriculture...

Food security is a major issue that has the potential to impact the global population. In order to feed humankind we need to significantly increase the productivity and efficiency of our agricultural industries.

The Internet of Things (IoT) could enable the application of next generation digital technologies in agriculture, and result in billions of dollars in export earnings for the Australian economy...

http://www.csiro.au/en/Research/D61/Areas/Robotics-and-autonomous-systems/Internet-of-Things/Phenonet

IoT is about people, objects and data. It has the potential to bring a paradigm shift in the way we produce and consume food. People and objects are interconnected through communication networks and are able to report about their status and/or surrounding environment, while the objects collect and exchange data to feed the system and ensure its improvement. Take the following examples: Uber connects you to a taxi driver, himself embedded in a network of other drivers; with airBnB you access a database of private accommodation facilities and exchange experience with flat owners.

Applications of internet of things in food and agri-food areas

Abstract: With in-depth development of the technologies of internet of things (IOT), they have been increasingly applied in food and agri-food areas. The RFID (radio frequency identification) and WSN (wireless sensor networks) in principles, techniques and other related information were introduced, a more comprehensive summarization and analysis of these technologies and applications in agricultural and food industry during recent years were given, such as food processing, food-safety control, the food supply chain traceability and tracking, etc. The problems and solutions were also discussed. Furthermore, suggestions for future research and application areas were put forward.

Article Applications of internet of things in food and agri-food areas

S&P coordinates the communications of a H2020 project

S&P leads the communication activities of the IoF2020, a Horizon 2020 project aiming at demonstrating how the agri-food sector can benefit from the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) technologies. The project is expected to deliver full-scale demonstrations of IoT solutions into the agri-food sector and pave the way towards a more sustainable and efficient sector (e.g. food waste reduction).

With the IoT technologies stepping in into the agri-food sector, farmers are now able to check i.e. the status of their yield and/or pigs health on their smartphone; while consumers can access information about i.e. the origin of their food and its producer.

The Internet of Food and Farming 2020 (IoF2020) is just about that. It aims for a more productive and sustainable European agri-food sector by promoting innovation and data-based control e.g. sensor-controlled rooms growing altered lettuce, connected cows to improve milk quality. transforming the sector into smart webs of connected objects that are context-sensitive and can be identified, sensed and controlled remotely.

IoF2020: 5 trials, 19 case studies

The digitalization and automation of the agriculture sector remains a challenge in Europe. Although past initiatives and projects (SmartAgriFood2, Fractals) showed the eagerness of the sector to seize the opportunities offered by ICT, network and data –oriented technologies, the sector lacks large-scale demonstrations. In addition, current available applications for the sector are fragmentally and mainly used by a small group of early-adopters.

IoF2020 addresses the organizational and technological challenges the sector faces associated to IoT. Focusing on 19 use cases, the project provides close-to-market solutions to 5 agri-food areas: arable farming, dairy, meat, vegetables and fruits and takes into account their own needs and obstacles.

A multi-actor and iterative approach with farmers at its heart

IoF2020 involves the actors from the overall food chain, from the farmers, cooperatives, equipment suppliers, food processing companies, logistics providers to consumer organizations and includes ICT solution providers. In the approach, the end-users are the heart of IoF2020’s. They will participate in assessing and improving the technologies used in the trials, ensuring the solutions developed meet the requirements and the expectations of the sector for the challenge to come. 

Schuttelaar & Partners’ role

S&P coordinates the communication activities of the project. Its objective is to create and strengthen a sustainable ecosystem for the long-term application and appreciation in the agri-food sector of IoT technologies by demonstrating the added-value of the technologies tested and improved in the 5 trials of the project.

In this context, S&P provides the full range of communication services: from the project communication strategy, the design, to the organization of the dissemination activities at the internal and external level.

The IoF2020 project is expected to start in January 2017. 

https://www.schuttelaar-partners.com/projects/iof2020

Yes, it is a trend to use information technology to lead the development of modern agriculture. The reality is that the IoT allows for virtually endless opportunities and connections to take place, many of which we can't even think of or fully understand the impact of today. It's not hard to see how and why the IoT is such a hot topic today; it certainly opens the door to a lot of opportunities but also to many challenges.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/05/13/simple-explanation-internet-things-that-anyone-can-understand/#1c8b2e8d6828

Dear All

Thank you for interesting comments and valuable links. Here is a state of art review about IoT in general:

A review on the state of art of Internet of Things

T. Santhi Sri, J. Rajendra Prasad, Y. Vijayalakshmi

Abstract: The Internet of Things is fast growing technology with business opportunities and risks. It is confluence of wireless networks, internet and computing. IoT connects the physical objects like vehicles, buildings and other devices with embedded intelligent sensors and enables these objects to exchange and collect data. The domains where IoT is becoming popular are smart cities, e-health, smart grids, e-commerce, smart transportation, and e-commerce etc. The embedded and wearable computing will have greater impact in providing services in wide range of applications by 2020[1]. The architecture of IoT is incorporated with the latest technologies of communication protocols, intelligent sensor and RFID. The security and privacy issues of IoT are crucial as it connects large number devices. In this article we analyze a state of art review of IoT with regard to technologies, protocols, application issues.

http://www.ijarcce.com/upload/2016/july-16/IJARCCE%2038.pdf

Nowadays, practice 'Precision Agriculture' is a trend. It is especially welcome by commercial companies (ex. Monsanto,..) or growers with a huge farms. Practice of precision agriculture involves many high-tech tools, such as satellites, sensors, computers, internet..(see attachment,  http://www.adscorp.jp/en/pre_agriculture/index.html).

However, I am not sure whether farmers with small lands will adapt to this expensive technology and invest in it. There are still many such small family farms around worldwide today, including in the US (88%, see below, from USDA).

IoT key to future of farming, civilization By Jeff Hawn

Precision agriculture will be necessary to support demand for food

In a new report titled Towards Smart Farming: Agriculture Embracing the IoT Vision, Beecham found the key to support the projected demand for food resources is the advancement of precision farming enabled with the smart connectivity supported by the “Internet of Things.”

Therese Cory, a senior analyst at Beecham, said, “The demand for more food has to be set against the challenges of climate change, more extreme weather conditions and the environmental impact of intensive farming practices.”

Citing research by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, the reports suggests, “In order to counter these challenges, the FAO recommends that all farming sectors should be equipped with innovative tools and techniques, particularly digital technologies. Precision agriculture aims to optimize yield per unit of farming land by using the most modern means in a continuously sustainable way, to achieve best in terms of quality, quantity and financial return.”

IoT use cases for precision agriculture include fleet management of farm vehicles, arable farming, livestock monitoring, indoor farming, fish farming, forestry and storage monitoring.

In the U.S., some segments of the wireless industry have already recognized the revenue opportunity associated with telecom-powered precision farming.. AT&T, through its industrial IoT unit, has partnered with the agriculture machinery manufacturer John Deere to install a wireless modem in every piece of machinery produced. AT&T is also working to help reduce grain spoilage and improve yields through sensor systems.    

