An Overview of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Data Analytics in Agriculture: Benefits and Challenges

This research paper provides an overview of the Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics in agriculture, highlighting the benefits and challenges of IoT in this field.

Internet of thing

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Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Main idea...............................................................................................................................................2
Critical analysis......................................................................................................................................3
Critical evaluation..................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The title of this research paper is “An Overview of the Internet of Things (IoT)
and Data Analytics in Agriculture: Benefits and Challenges” which was written by
Olakunle Elijah, Tharek Abdul Rahman, Igbafe Orikumhi, Chee Yen Leow and Nour
Hindia in the year 2018. This journal paper focuses on the internet of thing and data
analytics in agriculture and highlights the advantages and disadvantages of IoT (Elijah,
Rahman, Orikumhi, Leow, & Hindia, 2018). The key objective of this paper is to
understand the concept of the internet of thing and discussed the importance of IoT and
data analytics techniques in the field of agriculture. Moreover, the researchers also
provided enough information about the key challenges faced by the internet of thing
technique. According to the researchers, the internet of thing is one of the advanced
techniques which are used in the field of agriculture and smart cities.
Main idea
According to this research study the IoT is defined as the internet of thing that
has the potential to connect two or more physical devices with each other by using
internet connectivity. The major objective of this technology is to integrate the
electronic and physical devices with virtual things by using communication channels.
The main idea explained by the researchers is that the IoT is one of the best techniques
which can be used in the field of agriculture for controlling and monitoring the
environmental factors. The researcher highlighted that by using the internet of thing
and data analytics technique consumers can improve the performance and systems
used in agriculture and it also provides large operational efficiency.
It is observed that agriculture is the best application of the Internet of thing
where farmers can improve productivity, quality and profit. After analysing this journal
paper it has been identified that the wireless sensor networks are very effective
technologies which can be used in IoT for sending and receiving data from one location
to another (Al-Fuqaha, Guizani, Mohammadi, Aledhari, & Ayyash, 2015). The
researchers also discussed that there are major four components of the IoT in the field
of agriculture, for example, IoT devices, communication techniques, data processing and
data storage.

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The authors evaluated that IoT devices and sensors provide a platform to
farmers for controlling and monitoring the various farm variables, for example, weather
data and soil nutrients and key elements which affect the production in agriculture.
Another main idea explained by the researchers is wireless sensor networks integrate
various kinds of information technologies, for example, cloud computing, middleware
system, end user application and so on. However, the researchers identified the key
challenges faced by the internet of thing and suggested that security is one of the biggest
problems due to which consumers can lose their private details.
Critical analysis
This paper is completely based on the internet of thing and data analytics
technologies and the researchers also discussed a real world application of IoT
technique in agriculture. It is analysed that the internet of thing is an effective
information technology which can be used for communication purpose. In the area of
agriculture the IoT technology connect various physical devices with each other and
manage the performance of the products.
The research question of this research paper is “what is the role of IoT and data
analytic technologies in agriculture and what are benefits and challenges of IoT. The
researchers critically analysed and focused on this research question. However, it is
observed that sensors and devices used in IoT technology can help farmers for
controlling and handling soil properties, mechanical resistance, and soil air
permeability (Li, Da Xu, & Zhao, 2015). According to the investigators the sensors used
in the agriculture divided into major four categories such as location sensors, optical
sensors, mechanical sensors, and electrochemical sensors.
From this paper, it has been analysed that there are various key factors
regarding IoT due to which it can be used in the agriculture for example power
efficiency, more effective technique, easy to design and implement and more reliable
rather than other. It is observed that the researchers used the wireless sensors
networks for communication purpose because wireless networks have the potential to
send and receive data over long distance.

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The authors found that communication technology plays a significant role in the
field of the internet of thing. There are several kinds of communication technologies
used in agriculture such as spectrum, standard communication, application scenario,
and other wireless networks (Botta, De Donato, Persico, & Pescapé, 2016). The
researchers used various research methodologies for improving the effectiveness of the
paper such as research design, research strategies, qualitative method, quantitative
process, data collection methods and secondary research method.
All these methods help the researchers for finding key factors associated with
the Internet of thing and achieve aims or objectives of this study (Christidis, &
Devetsikiotis, 2016). The qualitative research design focused on the theoretical
information about the Internet of thing and quantitative process focused on numerical
data about the research topic. This journal paper involved a survey of the published
paper and the findings of previous studies. However, the secondary data and facts about
IoT and application of IoT in agriculture are collected from various resources, for
example, previous papers, online books, research studies, and other sources (Whitmore,
Agarwal, & Da Xu, 2015).
Critical evaluation
From this paper, it is observed that the selection of communication technology
depends on the type of topology used for agriculture. There are major four kinds of
topologies used in the field of the internet of things such as peer to peer, star, ring and
mesh topologies. In the field of peer to peer topology, the full function device is used
and in a star topology, the reduced function device is used (Razzaque, Milojevic-Jevric,
Palade, & Clarke, 2016). Internet connectivity plays a crucial character on the internet of
thing because IoT connects physical devices with each other and exchange data or
signals by using internet connections.
It is identified that the intent of thing requires a high level of security because it
deals with internet connectivity which is associated with the data breach and hacking.
In order to achieve the connectivity of heterogeneous system and devices over the
internet connection, the internet of thing devices are being developed and implemented.

