International conference on I-SMAC (IoT in Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud)
(I-SMAC 2017)
Plant And Taste to Reap with Internet Of Things
Implementation of IoT in Agriculture to make it a parallel Industry
Suraj Pandharinath Takekar
Sanket Mobile Applications and Robotic Technologies:
Proprietor
Mumbai, India
surajtakekar@gmail.com
Abstract—India is an agricultural country but no one wants to
become a farmer. It’s high time that we make agriculture a
parallel industry in India [1]. Our project PATRIOT focuses on
the same. It is rightly termed as patriot as anyone involved with
the project will serve the country and feel proud and patriotic.
Right from detection of crop diseases [2] to automating the
things like water pump [3], a lot of work has been done on
implementation of IoT in Agriculture. But they do not cater to
the real problems of the farmers. The farmers can do without a
crop disease detection app or automations but raise in income is
the major challenge which is overlooked. The implementation of
IoT should be such that it should increase the income of the
farmer and at the same time help consumers to get organic fruits
and vegetables at competitive prices. Also, IoT should itself raise
funds for realistic implementation of IoT
PATRIOT stands for plant and taste to reap with Internet of
Things.It depicts a gradual and feasible implementation of IoT in
agriculture. It realizes the fact that implementation of IoT cannot
be hurried upon and would require a huge investment. So, it
focuses on raising the finance required for implementation of IoT
in Agriculture with the help of IoT itself.
PATRIOT has a foolproof plan to help anyone to become a
farmer without sacrificing on the present luxurious life style and
high salary job. It introduces the concept of agriculture
“Anywhere-Anytime” using IoT.
PATRIOT will make the farmer dynamic and richer. It will
make the consumer pay less for the food and food products. It
will generate the huge amount of money for the realistic
implementation of IoT. It will give each of us an opportunity to
plant and look after the plantation using IOT.It will give each of
us a satisfaction of tasting the vegetables, fruits that we have
grown. It will make us reap the benefits of farming without ever
disturbing our busy schedule. It will make us , above all, a true
PATRIOT because we will get immense satisfaction in helping
our country in a way in which it actually should be.
Keywords—IoT; Agriculture; Farmer; esp8266;Crops; patriot;
I. INTRODUCTION
The 30-100 Syndrome: Let us consider a Crop whose
cycle is of 100 days.The steps in yielding the crop are
generally plowing, sowing, monitoring and harvesting. Out of
these plowing, sowing and harvesting counts for around 30
days. The monitoring period is the longest during which the
978-1-5090-3243-3/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
Sanket Pandharinath Takekar
Sanket Study Centre: Proprietor
Mumbai, India
saanu_2006@rediffmail.com
farmer is very much idle as compared to other three steps.
Moreover, the income that he earns is considered for the
period of 100 days but technically speaking the income is of
30 working days. In all income earned stands too low.
Now introduction of IoT in agriculture will help him
during his monitoring period a lot and may be in other three
steps too. But this will alarmingly raise the input cost of
agriculture and negligible increase in the yield of crop. More
over a farmer has a lot of idle time in which he wouldn’t mind
monitoring the field himself rather then spending heavily on
IoT.
The farmlands are divided. Each farmer decides of what
crops are to be grown. There is no organized planning of
usage of the resources. Every Industry has a HR (Human
Resource) department. But Agriculture in many developing
and underdeveloped countries has no HR management.
Also most of the IoT devices and futuristic gadgets would
never fit the budgets of the farmers with small portion of
lands.
II. PROBLEM STATEMENT
Implementation of IoT in Agriculture is not feasible for a
developing country or an Average Farmer. Agriculture is not
looked upon as an Industry, So no investors to have a realistic
implementation of IoT. Lack of Resource Management.
III. PROBLEMS IN CURRENT APPROACHES
A. Trying to automate the things with IoT
Automation is essential but not at this stage. Farmer
has ample of time to do certain work in the field. So, the
automations should be with purpose. The yield with the
help of IoT is not substantial to nullify the IoT investment
initially. Farms are divided and distributed which are quiet
a hindrance in IoT implementation. IoT cannot help to
increase the Crop productivity in these conditions.
B. IoT implementation itself
IoT implementation is not feasible until there is a lot of
money flowing in to agriculture. You require investors and
there are seldom. There has been a lot of work on how to
monitor the plant for various parameters and diseases [3] but
there are no plans to make every one around the corner to
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invest in agriculture and make it a parallel industry. The
current approach of IoT implementation would never work.
