Literature Review: IoT-Based Pest and Disease Control in Agriculture

This report presents a literature review and project proposal focused on the application of Internet of Things (IoT) technology in agriculture, specifically for the control of pests and diseases affecting crops. The study emphasizes the challenges faced by farmers in India, including crop losses due to pests and diseases, and the limitations of traditional chemical-based control methods. The proposed system utilizes IoT devices, including sensors, to monitor environmental conditions, detect pest infestations and diseases, and transmit data to farmers via a cloud-based platform. The system aims to provide real-time information and mitigation measures to farmers, facilitating prompt action to minimize crop losses and improve food security. The research methodology includes content analysis, questionnaires, surveys, and interviews to gather and analyze data. The report highlights the potential of IoT to revolutionize agriculture by enabling precision farming techniques, improving crop yields, and reducing environmental impact. The literature review covers the current state of IoT applications in agriculture, focusing on wireless monitoring, data analysis, and smart farming practices, and proposes a system with a mobile app in the local language for ease of use. The project scope is limited to popular crops in India like tomato, vegetables, cucumber, maize, kales, and tea leaves, and targets farmers and administrative staff as the primary users.

Literature review
Farming and livestock rearing has remains the main contributor of our countries GDP. This is the
backbone of many economies of the world. However, agriculture hasn’t enough attention from
technology community compared to other sectors such as manufacturing and information
technology. This sector faces a lot of challenges; crop diseases, livestock diseases, crop and
animal pests. Taking control management of these challenges will boost food security and
improve the economy of the country. The traditional method of pests control and diseases
management has been the use of chemicals which are not environment friendly.
Over the past few years, technology have changed the way farming is conducted in various parts
of the world. The introduction of wireless real time monitoring of pest and diseases has improve
over time (Meru University of Science and Technology, 2019). With the advent of Internet of
Things farmers can obtain information about anything from the farm; humid, soil content
(Galande, Agrawal & Dighe, 2015), plant diseases and crop pest (Dang, Sun, Chanet, Garcia-
Vidal, Barcelo-Ordinas, Shi, & Hou, 2013) using sensors that are fitted to the target place.
Farmers can then act on the given data promptly to avoid losses from their farms. IoT
applications is expected to bring a paradigm shift in farming through the uses of intelligent
devices and automation of production processes. It is uses a chain or network that connected to
everything from people to devices, people to people and devices to devices. Through these, the
devices communicate via the network and take every information that is then processed by the
microcontroller for the next action.

References
Meru University of Science and Technology. (2019). Electronic Device for Real Time
Monitoring of Crop Disease and Pests - Meru University of Science and Technology.
[online] Available at: https://www.must.ac.ke/electronic-device-real-time-monitoring-
crop-disease-pests/ [Accessed 5 Oct. 2019].
Dang, K., Sun, H., Chanet, J. P., Garcia-Vidal, J., Barcelo-Ordinas, J. M., Shi, H. L., & Hou, K.
M. (2013, September). Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network for plant disease detections.
Galande S. G., Agrawal G.H., Dighe S.B. (2015): Greenhouse Microclimatic Real-Time
Monitoring with the Help of NPK Sensor. International Journal of Emerging Trends in
Science and Technology, 2(5): 2511-2515.