Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO: 2347-3150

A Survey of Internet of Things (IoT) in Agriculture

Rahul Keru Patil Dr. Suhas Shivlal Patil
Assistant Professor Associate Professor
E and TC Department Electronics Department
SVPM’s College of Engineering K.B.P.College of Engineering
Baramati, PIN - 413102 Satara, PIN - 415001
Abstract
This paper ventilate the use of Internet of Things in Agriculture applications. Internet of Things (IoT)
enabling the platform for the research in agriculture and environmental monitoring domains. IoT
enable Technologies now become the most boon of farmers. In contravention of newer concept in the
agriculture industry, there has been a tremendous popularity in the agriculture with the benefit of smart
farming. IoT helps farmers to in- crease the quantity, quality, conservation and cost effectiveness of
agriculture production. The trending and future technologies like IoT, Digital Image Processing,
wireless sensor networks has demonstrate their evitable accomplishment in different applications
individually. The idea of work manages combining these advancements in agriculture sector which
requires present day mechanical impressions.
Keywords: Internet of Things, Precision Agriculture, Wireless Sensor Networks, Arduino, Drones.
I. INTRODUCTION
Agriculture is one of the rare industries where the technologies has not been accepted in the large
scale, one of the reasons behind that is the economic condition of most of the farmers in India or any
developing country.
II. LITERATURE SURVEY
2.1 Need
Increase the yield of crops is the current need of any farmer. This is possible if he do continuous
monitoring land parameters and disease identification for taking further corrective action. So using
Internet of Things technologies in agriculture applications for increasing the yield of crops.
2.2 Internet of things (IoT)
The internet of Things (IoT) [1] is the latest buzz word in everywhere. Internet of Things objects
are connected with sensors or controlled remotely across existing network and create direct integration
to computer. IoT is continuously getting momentum rapidly and predicted to be the most significant
factor that impacts fundamental business logic in the future in all the industry. Through the Internet of
Things, improved efficiency and more accuracy can be obtained with the result of economic benefit in
addition to reduction of human intervention.
Internet of Things (IoT) applications can be evolved between the people, between people and things,
between things and things. Presently there are about 4.6 billion connected devices (excluding phones,
tablets and laptops) and also expected to increase to 15.3 billion in next five years according to the
Ericsson mobility report. According to Business insider intelligence report, in worldwide 34 billion
number of IoT connected devices will be in use by the year 2020. IoT applications [2] can be found in
every industry including application for smart homes, smart buildings, transportation, Health and
personal care, retailing, smart farming, construction industry and so on.
Since the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to gain momentum rapidly, IoT ensures benefits in
different horizons in every industry.

Volume IX, Issue VI, JUNE/2020 617

Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO: 2347-3150

2.3 IoT in Agriculture

Internet of Things (IoT) has made the tremendous changes and gained prominent role in agriculture.
Internet of Things (IoT) is a shared network of objects or things which can interact with each other
provided the Internet connection. Agriculture will become more important than ever before in the next
coming decades. According to the UN Food and Agriculture report. The world will need to produce
70% more food in 2050 in order to meet the need of estimated world population of 9.6 billion people
.To meet this demand, there are so many technologies are being adopted in IoT. Smart Agriculture
helps to reduce wastage, effective usage of fertilizer and thereby increase the crop yield. IOT technology
can reduce the cost and enhance the productivity of farming .Agriculture industry is accountable for
fulfill the need of food.