IV. OUR NOVELTY OF APPROACH
Currently the approach more or less is to use core IoT
technologies into farming [4] but it can cater only to a certain
segment of farmers. Our approach is different, feasible and
innovative in the sense that we are using basic IoT patterns
(The IoT modules discussed in this paper) in Agriculture to
make it as a brand, to roll money into it, manage the resources
and make it a new Industry
Not only make every single farmer proud and happy but
making the nation truly an agricultural country in a way that
every one from all the different societies would think as a
farmer and would feel proud to be associated with farming.
Let the farmer do what he can do better and let others act
as virtual farmers by investing and remaining connected to the
adopted farming land with the help of IoT.
V. METHODOLOGY
Fig. 1. Methodology
A. The Big Idea
x Agriculture and farmer have a soft corner in India.
people feel for them, discuss and have their opinions
and even come up with charities. So, its not that there
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(I-SMAC 2017)
are no emotions. The only thing is that this pitied
feeling must be changed into proudness.
x People are ready to invest, and also understand the
responsibility towards their country. A proper plan
and correct execution will roll money in to
Agriculture.
x This can be easily achieved by making Agriculture a
new brand.
x IoT has all the features that can help in building this
new brand.
B. Branding
x Introduction of IoT Modules such as Scare-Crow,
Monitoring stick, that make agriculture IOT enabled
in the first place, depict their necessity but does not
replace the farmer and bring a brand value [5] to the
Concept.
x Use of Virtual Dashboards [6] that can display the
sensor readings of various parameters in the field
like temperature, humidity, moisture, etc and also
control them remotely.
x Agriculture is an Industry and the investors are the
patriots.
x A patriot is an investor who invests for a certain
period
x According to the investment, he gets an honor to be
called as Nano Farmer, Micro Farmer, Mega Farmer,
etc
x A patriot then get points against the investment he
has made.
x A patriot can exchange the points for vegetables and
fruits which are of good quality and at a low price
than the market
x The pre-investment in food and food products and
ordering them as when required is branded as
PlantAnd Taste in – PATRIOT
x A patriot has the luxury to exchange the points for
cash at the end of the period so that the investment
has a good ROI.
x An investor is a patriot who is been branded as a
virtual farmer and monitors the crop with the help of
IoT
x So, a good return of investment by becoming a
virtual farmer is termed as Reap with Internet Of
Things in - PATRIOT.
C. Advertisement
x The initial stage is packaging the idea of farming
with the help of IoT. The name of the project says it
all – “PATRIOT” Plant & Taste, Reap with Internet
Of Things!
x The tag lines such as – “PROUD TO BE A FARMER”
“ARE YOU A PATRIOT ?, I AM ”,
“SERVE YOUR COUNTRY, BECOME A TRUE PATRIOT”,
“I AM A NANO FARMER — I AM A PATRIOT”
will touch the cord of every individual and create
some curiosity about the project.
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x The idea to make the investor a virtual farmer with
the help of IoT will be explained through the
advertisements.
x This followed by a brilliant investment plan will roll
in money in to agriculture.
D. Registration
Once done with proper execution of promotional
campaigning, people would definitely reciprocate in order to
be a part of revolutionary change and authenticate their
patriotism by taking an initiative to help the farmers.
E. Ultimate Plan to become a Patriot
x To be a part of this plan, an individual has to adopt a
part of land (a fixed minimum area or its multiple)
which is pre-owned by a farmer.
x This person is termed as a patriot who invests for a
certain period and does virtual farming with the help
of IoT.
x By signing a M.O.U (Memorandum Of
Understanding) the land is taken on rent by the Patriot
from the farmer, but by every means remains the
Farmer’s property.
x As per the area (size) selected, the patriot is classified
into different categories such as Pico- Farmer, Nano-
Farmer, Mega-Farmer.
x Practically the Farmer works in the field and the
‘patriot’ is just a virtual farmer.
x He receives every detailed information regarding the
cultivation of the crops grown in his adopted land
with the help of IoT. The same information is also
saved for future analysis.
x Patriot is able to monitor the various parameters in the
crop field live on the dashboard and hence remains
connected and informed.He gets the notifications on
his mobile.
x The most emotional and touchy part of the above plan
is that the plants grown in the field communicate with
their respective patriot.
x The plants can inform the patriot about various
aspects using social network and mobile apps. For e.g.
the crop field can post on Facebook or tweet on
twitter about the weather, temperature, humidity,
water level, attack of insects, pests and their
medication, etc.
x It is similar to like having pets at home. Thus IoT can
play an important role in The Caring and Showing
concern for the crop plants.
x From sowing to reaping, the virtual farmer will
experience every bit of farming, from any part of the
world with the help of IoT.