Sensors are one of six components of smart farming laid out in the Beecham report. The others are data analytics, hardware and software, telematics and position tech,; communications system like cellular, and software applications.

The IoT and agriculture are in many ways a perfect match for each other. IoT sensors allow farmers to track crop yields, soil nutrition and rainfall with a previously unheard of level of precision.

In a hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on Oct. 7, Cory Reed, SVP of intelligent solutions for Deere & Co., discussed the huge benefits of precision agriculture. Deere found that precision agriculture technology raised profitability per acre and increased overall productivity by 15%.

A major challenge is the lack of wireless infrastructure in rural areas. Despite the growth of IoT networks, wireless companies still measure connectivity based on the number of people connected, leaving some areas of low population density with a high demand for connectivity.

Source:

http://www.rcrwireless.com/20151025/internet-of-things/internet-of-things-key-to-future-of-farming-civilization-tag15

In the earlier post, I mentioned that whether the small-land farmers will be willing to use this expensive technology. Seems to me, they are now more interested in it than ever.

I dug out a report about "Precision agriculture on display for small farms". It happened at DUNNSVILLE, Va., USA (Sept. 27, 2016) — Farmers gathered at Brandon Farms to see how precision agriculture can work on small farms.

http://www.americanfarm.com/publications/the-delmarva-farmer/3202-precision-agriculture-on-display-for-small-farms

One farmer attended the field trip spoke out interestingly: [“The whole idea about today is to show that small farms like us can afford technology.”; “It used to be that technology was so expensive, but the technology that’s coming is a whole lot more affordable for small farmers.”]

THE FUTURE IS SMART

8 ways the Internet of things will change the way we live and work

By 2020, there will be tens of billions of data-spouting devices connected to the Internet. And they're already changing how we live and work

These intelligent machines (IoTs) are already altering spheres as diverse as health care and manufacturing, city planning, transportation and power generation, agriculture and household management. The devices themselves might be micro, but they’re causing macro shifts in how we live and work.

1)

...

8) Agriculture: Grain expectations

Despite the bucolic image we might have of the average family farm, farmers have always been early adopters of technology—after all, anything that can help boost the meagre living they can scrape out of the land is a good thing. Most farmers these days walk their fields with GPS-enabled smartphones in their hands, loaded with ag-related apps. And with farms getting dramatically larger—the average spread in the United States has doubled in the past quarter-century—farmers (or, as is becoming more common, the huge corporations that own these operations) have been quick to deploy data-gathering, Internet-linked devices to help keep track of them. New machines from John Deere can not only plow, sow and reap, they can also collect a Farmer’s Almanac worth of data, including air and soil temperatures, moisture, wind speed, humidity, solar radiation and rainfall. Smart watering systems sprinkle just enough H2O on the fields, in just the right places, and can detect leaks in water pipes—vital in dry and drought-affected regions like California. One company has developed a sensor that can detect high counts of a particular pest and then release the pheromones that disrupt their mating rituals—which can, in turn, reduce the need for pesticides. Even cows are now transmitting bits of data in real time: A Dutch company has created sensors that, when attached to individual animals, can tell farmers which ones are in heat, pregnant or ill.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/the-future-is-smart/article24586994/

The Internet of Things: How Data Transmission Can Be Harnessed for Farming SEP 20, 2016 by AG TEAM

By 2018, according to a recent report from Ericsson (attached link), the largest category of connected devices in the world will be comprised of a variety of vehicles and machines, utility meters, sensor technologies and consumer electronics—all captured under the name “Internet of Things” (IoT). This has wide-ranging implications for how economic activity will be organized across multiple sectors including transport, power provision and agriculture.

The change is already underway in industrialized agriculture. Connected farm implements, satellite imagery, ground sensor technologies, historical data on yield or inputs, and data analysis are beginning to be used to help make on-farm practices more precise and profitable.  

For full details please see: https://agrilinks.org/blog/internet-things-how-data-transmission-can-be-harnessed-farming 

https://www.ericsson.com/mobility-report

7 IoT Agriculture & M2M Applications

Please take a look at these use cases—these are solutions we’ve either helped create or integrated for Link Labs customers.

LIVESTOCK MONITORING

Livestock monitoring is all about animal husbandry and cost savings. Ranchers are able to use wireless IoT applications to gather data regarding the health, well-being, and location of their cattle. This information saves them money in two ways:

There are some specific challenges when instrumenting livestock with sensors. Specifically, it’s quite difficult to outfit cattle with a collar. An alternate option is to use a wireless retrofitted bolus in the cow’s stomach, which can communicate via Bluetooth to an eartag.

Another potential challenge ranchers face is selecting a wireless monitoring technology with enough battery life to last the lifespan of the animal. A beef cow, for example, lives 15 months or longer—Symphony Link can easily connect for that length of time without much infrastructure around the ranch to connect all of the devices.

CONSERVATION MONITORING

While it doesn’t strictly fall under the heading of “agriculture,” monitoring for endangered rhinos is one of the most interesting animal IoT use cases out there. Knowing where rhinos in large game facilities are located can help conservationists protect them and keep poachers from killing the rhinos for their horn.

As one may imagine, collaring a rhino isn’t easy—and we’ve found it isn’t often successful. The collars get ripped off from fighting, and they’ve been known to cause behavioral changes in the rhinos. To solve for this, we are currently examining the idea of a putting Symphony Link devices inside a rhinoceros’s horn.

PLANT & SOIL MONITORING

Monitoring plant and soil conditions is a simple use case—but it can lead to a fantastic return on investment for farmers utilizing sensing technology. We’ve seen three great general uses for agriculture IoT in this space:

Because the sensors in the use cases above are close to the ground, using a mesh network can be difficult. There simply isn’t enough link budget. But star topologies like Symphony Link are an ideal fit, because one access point can talk to a number of sensors 20-100 square kilometers away.

1. OPENIOT’S PHENONET PROJECT

With the Phenonet Project, plant breeders can evaluate the performance of different wheat varieties using measurements taken from remote sensors. These sensors monitor things like soil temperature, humidity, and air temperature and are often used for crop variety trials. This allows farmers to forecast harvest time, improve plant health, plan irrigation time, and determine frost and heat events. By combining these measurements, plant scientists are able to look at the effects of microclimate and genome, improving the accuracy and speed of plant breeding, which leads to better food quality and increased production.

2. TEMPUTECH’S WIRELESS SENSOR MONITORING

TempuTech wanted to bring better safety to their systems for agricultural storage. Silos and grain elevators can be dangerous places with conveyor belts that can catch fire and dust buildup that can be explosive, so using sensors to track hazards is of massive value. By using GE’s Equipment Insight, TempuTech created a way to connect all of these wireless sensors and help farmers make sense of the data. Using Equipment Insight’s platform, manufacturers can establish baseline performance norms and then set alert and alarm conditions related to temperature, vibration, humidity, and other conditions.