2.4 Need for digitization of agriculture

Internet of Things (IoT ) plays a crucial role to meet the growing needs of food in agriculture and
resulting of improving the efficiency by effective use of inputs like soil, fertilizers and pesticides,
monitoring the livestock, predict the pest and diseases, scanning storage capacities like water tank level
, monitor the crops are fed and watered well. Smart farming increases the productivity with a reduced
cost. Smart farming is a rapid catch concept in the agricultural business. Farmers are using various
technologies including sensors, drones, smart irrigation, terrain contour mapping, self-driving and GPS
enabled tractors, robota to get the result of efficient food production and conservation more sustainably.

the

human

Re
ote

Need for Digitization [23]

There will be heavy pressure on existing agricultural land to ramp up the adequate production for
future decades. Agriculture has a significant role as it has witnessed profound changes during
successive decades using IoT. Internet of Things (IoT) has made tremendous changes and gained
prominence role in agriculture [3] as to improve the farming and there by farmers can improve the
productivity with cost reduction and aslo can be monitored the field even in remote. Besides crop
monitoring weather monitoring and smart irrigation many farming activities easily access in smart
farming using IoT. In smart farming [4] , farm land can sense process and precisely measure the
environmental data in platform where the technologies includes sensors, microcontrollers, transmitters
and drones and more.

Volume IX, Issue VI, JUNE/2020 618

Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO: 2347-3150

2.5 Productivity

Smart farming is a buzz word popular among agriculturalists. IoT plays phenomenon role in making
agriculture smarter, economy. Now a days it’s very critical to yields from every acre of land dedicated
to food production. In order to overcome the farming issues as to meet the demand, farmers are
implementing various IoT enabled techniques to enhance the productivity with existing farm land. IOT
technology helps in collecting information about conditions like weather, moisture, temperature and
fertility of soil, Crop online monitoring enables detection of weed, level of water, pest detection and
animal intrusion in to the field, crop growth, and agriculture. IoT enabled Smart farming Benefits of
IoT smart farming Enhance the productivity Reduced the human intervention Remote access Reduced
the cost crop monitoring g conservation n sensors, drones, smart driving and GPS result of efficient
food production and conservation more sustainably. There will be heavy pressure on existing
agricultural land for future decades. a significant role as it has witnessed angels during successive
decades using ) has made tremendous changes and gained prominence role in agriculture[3] as to
improve the farming and there by farmers can improve and also can be the field even in remote. Besides
crop monitoring weather monitoring and smart irrigation as farming activities easily access in smart
farming , farm land can sense, the environmental data in platform where the technologies includes
sensors ,micro and more. Smart farming is a buzz word and getting plays phenomenon efficient and
very critical to maximize yields from every acre of land dedicated to food the farming issues and are
implementing the various IoT enabled techniques to enhance the productivity with existing farm land.
IOT technology helps in collecting information about conditions like weather, moisture, temperature
and fertility of soil, Crop f weed, level of water, pest detection, animal intrusion in to the field, crop
enabled Smart farming systems.

2.6 Pest Control

Every crop requires different atmosphere and should be monitored in appropriate time. Crop should
free from pest and weed .Healthy crop yield the maximum production or else farmers have to suffer
from big financial loss. It’s very critical to identify the pest in whole crop production. Pest control
sensors monitor the pest population and environmental parameter [5]. Implementing the IoT enabled
pest control sensors, farmers can track the complete record of pests attack .Based on the data, and
pesticides are automatically sprayed in to the field. Wireless sensor networks monitor and detects the
pest population is high, its metered chemical delivery system automatically activates and keep crop
healthier.
2.7 Conservation

Farming is crucial to carry out the various farming activities and ensures the maximum yield. It’s
entirely depending on right irrigation based on perfect weather, pest management, crop management
and more .Despite even right irrigation facility and traditional activities, sometimes farmers should face
the drought and flood condition or pest attack. In order to overcome such problems, farmers require
precise. Internet of Things enabled technology helps to make precision and collect real time information
to help minimize waste, prevent over and under watering and proactively manage water costs. Besides,
IoT embedded wireless devices and soil monitoring systems helps farmers can measure moisture detect
leaks and more efficiently, manage energy usage, pest management, everything in real time. Smart
technology makes easier that all the activities can be done from a distance. Implanting remote sensor,
farmers can plan cultivation, irrigation and harvesting time, according to soil temperature, humidity,
weather condition. In such perfect environment, farmers can conserve the crop and can enhance the
productivity.