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(I-SMAC 2017)
F. Reap with IoT
Finally during the vegetation period, the reap (vegetables)
are sent to the consumer at decided intervals. The patriot
definitely gets more than what he pays the farmer for the
whole year. Moreover the surplus is sold in the local outlets
and the amount collected is credited in patriots account.
VI. EXPERIMENTS TO ESTABLISH THE WORKABILITY
Patriot plan has two aspects – Plant And Taste
(Agriculture) and Reap with Internet Of Things (IoT). So both
the aspects are checked for feasibility.
A. Plant and Taste - PATRIOT
The above plan seemed very difficult to be prototyped so
we took up a live prototype over Outdoor farming.This type of
patriot can be termed as a Nano-Farmer. The process is as
follows :
Rectangular and circular pots were taken and filled with
organic soil (sterilized soil). It was then wetted and seeds of
different crops were sown. Maintaining proper temperature,
humidity and sunlight the plants grew as normal as they used to
in open fields. Green leafy vegetable took around 50 days to
grow and be ready for harvesting. Planting density was altered
to examine the growth differences (in other crop : okra) if any.
Watering was done on alternate days.
B. Reap with Internet Of Things - PATRIOT
We introduced some IoT products that implement IoT in
real sense and at the same time are affordable. Also we
planned the products in such a manner so they act as the brand
ambassadors of the PATRIOT project. Two IoT products,
innovative and serving the cause are mentioned as follows:
Scare Crow Module
x Scare Crow is now smart enough as it does what it is
for but also checks various parameters in the field
x Scare Crow module has a motor with a relay
x It has esp8266 as the microcontroller [7]
x It has DHT11 temperature and Humidity sensor[7]
x It also has a light sensor
x It can have a camera module to have a birds eye view
x Scare crow rotates about itself with the help of the
motor
x The sensors sense the values for light, temperature
and humidity and sends to the server via the
microcontroller
x The values are also recorded on Google spreadsheets
and Drop-Box using IFTTT [8] / Temboo services [9]
x The values from the Dweet.io server are also
displayed on Freeboard with the help of beautiful
widgets [6]
x Besides scaring the Bird, It collects lot of information
of the field which is displayed and stored for
predictive and prescriptive analysis in future
x A camera module can keep a strict vigil on the work
being carried out in the field
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x It also has Led Strips on the body. At Night time, the
glowing Led Strips keep the wild animals at bay.
x So, This IoT enabled module - Scare Crow, has all
the potential to represent Agriculture as a brand
ambassador.
x It has all the potential to find a place in comic series,
become a true hero fighting and scaring the various
insects and birds.
Monitoring Stick
x Soil moisture sensor is mounted on a stick and
connected to the esp8266
x esp8266 and the server are connected through the
internet as the chip is Wi-fi enabled
x The stick is inserted in the soil
x The soil moisture sensor senses the value
x The values are sent to the Dweet.io server via
esp8266
x The values are then displayed on the dashboard
x In this project we have used Freeboard as the
dashboard
x No doubt IoT can help but its introduction should be
gradual
x Monitoring stick is a fitting example
x Farmer has enough time to monitor. So instead of
having sensors every where in the field he can
monitor the field with a stick and send the data over
for further predictive and prescriptive analytics[13]
x Also the complexity of having large number of
sensors in the field and protecting them is avoided
x The cost is reduced in a huge way.
x IoT is introduced as the necessity and not luxury
VII. RESULTS
A. Plant and Taste –PATRIOT
x Watering on alternate days and using tray helped in
“conserving water” to a huge extent.
x Due to use of organic soil, there were no issues of
weeds, no suffocation of roots, no extra adding of
manure and no soil causing diseases.
x Less density plants per area grew better than more
dense ones.
x Taste was the most special factor. Home grown
vegetables, using organic soil, were more tastier than
those purchased from the market.
x Even with not much sunlight, the growth was perfect
due to addition of plant food and artificial white light.
x Kitchen or balcony or open terrace (25sq.ft) is more
than sufficient to grow a single crop at home.
x The highest of all – a self satisfaction of “to live like
a farmer”.
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(I-SMAC 2017)
x For Indoor farming, we planted some varieties that
could be possibly grown e.g. Okra[12]. The yield
showed that the ‘Planting’ part was a complete
success.