3. CLAAS’S EQUIPMENT

CLAAS is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of agricultural engineering equipment. Farmers can operate CLAAS equipment on autopilot, receive advice on how to improve crop flow and minimize grain losses, or automatically optimize equipment performance. The company is partnering with 365FarmNet, a program that enables farmers to manage their entire agricultural holding on a computer or mobile device. It collects data and makes meaningful use of it through field mapping, fertilization planning, nutrient balance, and calendar and planning programs.

4. CLEANGROW’S CARBON NANOTUBE PROBE

CleanGrow, based in Ireland, has developed a carbon, nanotube-based sensor for monitoring the level of nutrients in crops, which can allow farmers to alter the color or maturity rate of produce. Conventional nutrient probes are analog devices that capture a composite picture of the current environmental conditions. In CleanGrow’s device, a nanotube sensor tuned to a specific ion—nitrate, sodium, etc.—sits on one side of a membrane. As water passes through the membrane, the sensor detects the presence and quantity of the target ion. Up to 18 different sensors tuned to different ions can be placed on a probe head.

5. PRECISIONHAWK’S UAV SENSOR PLATFORM

PrecisionHawk has created an autonomous UAV that collects high-quality data through a series of sensors that perform civil applications such as surveying, mapping, and imaging of agricultural land. It’s basically a small airplane that performs in-flight observations and monitoring. Before tossing the plane into the air, farmers tell it what field to survey and choose a ground resolution or altitude. Each plane can detect weather conditions in the air using artificial intelligence, so it chooses the best flight path to take based on things like wind speed or air pressure. During the flight, the plane will collect visual, thermal, and multispectral imagery at resolutions up to one centimeter per pixel. When it’s finished, the plane will land in the same place it took off and will have useable data. (Now that’s a cool and useful Internet of Things farming tool!)

6. PRECISION PLANTING’S CORN MAZE

Radar Family Farms began as a pumpkin farm in the ‘90s, and today offers a 10-acre corn maze to fall visitors. It draws about 50,000 visitors in the midwest each year. The family had previously created the maze by planting all 10 acres of corn and then hiring a company to mow out the shape of the maze. This was a waste in seed—a cost that added up quickly. By using Precision Planting technology, they were able to plant in the shape of the map—a feat they believe is theirs alone in the U.S. today.

7. TEAMDEV’S LIBELIUM NETWORK FOR TOBACCO CROP QUALITY

Tobacco is a critical industry in Italy and requires certain environmental and climatic requirements for optimal growth and increased crops. In response to this issue, an Italian software company—TeamDev—deployed Libelium’s Waspmote Plug & Sense platform to collect data on weather conditions that may affect tobacco crops. This technique can be used by tobacco farmers to optimize their crops in conditions not typically suitable for tobacco growth.

https://www.link-labs.com/blog/iot-agriculture

Dear Dr.Mahmoud,

The farming industry will become arguably more important than ever before in the next few decades.  See the links below.

http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-of-things-smart-agriculture-2016-10

https://www.kaaproject.org/agriculture/

Smart farming: The future of agriculture in the connected world

Robert Le Busque saya: IoT, combined with big data, provides farmers with a wealth of information that they can use to maximise productivity and maintain the quality of food in the supply chain.

IoT is already a mainstream phenomenon, being driven by the promise of revenue growth across multiple sectors such as manufacturing, transportation, resource extraction, agriculture, and the military. The agriculture industry, in particular, primarily depends on engineering, technology as well as the biological and physical sciences. In this digital era, the agriculture industry has been an enthusiastic adopter of IoT and the applications of IoT in this sector is proliferating at a lightning speed with big farmhouses having to rethink their methods to find the efficiencies and cost savings necessary to compete.

With the real-time data provided, it can be possible for farmers to work in the acres of land and still watch their assets across entities such as their field, machinery and finance, monitored without being physically present. IoT, combined with big data, further provides farmers with a wealth of information that they can use to optimise efficiency, maximise productivity, and maintain the quality of food in the supply chain - from field to fork.

Initiatives to modernise agriculture have already been undertaken by developing IoT systems that enhance livestock welfare, these systems use data collected from a variety of sensors to ensure all operations are being executed within a set parameter and alerting farmers of any issues. For instance, when using IoT to monitor the health of livestock remotely, the farmers can track the animals’ movement to establish grazing patterns and help increase yield.

The IoT solutions also address two crucial issues prevalent which is irrigation and productivity in the agriculture space. Every year we read stories from across the globe on various countries facing drought and discussions on how this can be tackled. With the advent of technology in agriculture, this problem can now be resolved with assets such as irrigation systems or farming vehicles. These vehicles and systems provide data gathered by IoT sensors giving the farmers a holistic view of performance and helps schedule servicing and prevent yield-sapping breakdowns..

http://www.business-standard.com/content/b2b-chemicals/smart-farming-the-future-of-agriculture-in-the-connected-world-116080800782_1.html

PRECISION FARMING SUPPORTED BY IOT CAN SUPPORT FUTURE FOOD DEMAND

A new report (link attached) by Beecham Research entitled, Towards Smart Farming: Agriculture Embracing the IoT Vision, claims to hold the key information needed to meet future food demand, and it is to be found in the development of precision farming based on the interconnected intelligence that IoT provides.

http://www.beechamresearch.com/files/BRL%20Smart%20Farming%20Executive%20Summary.pdf

http://www.barcoding.com/blog/precision-farming-supported-by-iot-can-support-future-food-demand/

CNH Industrial will lead a use case on Interoperability. This area focuses on enabling agricultural machinery, independent of brand, to work as part of one unified agronomic production system, leading to operational efficiencies, with the ultimate aim of improving overall agricultural productivity.

"As agriculture is evolving from the optimization of one single machine to an ecosystem of smart and connected vehicles communicating with each other, we have decided to take this technology revolution as an opportunity to provide our customers with a solution adapted to their specific needs," said Antonio Marzia, Head of Data Analytics and Services at CNH Industrial. "We, at CNH Industrial, believe that the ability to provide value-added services focused on improving farm management and overall productivity will be pivotal for the future of agriculture. This is why we have a dedicated team specializing in new technologies, which is strongly involved in different research projects to promote innovation and sustainability in agriculture throughout Europe."...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cnh-industrial-forefront-internet-things-110500810.html

Here is a very well written article on IoTs in agricultural settings:

From dirt to data: The second green revolution and the Internet of Things - Deloitte Review Issue 18- By Will Sarni, Joe Mariani, Junko Kaji (January 25, 2016)

Already, the IoT’s inroads into the agricultural sector begin to make clear that a new model of the food and agriculture industries is emerging. The IoT, by giving producers, manufacturers, distributors, consumers, and others across the value chain access to new information and new insights about the world, is delivering value to a diverse variety of stakeholders and, in the process, forging new relationships between these stakeholders.

Link for Full article is attached:

https://dupress.deloitte.com/dup-us-en/deloitte-review/issue-18/second-green-revolution-and-internet-of-things.html

Internet of Things grafting agriculture: a revolution in the field of technology Published on Mar 25,2016

Fitted with a small sensor, vegetable greenhouses will speak, low humidity, high temperature, and nitrogen deficiency, phosphorus and potassium; the no matter where you are, mouse click or phone, shed thousands of miles away fruits and vegetables will be able to automatically watering, fertilizing; swipe two-dimensional code, fruits and vegetables from greenhouses to table “past and Present” all know …… it’s not imaginary scene, but is Texas Dragon vegetable cooperatives occurred thing.