Volume IX, Issue VI, JUNE/2020 619

Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO: 2347-3150

2.8 Applications and Contribution of IoT in Agriculture

The Internet of things (IOT) is reconstructing the agriculture industry by enabling the farmer with
wide range of techniques to face challenges in the field. With the IoT enabled Techniques, Farmers get
connected to his farm from anywhere and anytime. Wireless Sensor Networks are used for monitoring
the farm and micro controllers are used to control and automating the farming processes. Wireless
cameras and sensors have been used to view the farm remotely and to can determine the conditions in
the form of images and video. A smart phone can also empowers farmer to update with the ongoing
conditions of farm land using IOT at anytime and anywhere of the world. IOT enabled technologies can
reduce the cost and enhance the productivity .Smart sensors have been placed for monitoring, irrigation,
pest management and prediction of weather to ensure the quality crop cultivation. a series of some other
IoT enabled technologies are also used for Tracking the condition of farming equipment’s; Smart
irrigation system fueled by information related temperature and humidity; auto temperature for storage
space; Detect and tracking of pests to instantly regulate the pest control system; Internet of Things
applications are getting more prominence in agriculture which include precision Agriculture, crop ,field
monitoring, farm vehicle tracking, livestock monitoring, storage monitoring, and much more. For
example Soil sensors will alert farmer’s about the abnormal and irregular conditions like high acidity,
which leads to give time to farmer for reconcile the issue and produce crops in better .Some of the
applications and contributions of IoT as discussed.

2.9 Precision Agriculture

Precision agriculture is the farming technology using IoT. It predominantly involves the processing
and analyzing of gathered data in the field to determine efficient crop production. In precision
agriculture farmers collect the data using sensor and analyzed for forecast. Collected data helps to plan
the farming activities and helps farmers to know what seeds to plant, the amount of fertilizer they need
to use, the best time to harvest and the expected crop outputs. Implementation of IoT, farmers can also
monitor the field using sensors to detect soil moisture, crop growth and livestock feed levels. The
sensors are able to remotely manage and control irrigation equipment. The IoT connected devices
analyses the collected data on the land allowing datain formed decisions on planning the resources and
harvesting of crops. The traditional method of farming to increase yield and protect crops was dependent
on physical evaluation and sometimes is there any problem, it can be rectified mostly after severence
affecting the farm and can be resulted in trial and error basis. But in Precision agriculture using IoT
applications, everything can be precise earlier and can act as per collected data accordingly. ioT
technologies which are helping farmers to increase the quantity with quality, sustainability and cost
effectiveness of agricultural production. Farmers should face with a number of challenges such as water
shortages and flood; the limited availability of suitable lands for crop plantations; and management of
costs. By implementation of internet of things system and related technologies helps the farmers reduce
potential missteps and maximize yields.

2.10 Crop- Field monitoring

IoT sensors are capable of providing information about soil moisture, temperature, humidity, Light crop
yields, rainfall, pest , and soil nutrition are invaluable to production and provides precise data to improve
farming techniques over the time. The data collected from sensors ensure that all the farming operations
are executed well and effectively. In IoT enable crop-field monitoring system, farmers can easily precise
the activities as per the information transmitted. In smart field system using IoT, sensors will be placed
in field [23]. Data will be collected from the Sensors and collected data will be sent to Web server
database using wireless transmission. The data are encoded in JAVA Script Object Notation (JSON)

Volume IX, Issue VI, JUNE/2020 620

Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO: 2347-3150

format in server database.