B. Reap with Internet Of Things – PATRIOT
i. Since IoT is used to connect the virtual farmer to the
original farmer. So we conducted experiment on
various dashboards. Finally we used Freeboard.
ii. We experimented on Arduino [10] with Ethernet
shield, Arduino Uno and esp8266. But we finalized
on esp8266. It is microcontroller which is Wi-Fi
enabled and most important part is that it is
affordable
iii. We used IFTTT, Temboo services, to automate the
processes such as sending notifications when the
moisture content is low or posting the parameter
values on social network such as Facebook.
iv. We used Google spreadsheets to log the data such as
temperature, humidity, moisture, etc.
ESTIMATION
A hypothetical example that can almost match the
calculations real time (Market survey)[11]
x If Vegetable ‘A’ costs Rs 20 Per kg to the farmer
then in the market it is sold at an average price of Rs
40 per kg.
x The PATRIOT plan is simple. Farmer should be
given Rs 25 per Kg and the patriots should get it at
the price of Rs 35 per kg.
x Remaining amount of Rs 10 per kg can be used to
execute the “PATRIOT” dream. A fractional amount
can be invested into IoT infrastructure for the future.
x If “PATRIOT” plan is executed we can actually grow
organic fruits,vegetables almost under the same price.
USER BENEFITS
x The PATRIOTS who adopt the land for Agriculture
would practically be in their comfort zones but really
caring and looking after the Crops.
x The PATRIOTS who adopt the land for farming
would pay money and that money would be used
partially for IoT development and they will get the
grown vegetables, fruits in return.
x PLANT & TASTE: So by Investing they help in
Plantation and they get Fresh vegetables and Fruits in
return.
x REAP with IOT: Part of their investment would be
used for development of IoT (Display Dashboard,
Mobile applications, server space, sensors etc.). Part
of their investment would be used for the
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advertisement and awareness campaign of becoming
a “PATRIOT”
Here’s the Catch ----If the invested money is
spent in this manner, this type of patriotism won’t
survive.
But, Patriots get to taste fresh Vegetables worth
more than what they have invested, that’s the beauty
of the model.
Not only this, the farmers would get a share
more than what they get today. And most importantly
they would get it for sure and not depend upon the
weather conditions.
Helping agriculture, farmers and at the same
time that immense satisfaction of becoming a virtual
farmer and helping the nation to become self reliant
sums the user benefits.
VIII. AGRICULTURE – A NEW INDUSTRY
Agriculture would require a certain action plan to become
an Industry [12]. The PATRIOT action plan is as follows:
Farmers would sign the M.O.U and the farmlands would grow
in size. A central body would take the decisions of the crops to
be grown and resources would be then used to their optimum.
Agriculture being an Industry would have a Human Resource
Department which would immensely boost the agrarian
economy [13]. No Farmer would face the problem of the
30-100 Syndrome. The farmers would be then skilled
workers and would specialize in different processes of
agriculture. They would get an assured income irrespective of
weather conditions and crop yields.
[1]
[2]
Fig. 2. Patriot Business Plan
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(I-SMAC 2017)
IX. CONCLUSION
x The implementation of IoT should be gradual and in
three phases so as to bring in the finance required for
each step
x In the first phase, PATRIOT will make every
individual in our country passionate about farming.
Everyone willing to will become a farmer using IoT.
A Virtual farmer will bring in the glamour and the
finance which would lay a foundation of a new
Industry – Agriculture.͒
x In the second phase, PATRIOT will reap on the huge
database generated. Analytics will play a major role
and help in increasing the productivity [14]. It will
make each of us an expert in farming as precise
information will be at our fingertips.
x In the third phase, PATRIOT will actually give us a
realistic and expensive implementation of IoT.
Various modern devices, gadgets, tools, automated
Tractors, Drones operating on IoT will take
agriculture to the next level. New agriculture
methods like Hydroponics, Aquaponics will be easily
implemented. [Not to worry about the finance as the first
two phases will create the same]
X. FUTURESCOPE
x The dashboard can be made more creative. Thing
worx is one platform were in you can have specially
designed dashboards not just with beautiful widgets
but a background. So, we can have a virtual field on
the dashboard. We can separate tabs on the dashboard
to display, virtual field, sensor reading, graph, other
information. “A Virtual field” will aesthetically
improve it
x Once the agriculture fields are connected. In few
years huge amount of data will be connected through
the sensors. That would lay the foundation for
“Analytics” the core of IoT. The four types of
analytics [15] would then play an important role.
o Descriptive
o Diagnostic
o Predictive
o Prescriptive
x Mobile apps – having photo, chat features would
have a big say in this project.
x Some more Innovative IoT modules that can enhance
the Branding of Agriculture and facilitate the
PATRIOT plan execution .
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