Exploring Barriers to the Adoption of Internet of Things-Based Precision Agriculture Practices

Gaganpreet Singh Hundal (), Chad Matthew Laux, Dennis Buckmaster, Mathias J Sutton and Michael Langemeier
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Gaganpreet Singh Hundal: Sociotechnical Systems Research Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Chad Matthew Laux: Purdue Polytechnic, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47905, USA
Dennis Buckmaster: College of Agriculture, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47905, USA
Mathias J Sutton: Purdue Polytechnic, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47905, USA

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: The production of row crops in the Midwestern (Indiana) region of the US has been facing environmental and economic sustainability issues. There has been an increase in trend for the application of fertilizers (nitrogen & phosphorus), farm machinery fuel costs and decreasing labor productivity leading to non-optimized usage of farm inputs. Literature describes how sustainable practices such as profitability (return on investments), operational cost reduction, hazardous waste reduction, delivery performance and overall productivity might be adopted in the context of precision agriculture technologies (variable rate irrigation, variable rate fertilization, cloud-based analytics, and telematics for farm machinery navigation). The literature review describes low adoption of Internet of Things (IoT)-based precision agriculture technologies, such as variable rate fertilizer (39%), variable rate pesticide (8%), variable rate irrigation (4%), cloud-based data analytics (21%) and telematics (10%) amongst Midwestern row crop producers. Barriers to the adoption of IoT-based precision agriculture technologies cited in the literature include cost effectiveness, power requirements, wireless communication range, data latency, data scalability, data storage, data processing and data interoperability. Therefore, this study focused on exploring and understanding decision-making variables related to barriers through three focus group interview sessions conducted with eighteen ( n = 18) subject matter experts (SME) in IoT- based precision agriculture practices. Dependency relationships described between cost, data latency, data scalability, power consumption, communication range, type of wireless communication and precision agriculture application is one of the main findings. The results might inform precision agriculture practitioners, producers and other stakeholders about variables related to technical and operational barriers for the adoption of IoT-based precision agriculture practices.

Keywords: Internet of Things; wireless sensors; precision agriculture practices; barriers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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