IoT in Farm

Agriculture Internet of Things ensures accurate and timely communication of real time data Thereby
farmers can take the appropriate and dynamic decision in agricultural processes like plantation,
irrigation, harvesting and farmers are able to plan their course of action prior and take preventive
measures for future contingency
In Smart Field monitoring system, Different Sensors have been placed in the field like
 Sensor for soil moisture.
 Sensor for Controlling water irrigation according to need of plant.
 Sensors for Detect the pest and appropriate level of fertilizers.
 Determining the optimal time to plant and harvest.
 Sensor for knowing weather conditions.
Sensors and connected devices have been used farming as to achieve best result in production.
2.11 Smart irrigation system
Adequate water is an essential for agriculture and the crops can be damaged in either situation of
excess of water supply or scarcity of water supply. Water supply at the right time at the right quantity
is vital for crop’s growth. Internet of Things enabled technology works on integration of Web Map
Service (WMS) and Sensor Observation Service (SOS) and provides a solution about water
requirement, supply for optimum irrigation. Agriculture Internet of Things analyses the water
requirement of crop and utilizes the water resource as to reduce wastage of water and conservation of
crop.

Volume IX, Issue VI, JUNE/2020 621

Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO: 2347-3150

With the use of connecting humidity sensors, water valves can easily manage water supply of irrigation.
Humidity sensor smartly measure the soil moisture and operate automatically as per the data without
any human interventions. Leakage in the water pipes can also be detected. In drought areas Crop water
management operates efficiently and IoT proves its great value as it manages the limited water supply
smartly with least wastage of water resource by calculating the valve operation timing and building
optimum irrigation strategy. Unauthorized water consumption also detectable (if any). IoT technology
helps conservation of water resources by monitoring irrigation through remote sensing technologies.
Smart connected sensor sprinkles the water supply work with smart way is a great example of the
application of IoT in agriculture [23]. Smart irrigation works with the water meters and sensors and
work automatically as per moisture level, smart water meters and sensors are connected with motor and
farm land. Smart connected meters notify about the water level and usage can help prevent misuse and
underutilization of water resources. The smart sensors helps to know about the moisture level in lands
and sensor data can operate in the meter by switching it off or on. The meter can be automatically
switched on or off depending on the need of irrigation and level of the water resource. Moreover, smart
sensors alert the farmers when detect the faults in the irrigation system in a real time and can easily
prevent draining of water.
2.12 Livestock monitoring
Livestock monitoring system is Cattle Watch system. This hardware/software cloud-based
technology is used to remotely monitor the health status of livestock and helps to identify location of
livestock under power sensor and communication platforms. Alert system is implied under this system.
The users are alerted by phone, text, or email if any condition falls outside of a preset parameter. As a
result, users can easily access the real-time data from their homes or offices even by smart phone. IoT
livestock monitoring system involves the placement of devices in the animals which assembles
comprehensive information about their bodies and gathers data on health of the livestock. Livestock
monitoring systems are used for cattle, broiler, swine and milk production. Wireless IoT applications
helps farmers to gather the data related to health and location of livestock and farmers are able to track
position, counting and other related information of livestock in cattle. Livestock monitoring system
ensures the real time data to identify sick animals and they can be pulled from the herd, also prevent
the spreading of disease.

2.13 Weather monitoring system

Climate and weather is most influencing factor in production of crop. Based on IoT enabled
weather monitoring system, farmers can determine the optimum time for Plantation, irrigation,
harvesting. In IoT application, Predictive weather models are constructed using sensors. By implanting

Volume IX, Issue VI, JUNE/2020 622

Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO: 2347-3150

the remote sensors which are placed in field, farmers are able to know the data about weather conditions
including status of the soil temperature, humidity, air temperature. Based on the data, farmers can plan
accordingly and change the harvest and irrigation time to improve the plant. By organizing and
analyzing collected data, farmers can take pre-emptive action for healthy harvest of their crops.

2.14 Smart Drones

Precision agriculture is based on the incorporation of advanced technologies in the crop
management and smart cattle management to increase the effective output. Drones are part of the
technology solution.