Research of this technology is the Institute of Shandong Academy of Agricultural Science and Technology Information. The Internet of Things they grafted on agriculture, is changing the traditional mode of agricultural production fields, but also so that people can enjoy safer tongue agricultural products (000061, stock it). “The use of the Internet of Internet of Things data systems, real-time detection of crop production environment, temperature, humidity, pH, light, soil nutrients, carbon dioxide and other physical parameters, remote monitoring, the precise application of policy, not only saves resources, labor, and more to improve product quality, improve economic efficiency. “Ruanhuai Jun, director of the team is working to create a project, the above scenario has become a reality, but not all.

Internet of Things’s new weapons! see attached link...

http://www.usriot.com/internet-of-things-grafting-agriculture-revolution-field-technology/

Dear Mahmoud,

Dear All,

The future of agriculture as well as that of mankind is saving soil, water and air. This can be maintained only by really sustainable management of agriculture and population dynamics of Homo sapiens. IoT may be secondary or imaginary.

Deeds and facts are needed not words or communication.

Dear András and All

Internet of Things has broad implications for sustainability too. It  can provide ways for consumers and businesses of agriculture to use resources such as machinery, water, energy, ... more efficiently.

Internet of Things: Science Fiction or Business Fact?

Estimates suggest that IoT could be adding tens of trillions of dollars to GDP within ten years. It goes far beyond wearables, smart meters, and connected cars. Organizations worldwide are pushing ahead with deployment and reaping benefits such as enhanced customer service, increased revenue, and improved use of assets in the field. In addition, IoT has broad implications for sustainability, providing ways for consumers and businesses to use resources such as water and energy more efficiently. What’s helping to bring it to the forefront today is the explosive growth in mobile devices and applications and the broad availability of wireless connectivity.

Source: Harvard Business Publishing:

https://hbr.org/sponsored/2016/04/internet-of-things-science-fiction-or-business-fact

17 'Internet Of Things' Facts Everyone Should Read by Forbes 

Here are 17 of the most mind-boggling IoT numbers and stats that prove that the phenomenon is here and here to stay.

The IoT is only going to grow. The writer believes that currently less than 0.1% of all the devices that could be connected to the Internet, are connected to the Internet. Just think of the tremendous potential and limitless opportunities this brings for business and society.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/10/27/17-mind-blowing-internet-of-things-facts-everyone-should-read/#6609fc831a7a

I am more enlightened about the topic. The links give a good idea about the topic. Thanks all..

Thanks Manisha. Dr Omid deserves all the kudos 

Dear @Yogesh Sinha and @Manisha Sinha and All

Thank you for encouraging comments and your valuable inputs.

Welcome Dr Mahmoud once again.

I have just received this publication from the authors. Normally, I do share it with you.

Internet of Things Advance Agro Farm Design With Smart Farming, Irrigation and Rain Water Harvesting Using Internet of Things

Article Advance Agro Farm Design With Smart Farming, Irrigation and ...

Dear Dr Ljubomir,  insightful article  presenting the design of agriculture farm especially for the plane region . thanks.

Dear @Dr Ljubomir, Thank you for introducing that interesting article. I am reading it now. Here I introduce another interesting general reading article from IoT India MAGAZINE entitled: Smart Farming: IoT in agriculture, By MANISHA SALECHA

Internet of things has been proving its mettle across the industries such as banking, retail, tele companies, manufacturers and more. Amidst the various industries, the one sector it is quickly catching up with is, the agriculture. With the concept of smart farming and digitization, it is gaining popularity like never before and is coming with the potential to offer high precision crop control, data collection and automated farming techniques.

Why do we need IoT in agriculture?

A forecast by the food and agriculture arm of the United Nations (FAO) says that the food production worldwide should see a 70% increase by 2050 to cater the ever growing population. And the experts believe that IoT could play a crucial role in meeting this need. Combined with big data, it can do so by improving the efficient use of inputs like soil, fertilizers and pesticides, monitoring the livestock, predicting diseases, scanning storage capacities like water tanks, and making sure that crops are fed and watered well. It shows an overall potency to increase the productivity with a reduced cost.

How is Big Data and IoT being used in agriculture:

While we talk about various interesting aspects that IoT can bring about in agriculture, it gets our curiosity high about how that can be achieved? Well, the most important aspect of it is big data. The data collected from a variety of sensors ensure that all the operations are executed well. Let’s take the use of IoT to monitor health of livestock into account. The farmers can track animals’ movement to establish grazing patterns and hence help increase yield.

In the same way, IoT has the potential to address issues such as irrigation and productivity wherein the data gathered by IoT sensors have the ability to provide an overall performance of the crops and hence determining when the crops might require servicing.

At other instances, real-time data about soil, air quality, water levels etc. can help farmers in making a much informed decision about planting and harvesting crops, thereby increasing the overall yield of the crops.

Companies exploring IoT in agriculture:

With newer compelling IoT ideas, people are taking applying the same in agriculture industry more seriously. And many companies from India and across have stepped up their foot to speed up IoT implications in agriculture.

Libelium is one such company with an extensive experience in Smart Agriculture and uses platforms like Waspmote Plug&Sense! which enables tracking of environmental parameters such as farming, vineyards or greenhouses. It has been used successfully in projects like increasing crop quality in tobacco and preventing pests in olives. With an applicability in countries like  Italy, Indonesia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Australia and others, it has been used for a variety of crops.

Others such as Link Labs, Thingworx,  have been providing IoT architectures to benefit the agricultural industry. Using the IoT platforms for agriculture, it enables resourcing and mapping, monitoring crops, climate and livestock.

Back in India, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has developed an android based app which collects real-time information to assess the damage to agricultural crop due to hailstorm. This app aims to allow the farmers to process faster claims to insurance during crop damage by accessing real-time data. It currently applies to rice and cotton crops in the states of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Maharashtra.

Few other use cases of IoT in agriculture have been in monitoring water level, testing of soil parameters and helping to control the use of pesticides.

Challenges faced in IoT applications:

Though it is has been a trend in developed nations, despite being an agricultural nation, countries such as India faces various challenges while applying IoT in agriculture. To begin with, internet connectivity and availability is one of the major challenges. Then there are certain other aspects such as presumption amongst the vendors about Indian consumers not being “ready” for the advanced products. This results in drastically low awareness of IoT devices and systems amongst consumers. That’s not all, the infrastructure required for smooth functioning of the IoT devices, such as smart grids and traffic systems are far from ready, hindering the growth furthermore.

 Conclusion:

Despite being a newer concept in the field, there has been a tremendous popularity in the agricultural circuits about the benefits of smart farming and the applicability of IoT. It has been looked upon as a hope to encourage innovation in agriculture with “connected farms” speculated to be the future of farming.