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After analysing this journal paper it has been found that security and privacy
both are major key factors that are linked with the internet of thing and lack of security
can increase the problem of hacking in the system (Islam, Kwak, Kabir, Hossain, &
Kwak, 2015). In the last few years, there are few IT systems have been developed in
order to control and manage the agricultural data or information. For example, On-farm
system, easyfarm, farmlogs, KAA, and so on all these provide a platform to farmers for
controlling and managing data.
It has been evaluated that during the development of the IoT system for
agriculture the researcher should focus on communicational factors such as distance,
data rate, battery life, security and resilience. The researchers suggested that LPWA is
one of the best techniques which can be used in the development of IoT system for
agriculture. The wireless sensor networks can be sued in the field of agriculture for
sending and receiving data over long distance and the researchers also provided their
viewpoints on wireless networks (Dastjerdi, & Buyya, 2016).
From this paper, it is evaluated that there are numbers of real examples of
agriculture where internet of thing technology is used more effectively such as crop,
machinery, water quality controlling, livestock, pest control and soil monitoring. This
journal paper also added the viewpoints of other experts and researchers for
understanding the importance of the internet of thing in agriculture (Sicari, Rizzardi,
Grieco, & Coen-Porisini, 2015). It is very important to monitor the performance of
computer devices used in IoT system and there are key factors to be monitors that
highlighted by the researchers.
These factors involve crop farming, aquaponics, forestry, livestock farming and
so on. In the end, the researchers discussed the benefits and challenges faced by IoT
technology in agriculture. Community farming, safety control and fraud prevention,
competitive benefits, wealth creation and distribution, cost reduction and wastage,
operation efficiency all these are several advantages of the internet of thing technology.
According to the investigators, there are few challenges or limitations of the
internet of thing technology such as business issues, more expensive, technical issues
like interference, security, selection of technology and reliability issues. The major
strength of this paper is that the researchers provided an in-depth analysis of the

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research topic and provided key facts about the internet of thing technology (Lee, & Lee,
2015).
In order to improve the effectiveness of the paper, the authors adopted
secondary research method and analysed the findings or results of previous research
studies. There are several weaknesses of this paper, for example, provided only
theoretical information about the internet of thing, did not provide techniques to
improve the security of IoT, did not conduct a survey for collecting opinions of other
participants and did not provide any information about technologies used in the
development of IoT project of agriculture.
Conclusion
From the above conversation, it has been concluded that the internet of thing is
an effective technology which can be used in the field of agriculture. In this journal
paper, the researchers indicated the key factors linked with the internet of thing and
also discussed the parameters involved in the internet of thing technology during the
development of the agriculture system. In future, the researcher will reduce the
drawbacks of this study and will involve methods for improving the security of the IoT
technology.

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References
Al-Fuqaha, A., Guizani, M., Mohammadi, M., Aledhari, M., & Ayyash, M. (2015). Internet of
things: A survey on enabling technologies, protocols, and applications. IEEE
communications surveys & tutorials, 17(4), 2347-2376.
Botta, A., De Donato, W., Persico, V., & Pescapé, A. (2016). Integration of cloud
computing and the internet of things: a survey. Future generation computer
systems, 56, 684-700.
Christidis, K., & Devetsikiotis, M. (2016). Blockchains and smart contracts for the
internet of things. Ieee Access, 4, 2292-2303.
Dastjerdi, A. V., & Buyya, R. (2016). Fog computing: Helping the Internet of Things
realize its potential. Computer, 49(8), 112-116.
Elijah, O., Rahman, T. A., Orikumhi, I., Leow, C. Y., & Hindia, M. N. (2018). An overview of
the Internet of things (IoT) and data analytics in agriculture: Benefits and
challenges. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 5(5), 3758-3773.
Islam, S. R., Kwak, D., Kabir, M. H., Hossain, M., & Kwak, K. S. (2015). The internet of
things for health care: a comprehensive survey. IEEE Access, 3, 678-708.
Lee, I., & Lee, K. (2015). The Internet of Things (IoT): Applications, investments, and
challenges for enterprises. Business Horizons, 58(4), 431-440.
Li, S., Da Xu, L., & Zhao, S. (2015). The internet of things: a survey. Information Systems
Frontiers, 17(2), 243-259.
Razzaque, M. A., Milojevic-Jevric, M., Palade, A., & Clarke, S. (2016). Middleware for the
internet of things: a survey. IEEE Internet of things journal, 3(1), 70-95.
Sicari, S., Rizzardi, A., Grieco, L. A., & Coen-Porisini, A. (2015). Security, privacy and trust
in the Internet of Things: The road ahead. Computer networks, 76, 146-164.
Whitmore, A., Agarwal, A., & Da Xu, L. (2015). The Internet of Things—A survey of topics
and trends. Information Systems Frontiers, 17(2), 261-274.

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Wortmann, F., & Flüchter, K. (2015). Internet of things. Business & Information Systems
Engineering, 57(3), 221-224.