SOIL

AND
IRRIGATIO
N

Internet connected drones can help the farmers in the following ways Drones are used in the field for
precise early soil analysis, which are helpful in planning of seed planting patterns. After planting, drone-
driven soil analysis provides data for irrigation management. Drones are useful in planting in which
farmers can shoot pods with seeds and plant nutrients into the soil. Drones scan the ground and spray
the correct amount of irrigation and also monitoring the crops in the fields. Drones enable better crop
management and can improve the production efficiency. Based on the weather condition, drones make
the irrigation accordingly. Besides connected drones can be used for spraying pesticides when it detects
the pest and weeds and monitor the crops over time. Drones taking care of orchards and fields Offering
high-precision crop control, useful data collection, and automated farming techniques, there are clearly
many advantages a networked farm has to offer.
2.15 Self-driving and GPS enabled tractors
Smart farming is a concept quickly catching in the agriculture. PS based navigation for Tractors monitor
in a timely efficient manner. GPS devices and connected sensors on the field and in farming equipment
such as tractors generate real-time data that is stored in cloud based systems that can be accessed by
farmers via charts and reports to improve crop yields and water utilization. Self-driving and and GPS
enabled tractor is another IoT enabled application and results in efficient and reduce the human
intervention.

Volume IX, Issue VI, JUNE/2020 623

Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO: 2347-3150

III. CONCLUSION
The world is being inter connected and all the industry becoming smarter, intelligent and efficient.
One of the newest trends in agriculture is IoT technology in order to make smarter decisions, reduce
the costs, and boost production. IoT is new approach to driving efficiency and improving operations
and helps the farmer’s .IoT technologies to create a more efficient operation to improve production
output. The International Food Policy Research Institute reports reveals that agricultural technologies
could increase global crop production. In the next ten years, the smart agriculture market is predicted
and expected to witness a 4X growth (by the end of 2026, it will be a $40+ billion market). The hardware
component of the industry will be at the forefront of this growth, with more than 50% share in the
overall technological solutions for agriculture.

REFERENCES

[1] Nikesh Gondchawar, R. S. Kawitkar, "IoT based Smart Agriculture", International Journal of
Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering, vol. 5, no. 6, pp. 2278-1021, June
2016.
[2] anmay Baranwal, Nitika Pushpendra Kumar Pateriya, "Development of IoT based Smart Security
and Monitoring Devices for Agriculture" in 6th International Conference - Cloud System and Big Data
Engineering, IEEE, pp. 978–1-4673-8203-8/16, 2016.
[3] Mohamed Rawidean Mohd Kassim, Ibrahim Mat, Ahmad Nizar Harun, Wireless Sensor Network
in Precision Agriculture Application, pp. 978-1.
[4] Mohamed Rawidean Mohd Kassim, Ibrahim Mat, Ahmad Nizar Harun, "Wireless Sensor Network
in Precision agriculture application" in International conference on computer Information and
telecommunication systems (CITS), published in IEEE Xplore, July 2014.
[5] Na Li, Nan Zhang, Sajal K. Das, and Bhavani Thuraisingham,” Privacy preservation in wireless
sensor networks: A state-of-the-art survey”. Ad Hoc Networks 7 (2009) 1501–1514.
[6] Jean-Franois Raymond. Traffic analysis: Protocols, attacks, design issues and open problems. In
Proceedings of International Workshop on Design Issues in Anonymity and Unobservability, pages 10-
29. Springer- Verlag New York, Inc., 2001.
[7] Celal Ozturk, Yanyong Zhang, and Wade Trappe, “Source location privacy in energy-constrained
sensor network routing”. In SASN '04: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM workshop on Security of ad hoc
and sensor networks, pages 88-93, New York, NY, USA, 2004. ACM.
[8] Y. Xi, L. Schwiebert, W.S. Shi, Preserving source location privacy in monitoring-based wireless
sensor networks, in: Proceedings of the 20th International Parallel and Distributed Processing
Symposium (IPDPS 2006), April 2006.
[9] K. Mehta, Donggang Liu, and M. Wright. “Location privacy in sensor networks against a global
eavesdropper”. In IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols, 2007. ICNP 2007, pages 31-
323, October 2007
[10] Jing Deng, Richard Han, and Shivakant Mishra. Intrusion tolerance and anti-traffic analysis
strategies for wireless sensor networks. In DSN '04: Proceedings of the 2004 International Conference
on Dependable Systems and Networks, pages 637-646, Washington, DC, USA, 2004.IEEE Computer
Society.
[11] Yi Ouyang Zhengyi Le, Guanling Chen, James Ford, and Fillia Makedon., “Entrapping adversaries
for source protection in sensor networks”. In WOWMOM '06: Proceedings of the 2006 International
Symposium on World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks, pages 23-34,Washington, DC,
USA, 2006. IEEE Computer Society. [12] Jing Deng, Richard Han, and Shivakant Mishra. ,” Intrusion
tolerance and anti-traffic analysis strategies for wireless sensor networks”. In DSN '04: Proceedings of