If we talk about the India perspective, with its experience in IP design and project management, it shows up unique potential to come up with innovative products. And with the government initiatives like “Make in India” and “Smart India”, IoT could be utilized to make the best out of our agricultural potential.

http://iotindiamag.com/2016/08/smart-farming-iot-agriculture/

IoT is the future of every region, especially those with deficit of vitally important natural resources and conditions. In arid and desert developing regions usually facing acute water scarcity, salinization and land degradation and high population growth rates.

An overview of the potential IoT applications in agricultuyre

IoT may assist in agriculture and breeding. Indeed, regulations for traceability of animals require a continuous monitoring of animals and of their movements in order to report promptly to the appropriate authorities any relevant events, e.g., diseases. Usage of IoT identification systems (e.g., RFID, sensors) allows to identify and monitor animals, and to isolate any infected animals from the healthy ones, thus avoiding the spread of contagious disease. Advanced microchips may store information about the status of the animal (e.g., demographic information, veterinary checks, contracted diseases, vaccines performed) or transmit information about the animal’s body health (e.g., temperature) to streamline animal health certification, to control trade and imports, and to avoid possible frauds. By analyzing collected data, authorities may verify the actual number of livestock reported by local breeders and provide subsidies, accordingly. Monitoring and controlling agricultural production and feed (e.g., presence of OMGs, additives, melanin) by using advanced sensor systems are further applications of IoT. Such systems will ensure the health of plant origin products intended both for human and animal consumption. Advanced IoT services may speed up the management for the registration/modification/closing of farms, their monitoring and the issuance of health authorizations. By using IoT, single farmers can break the long chain of producer–consumer sales, which employs freight or large companies to reach consumers, and will be in direct relationship with consumers. For example, they can provide a publicity window of their farm, real time showing their offered products to allow customers to order them by using suitable mobile applications.

The following figure shows provides a non-exhaustive list of IoT applications for three major domains: (A) industrial domain, (B) smart city domain, and (C) health well-being domain.

Eleonora Borgia. Review: The Internet of Things vision: Key features, applications and open issues. Computer Communications 54 (2014) 1–31.

Dear Mahmoud,

definitely YES! The IoT is the future of agriculture. But also, IoT/IIoT (Industrial IoT) will be the business of the future for many business sectors (let's say in tourism). 

When we analyze usage of IoT in agriculture or at any other busienss sector, it is important to analyze entire Vision 2020 in ICT sector ie. 5G, Li-Fi, Wi-Fi, OTT, IoT/IIoT, implementation of IPv6 at all level of Internet. 

Ypou can find many excellent articles, white papers, analysis and research papers. I do believe that IoT/IIoT (and whole Vision2020) will dramatically change our lives in folowing years and decades. Agriculture is one of the businesses (together with manufacturing and toursim) that will be a pioneer for very intensive usage of IoT/IIoT.

I wouldn't like to "advertise themselves and my articles" (I do not like to do) but you can find several articles and papers on my ResearchGate page: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Igor_Jurcic . 

I will be happy and very honored if you find that any of them is useful to you.

Very best regards,

Igor 

Dear Igor,

Thank you for your useful comments and introducing Vision 2020 in ICT sector . I already downloaded you "Short review of Vision 2020" slides and going through it.

Best regards to you too,

Mahmoud

An Internet of Things illustrative journey

From connected cows to talking toasters, imagine billions of always-connected devices that can process information, communicate with each other and make decisions, across the fields of medicine, agribusiness, logistics, retail, hospitality, homes, offices, governments and cities.

The application of Internet of Things is definitely a stairway to excellence! It is a must and need nowadays!

A Roadmap from Internet of Things to Intelligent Agriculture and WoT

With the development of sensing, wireless communication, and  Internet technologies, we are now living in a world that is filled with various smart things—the Internet of Things. This paper introduces and prospects an emerging research area—the Embedded Intelligence (EI). This field aims at revealing the individual behaviors, spatial contexts, as well as social patterns and urban dynamics by mining the digital traces left by people while interacting with Internet of Smart Things (cameras, smart cars, smart cards, etc.). In the agricultural sector we add mining of existing technology (books, articles, blueprints) to generate high deth Ontologies for reasoning and making pro-active decisions. We further include Intelligent Data Analysis to discover new knowledge from data records. The paper discusses the research history, characteristics, general architecture, major applications, and research issues of EI and exemplifies an application of the team in IOT Smart Irrigation.

The paper concludes with road to Intelligent Agriculture as:

• Improve Performance And Cost Of Supply Chain Management

• Improve Resource Efficiency

• Enhance FOOD SAFETY, SUFICIENCY And QUALITY

• HUMAN SAFETY

• Climate Change Adaptation And Mitigation

• Improve Production Economics (Farmers’ Income And NGP).

Source: Li Li, N. Sigrimis, A. Anastasiou, M. Wang and V.C. Patil. (2012). A Roadmap from Internet of Things to Intelligent Agriculture and WoT. Proceedings of AIPA 2012, INDIA. Agro-Informatics and Precision Agriculture, 297-304.

http://insait.in/AIPA2012/articles/055.pdf

IoT can support for intensive, high-yield, high-quality, efficient, ecological security agriculture.

Zhou et al. (2012) discuss some solutions and key technologies of facilities agriculture based on IoT technology in attached reference. On this basis it designs and implements facility cultivation greenhouses. Practice has proved that the Internet of Things is the development of modern agriculture productivity. It has an important significance in raising the level of agricultural development, improving the overall efficiency of agriculture, promoting the upgrade of modern agricultural transformation.

Linli Zhou, Liangtu Song, Chengjun Xie, and Jie Zhang (2012).  Applications of Internet of Things in the Facility Agriculture. Int'l Conf. on Computer and Computing Technologies in Agriculture. CCTA 2012: VI : 297-303.

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-36124-1_36

Dear @Khan, I do think that this references might be helpful.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1996SPIE.2907..120V

Article WEED-IT; a new selective Weed Control System

Dear @Khan Muhammad

Some IoT management platforms in agriculture is introduced in the attached link which enable services that allow growers to observe, measure, and respond to the environmental conditions, diseases and pests that affect their agricultural production, making crop and farm management more effective and assets more productive even when used at small scale

The knowledge regarding the real-time location and condition of crops allows the grower to improve field productivity by preventing excessive use of resources such as water and pesticides. A decrease in the use of pesticides not only reduces risk to the workers’ health, but also reduces risk of harming plants, soil and affecting the groundwater, in the long term. Some of the technology applications include a function for predictive spraying advice in real-time alerts, allowing the grower to protect his crops from pests and fungal diseases –therefore increasing utilisation of biological assets – rather than treating the symptoms with even more chemicals.