Volume IX, Issue VI, JUNE/2020 624

Mukt Shabd Journal ISSN NO: 2347-3150

the 2004 International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, pages 637-646, Washington,
DC, USA, 2004. IEEE Computer Society.
[13] Y. Jian, S. Chen, Z. Zhang, and L. Zhang,”Protecting receiver-location privacy in wireless sensor
networks." May 2007, pp. 1955-1963
[14] Kong, J., Hong, X.:” Anodr: anonymous on demand routing with untraceable routesfor mobile ad-
hoc networks”. In: MobiHoc 2003: Proceedings of the 4th ACM international symposium on Mobile ad
hoc networking & computing, pp. 291–302.ACM, New York (2003)
[15] Nezhad, A.A., Makrakis, D., Miri, A.:” Destination Controlled Anonymous Routing in Resource
Constrained Multihop Wireless Sensor Networks”. In: Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks, December
2007. IFIP International Federation for InformationProcessing, vol. 248, pp. 83–94. Springer, Boston
(2007)
[16] Pfitzmann, A., Hansen, M.: Anonymity, unlinkability, undetectability, unobservability,
pseudonymity, and identity management - a consolidated proposal for terminology(February 2008)
[17] Seys, S., Preneel, “B.: Arm: Anonymous routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks”. In: AINA
2006: Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and
Applications, Washington, DC, USA, vol. 2, pp. 133–137. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos
(2006)
[18] Zhu, B., Wan, Z., Kankanhalli, M.S., Bao, F., Deng, R.H.: Anonymous secure routing in mobile
ad-hoc networks. In: LCN 2004: Proceedings of the 29th Annual IEEE International Conference on
Local Computer Networks, Washington, DC,USA, pp. 102–108. IEEE Computer Society, Los
Alamitos (2004)
[19] C. Ozturk, Y. Zhang, W. Trappe, “Source– location privacy for networks of energy-constrained
sensors”, in: WSTFEUS, 2004.
[20] J. Suurballe,” Disjoint paths in a network”, Network 4 (1974) 125–145.
[21] J. Suurballe, R. Tarjan,” A quick method for finding shortest pairs of disjoint paths”, Network 14
(1984) 325–336.
[22] S. Manoj Kumar N.Rajkumar W.Catherine “Dropping False Packet to Increase the Network
Lifetime of Wireless Sensor Network using EFDD Protocol” International Journal SPRINGER -
Journal of Wireless Personal Communication Volume 70, Issue 4 June 2013, Page 1697-1709.

[23] N. Vitheeka and S. Manoj Kumar, “ Cognitive Intelligence of Internet of Things (IoT) in
Agriculture Industry – A Primer Study o Smart Farming.”, IJPAM, 1835-1841, ISSN 1311-8080, 2018.

Volume IX, Issue VI, JUNE/2020 625