The interoperability and connectivity of the open hardware platform with other developers’ applications is key for the success of precision agriculture. Sensor nodes feed data into a cloud system and the grower can access and visualise information on a PC, tablet, or smartphone. Through the integration of decision support systems growers are alerted when they need to take action and guided through the process of identifying the most appropriate measures to increase production outcomes.

https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/news/EllenMacArthurFoundation_Intelligent_Assets_Case_Studies_v4.1.pdf

The Internet of Things: A survey By Luigi Atzori, Antonio Iera, Giacomo Morabito

The attached article [link] provide an excellent survey about IoT. Main enabling factor of this promising paradigm is the integration of several technologies and communications solutions. Identification and tracking technologies, wired and wireless sensor and actuator networks, enhanced communication protocols (shared with the Next Generation Internet), and distributed intelligence for smart objects are just the most relevant. As one can easily imagine, any serious contribution to the advance of the Internet of Things must necessarily be the result of synergetic activities conducted in different fields of knowledge, such as telecommunications, informatics, electronics and social science. In such a complex scenario, this survey is directed to those who want to approach this complex discipline and contribute to its development. Different visions of this Internet of Things paradigm are reported and enabling technologies reviewed. What emerges is that still major issues shall be faced by the research community. The most relevant among them are addressed in details.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389128610001568

92% of internet devices have vulnerabilities in the software they are running. The issue of IoT security is well depicted by following infographic.

http://www.industrial-ip.org/~/media/Files/32338%20IP%20Security%20infographic%20P4.ashx

IoT for Agriculture is one part of the Big data in Agriculture

Data BDCEAT

The internet of things next trick? Improving lettuce ...

As it turns out, lettuce isn’t good for everyone. It’s high in potassium, so can be unhealthy for people to eat when on dialysis or suffering chronic kidney disease. To make salads for those with kidney problems, Fujitsu and Microsoft teamed up to grow high-tech lettuce.

As odd as it sounds, the project highlights how sensors can be used to help agricultural plants grow faster and better, creating higher yields as well as unique specialisations – if they can do this with lettuce, imagine what they can do with wine grapes.

“The hardware sensors are similar to what you see in any semiconductor plant,” said Enrique Andaluz, Director of Strategic Business Development for Worldwide Discrete Manufacturing at Microsoft. Indeed, Fujitsu’s test bed is a chip plant that’s been converted to grow IoT-managed plants. “The information is picked from building sensors that control temperature, humidity, CO2, light intensity and other factors that affect the ‘perfect conditions’ to grow crops.” That data is handed to Microsoft’s Azure cloud, where it’s analysed for reports and to send alerts about its care.

All this data means it’s possible to fine tune the conditions to grow low-potassium lettuce. “To reduce the level of potassium at home, you typically cook the raw vegetables to change their internal chemical composition,” said Andaluz. And who wants cooked lettuce? “Fujitsu has been able to produce a raw lettuce with less than 80% of potassium content as compared to traditional grown lettuce.” Thanks to the IoT, crunchy salads for all.

Link: The internet of food: why your steak might have come from a connected cow

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/05/internet-of-things-connected-cows-agriculture-food-production

How technology and the IoT together can help to alleviate some of the challenges the agricultural, supply chain, food industry are facing?

Surprisingly, agriculture is doing more with IoT and digital innovation than most other industries. According to a recent report by McKinsey, the AgTech market is pegged at $10-15B for data and services. There is huge amount of investment happening both from the corporate and private equity players in this space. According to AgFunder, in 2015 alone, AgTech surpassed $4.6B in terms of deal flow numbers. 

The agricultural sector is really embracing technology as a transformative instrument. Through the adoption and use of technological innovations such as IoT, accessible weather data, and the application of cognitive capabilities, the agricultural sector is breaking established perceptions that it is an anachronistic, slow moving industry. The use of solutions like Precision Farming, Autonomous Equipment, Improved Cold Chain Management and Index-based /Data-driven Financing and Insurance are starting to show impressive results.

It’s really exciting to see the impact data driven IoT solutions are having on the sector. For example, we can already see improved predictability of yields attributed to real-time visibility into soil conditions, crop health and weather.  When these capabilities are used in combination, they help to lower risks to producers, insurers and the financers. In addition, these solutions can generate cross-sell/up-sell opportunities for crop protection and farm equipment companies which also base their product roadmaps on real world operational data, and the actual needs of the growers. As supply and demand of produce becomes more stable, the overall price volatility within the industry lessens, further reducing potential risk for traders, government organizations and entities. 

https://www.ibm.com/blogs/internet-of-things/iot-food-security/

EU Project aims to bring 'Internet of Things' to agriculture!

The Internet of Food & Farm 2020 (IoF2020) project investigates and fosters a large-scale implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) in the European farming and food sector. With a €30 million budget co-funded by the European Union, the project has the potential to bring a paradigm shift in this domain, by drastically improving productivity and sustainability - source.

It will demonstrate the added value of smart webs of connected objects, that are context-sensitive and can be identified, sensed and controlled remotely in the agri-food sector...

http://www.e-agriculture.org/news/eu-project-aims-bring-internet-things-agriculture

Dear Colleagues,

Good Day,

Please, see this interesting presentation related to the thread "Elecsys - Connection Agriculture to the Internet of Things (IoT)", press on the link to read it....

https://www.slideshare.net/JeffreyDDance/elecsys-connection-agriculture-to-the-internet-of-things-iot

Is Internet of Things (IoT) the future of agriculture?

Yes, a lot uses of Internet of Things (IoT) exist for agriculture. Also image and pattern recognition , like obstacle recognition for self driving agriculture related machine. We are working on obstacle recognition for self driving agriculture related machines as next to our enclosed publication.

Conference Paper A region finding method to remove the noise from the images ...

percision agriculture without using new technologies such as internet is not possible. It is importnat to point out that internet has a lot of application for agricultural extension

IBM recipes...

What are some of the tools that developers can use to build IoT apps quickly?

Since our offerings are based on IBM Bluemix, which is IBM’s PaaS offering, all foundational capabilities such as device integration, data storage, security and analytics are available as decomposable services, which can be quickly orchestrated to solve a real business problem. We have client libraries freely available on GitHub for most of the IoT device vendors today, which can help them jumpstart their IoT application development. Our online developer community has some of the richest and largest number of recipes (tutorials) covering step-wise procedure to build a quick business logic, which can is help rapid prototyping which can assist developers and technical managers bring fresh ideas to market faster.

Watson IoT Platform on IBM Bluemix offers Device Connect, Real-time analytics, Database services, Weather data and Cognitive services such as natural language processing, text/image analytics, machine learning, all as decomposable services. IBM supports Node-RED, which is a visual tool used for wiring together the Internet of Things in new and interesting ways, including hardware devices, APIs, and online services. Using Node-RED allows developers to orchestrate an IoT application easily.

https://developer.ibm.com/recipes/tutorials/

IoT as a solution for precision farming!

Understanding a natural intelligence is the most systematic way of developing the internet of things. We know that each single-celled organism tries to survive. They usually follow the rule of “do the right thing at the right time.” In reality, IoT solves the same simple problem for communication points that agriculture intelligence has tried to solve for many years: precision farming. Different machines, animals and plants on different fields try to communicate with each other, as well different IoT devices...

Precision farming is a new farming management concept tailored to the specific conditions of every field, which uses sensor integration, automatic control, information processing and network communications capabilities. To provide a suitable growth environment for the plant in a more energy-efficient and cost-saving way, farmers could use the system for remote monitoring and factory automation management...

http://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/blog/IoT-Agenda/IoT-as-a-solution-for-precision-farming

First Call for Papers to the 1st International Workshop on Intelligent Systems for Agriculture Production and Environment Protection (ISAPEP’17)

Co-located event in Intelligent Environments 2017

http://isapep.ucam.edu/

Is Internet of Things (IoT) the future of agriculture? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_Internet_of_Things_IoT_the_future_of_agriculture/1 [accessed Feb 28, 2017].

It is also important to remark that the application of IoT can bring important impact not only to highly technified exploitations, but also to farms with a medium and even

lower degree of technology adoption. There is room for IoT- induced improvements

in all cases, although the approach, application case and technology selection may vary for different degrees of technification.

The complexity of smart farming results from the diversity and heterogeneity of the ecosystem of players. The range of stakeholders in agriculture is broad, ranging from big business, finance, engineering, chemical companies, food retailers to industry associations and groupings through small suppliers of expertise in all the specialist areas of farming. Here we include technology providers (i.e. providers of wireless connectivity, sensors/actuators, edge devices, IoT solutions, decision support systems at the back office, data analytical systems, geomapping applications, smartphone apps, etc.), providers of agricultural equipment and machinery (tractors, autonomous equipment, farm buildings, etc.), providers of specialist products and inputs (e.g. seeds, feeds, and expertise in crop management and animal husbandry), end-users (i.e. farmers, farming associations and cooperatives), and influencers (e.g. stakeholders that set prices, influence the market into which farmers and growers sell their products). When considering the food safety chain, additional actors must be included as well: food processors, transporter s, wholesalers, retailers, and eventually, the consumers. This calls for the necessary involvement of all of them following a so-called multi-actor approach.

From the point of view of the supply side, the future adoption of IoT - based solutions and services within the ‘from farm to fork’ chain should have an important impact in terms of market opportunity for hardware providers, software providers, network/connectivity providers, and final service providers/integrators, which in turn, should translate in the generation of specific jobs in those different subsectors.

Based on the previous information, WG06 has identified the stakeholders of the value chain in smart farming and food safety in both sides –“from farm to fork” supply chain and IoT providers. This implies complex partnerships involving cro

ss domain collaboration, with various stakeholders and partners bringing different skills and experience. Next image shows a first approximation that could cover the main roles involved.

From: Smart Farming and Food Safety Internet of Things Applications – Challenges for Large Scale Implementations  AIOTI WG06 – Smart Farming and Food Safety 2015

http://www.aioti.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/AIOTIWG06Report2015.pdf

Dear Colleagues,

Good Day,

"IoT and Agriculture: How the Internet of Things is Changing Agricultural Operations

Posted by Davra Networks • Wednesday, August 26, 2015

When most people think about the internet, they do not immediately think about agriculture. Instead, most people think about their computers or their smartphones. Little do people know, Internet of Things (IoT) technology is allowing farmers to connect devices to the internet in order to improve agricultural operations. IoT technology is allowing farmers to leverage the internet to reduce waste, better pest control, streamline livestock management, and increase productivity."......

Please, see the link for more detail.....

http://www.davranetworks.com/news/iot-and-agriculture-how-the-internet-of-things-is-changing-agricultural-operations

The farming industry will become arguably more important than ever before in the next few decades.

The world will need to produce 70% more food in 2050 than it did in 2006 in order to feed the growing population of the Earth, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. To meet this demand, farmers and agricultural companies are turning to the Internet of Things for analytics and greater production capabilities.

Technological innovation in farming is nothing new. Handheld tools were the standards hundreds of years ago, and then the Industrial Revolution brought about the cotton gin. The 1800s brought about grain elevators, chemical fertilizers, and the first gas-powered tractor. Fast forward to the late 1900s, when farmers start using satellites to plan their work.

The IoT is set to push the future of farming to the next level. Smart agriculture is already becoming more commonplace among farmers, and high tech farming is quickly becoming the standard thanks to agricultural drones and sensors.

Below, we've outlined IoT applications in agriculture and how "Internet of Things farming" will help farmers meet the world's food demands in the coming years.

http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-of-things-smart-agriculture-2016-10?IR=T

How mixed reality and machine learning are driving innovation in farming?

If farms are to continue to feed the world’s population they will have to do so in manners both independent of, and accommodating to, the planet’s changing and highly variable climes.

But managing such progress, whether indoors or in the field, is a challenge unto itself. Monitoring acidity, soil nutrients and watering time for each plant for optimal growth is, at best, guesswork or, at worst, an afterthought. But it’s here new interactive technologies may shine. A small family of sensors can monitor a plant’s vitals and provide real-time updates to a remote server. Artificial intelligence’s younger cousin, machine learning, can study these vitals and the growth of some crops to anticipate future needs. Finally, augmented reality (AR), where informative images overlay or augment everyday objects, can help both farmers and gardeners to monitor and manage crop health.

Plant.IO* is one system that shows how it can be done: A cube of PVC pipes provides the frame for sensors, grow-lights, cameras and more. A remote server dedicated to machine learning analyzes growth and growth conditions and anticipates future plant needs. A set of AR-capable glasses provides to the user an image, or a representation, of the plant, regardless of location. If the AR device is capable, like the Microsoft HoloLens, it also can provide a means to interact with the plant by adjusting fertilizer, water flow, growth lights and more.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/17/how-mixed-reality-and-machine-learning-are-driving-innovation-in-farming/

With the current fast changing trends in all sectors, agriculture cannot be left behind. Most innovations needs internet of things as rightly put

My dear colleague @Zeljko has published fine chapter and conference paper 

Possibilities of applying robotic systems and smart sensor networks in integral agricultural apple production!

Possibilities of application of robotic systems and smart sensor networks in integral agricultural apple production!

Conference Paper Possibilities of application of robotic systems and smart se...

Conference Paper Possibilities of Applying Robotic Systems and Smart Sensor N...

Thank you for your comments and interesting points. At the end you mentioned: "I don't see IoT level of data acquiring and processing linked with higher productivity."

My short answer is that by adapting IoT in farms, more information and control in physical resources, processes, and environments is achieved. Accordingly, when it is implemented and fully operational, IoT can help farmers to increase their output and productivity.

IoT Case Studies

Bosch Asparagus farming sensors: "The quality of asparagus depends heavily on the temperature of the ground in which it’s grown. To control the temperature, farmers use a two-sided sheet of foil: the black side draws in sunlight to increase the heat of the asparagus bed, and the white side reflects light to cool the bed down. In order to make the right “black or white” decision, the farmer needs to measure the temperature of every field at least once each evening. That’s where we come in. Our IoT system frequently measures the temperatures of the bed at different levels and stores the data in the cloud. Then we provide this information plus additional analysis in a front-end interface, accessible anywhere, anytime."

TCS to help farmers detect crop diseases: Farmers in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab will be able to detect late blight disease in this season's potato crop through mobile phones, thanks to Tata Consultancy Services. In a pilot project being run by the IT major across a few villages in these states for the past two years, agricultural experts are able to gauge the crop's susceptibility to disease based on soil and weather (humidity, temperature and rainfall) parameters.

The agri-experts gather the information from a wireless sensor network spread across the farms and are able to determine the disease risk. "Now we will introduce a mobile application that will involve farmers in disease detection," says Dr Bhushan Jagyasi, a scientist at the TCS Innovation Lab in Mumbai. - Full Article

BBC: Kenyan farmer lauds internet as saviour of potato crop

IICD: Smart Phones Assist Farmers in Zambia in Faster Organic Certification

Chile: wireless sensor irrigation cuts water use in blueberry production

http://www.postscapes.com/smart-agriculture/

DRIVING EFFICIENCY IN AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY THROUGH THE INTERNET OF THINGS

https://www.accenture.com/in-en/insight-perspectives-natural-resources-driving-things

Hi RG members,

Just want to share how IoT is helping oyster industry in Australia by detecting & providing a conducive environment for oyster growth.

https://www.iothub.com.au/news/how-iot-is-helping-tasmanias-oyster-industry-436397

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY5tFq9o0tI

For farmers and growers, the Internet of Things has opened up extremely productive ways to cultivate soil and raise livestock with the use of cheap, easy-to-install sensors and an abundance of insightful data they offer. Prospering on this prolific build-up of the Internet of Things in agriculture, smart farming applications are gaining ground with the promise to deliver 24/7 visibility into soil and crop health, machinery in use, storage conditions, animal behavior, and energy consumption level.

The Kaa open-source IoT Platform is a crucial middleware technology that allows walking safely into the agriculture IoT field. By tying together different sensors, connected devices, and farming facilities, Kaa streamlines the development of smart farming systems to the maximum degree possible. Kaa is perfectly applicable for single-purpose smart farming products - such as smart metering devices, livestock trackers, or failure prediction systems - as well as for multi-device solutions, among which are resource mapping and farming produce analytics solutions.

Kaa is feature-rich and, as an open-source platform, grants full access to its modules for any necessary modifications, extensions, or integrations. Out of the box, Kaa already provides a set of ready-to-use components for a quick start with smart farming applications. After all, farming is all about connecting with nature - leave everything else to Kaa.

https://www.kaaproject.org/agriculture/

IoT is an ecosystem of billions of identifiable devices and machinery of all forms, sizes and shapes that are connected to a universal internet network; which can be controlled or managed through the internet and made to perform tasks with little or no intervention.

http://www.dospeedtest.com/blog/internet-of-things-and-india/

Internet of Things Platform for Smart Farming: Experiences and Lessons Learnt

Prem Prakash Jayaraman, Ali Yavari, Dimitrios Georgakopoulos, Ahsan Morshed and Arkady Zaslavsky. Sensors 2016, 16, 1884, 1-17. http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/16/11/1884/pdf

Emerging IoT technologies, such as IoT devices (e.g., wireless sensor networks, network-connected weather stations, cameras, and smart phones) can be used to collate vast amount of environmental and crop performance data, ranging from time series data from sensors, to spatial data from cameras, to human observations collected and recorded via mobile smart phone applications. Such data can then be analysed to filter out invalid data and compute personalised crop recommendations for any specific farm.

Study about IOT's application in "Digital Agriculture" construction (2011) By Weimei Zhang

Abstract: Along with acceleration of various countries' digitization and informationization, according to the 12th 5-year development plan, the internet of things (IOT) will become one of Chinese emerging strategic industries. Based on the analysis of IOT's basic concept and key technology, this paper studies IOT's application in "Digital Agriculture" construction. The main contents include: IOT's application in agricultural production, IOT's application in logistics and distribution of agricultural products, and IOT's application in agricultural products safety traceability.

Published in: International Conference onElectrical and Control Engineering (ICECE), 2011 

Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 24 October 2011

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6057405/

http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/16/11/1884/pdf

From the same author:  Internet of things: from internet scale sensing to smart services!

In this paper we present an overview of a collection of IoT solutions (which we have developed in partnerships with other prominent IoT innovators and refer to them collectively as IoT platform) for addressing these technical challenges and help springboard IoT to its potential. We also describe a variety of IoT applications that have utilized the proposed IoT platform to provide smart IoT services in the areas of smart farming, smart grids, and smart manufacturing. Finally, we discuss future research and a vision of the next generation IoT infrastructure...

Two more papers follow.

Article Internet of things: from internet scale sensing to smart services

Article Do-it-Yourself Digital Agriculture applications with semanti...

Chapter Addressing Information Processing Needs of Digital Agricultu...

Practical IoT deployment on Smart Manufacturing and Smart Agriculture based on an Open Source Platform!

This chapter introduces successful deployments of the OpenIoT platform in the manufacturing and farming domains by means of smart applications. OpenIoT is an award-winner open source platform for building and deployment semantically interoperable IoT deployments in the cloud. It allows the streaming and semantic unification of diverse data streams in the cloud, while at the same time offering visual tools for developing and deploying applications. The presentation of the deployments aims at providing application examples (case studies), which could be extended and replicated in the same or even other domains. The smart manufacturing application illustrates the streaming of numerous manufacturing plant sensors within a cloud infrastructure, along with their combination and use in order to dynamically define and calculate indicators of manufacturing performance. The merit of this approach is that it allows plant managers to dynamically compose and exploit the various sensors, rather than relying on a closed limited set of predefined indicators. The smart agriculture application illustrates the large-scale collection and processing of sensor-derived information for optimizing crop management. To this end, appropriate reports are created and offered to bio-plant experts, which accordingly can interpret the measure for crop optimization...

Chapter Practical IoT deployment on Smart Manufacturing and Smart Ag...

Thank you all for interesting comments and introducing useful links. Have a better understanding of how IoT relates to Agriculture now? I certainly have. What other applications can you think of? Share with us in here!   

Where did my cattle go!

Imagine it’s winter. There is 18 inches of fresh snow on the ground, and the wind is conveniently blowing at 30 MPH.  You go to move the herd under shelter to minimize livestock loss, and discover that there are three cattle missing. If every animal has a GPS ear tag, you could pull up an app on your smart phone and determine the location of each animal.  You can then get to them quickly and move them in with the rest of the herd, avoiding loss of livestock. 

Alternatively, perhaps you have put the herd out to graze the harvested corn field that is 640 acres. As you bring them all in to take back to the feedlot, you realize you are several head short.  So you pull up your mobile app and track where they are to immediately minimize your time searching. Maybe one even left your field boundary; you could be alerted whenever your livestock leave a predefined area (geofence) and avoid having to bother your neighbor for help.  In any of the above scenarios, time is money and saving this time can allow you to accomplish more. 

Small, remote sensors, such as a GPS tag in this example, can send data across a network, exact location data in this case, so that an application can process it and present it to you in a value added fashion. The examples that can be presented extend to planting, harvesting, and general daily operations for the modern farmer. 

http://blog.iseinc.biz/iot-and-agriculture-examples-applications