Will Internet of Things feed the World?

Will Internet of Things
feed the World?
Prof. Riccardo Beltramo
University of Torino
Department of Management - Area of Commodity Science
Research Centre on Natural Risks in Mountain and Hilly Environments
4th BEMM 2016, Hammamet,Tunisia

“In the summer of 1970, an international team of
researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology began a study of the implications
of continued worldwide growth. They
examined the ﬁve basic factors that determine
and, in their interactions, ultimately limit growth
on this planet: world population, food
production, nonrenewable resource
depletion, industrial output, and pollution
generation. The MIT team fed data on these
ﬁve factors into a global computer model and
then tested the behavior of the model under
several sets of assumptions to determine
alternative patterns for mankind’s future. ”
1970’s
overshoot and collapse

The Problem
The Food and Agricultural Organisation of
the UN (FAO) predicts that the global
population will reach 8 billion people by
2025 and 9.6 billion people by 2050.
In order to keep pace, food production
must increase by 70 percent by 2050.
Today

Different scenarios, on the basis of different hypothesis

Agriculture

http://www.globalresearch.ca/catastrophic-fall-in-2009-global-food-production/12252
Countries by USD value of their
agricultural output, as of 2006.

Population & Agriculture

World undernourishment today
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Machinery
Seeds
Livestock
Water
Energy
Fertilizers
Other products
Land
Pesticides
Feed
Food
Agriculture
Human Resources

Drivers
• Climate change
• Environmental quality: Land degradation, Soil
contamination, Water use, Air emission.
• Energy: Paradigm shift
• Nutrition: Diet shift
• Conscious consumption

Landuse
Energy
dispersion
Airemission
Wastewater
Soil
contamination
Solidwaste
Machinery
Seeds
Livestock
Water
Energy
Fertilizers
Other products
Land
Pesticides
Feed
Food
Agriculture & Environment
Human Resources

Climate change
Climate change could increase annual precipitation
and make more fresh water available in some
places. Rising temperatures, however, could
increase the rate of evaporation from surface
waters and reservoirs and lead to the loss of
freshwater held in glaciers. Furthermore, increased
rainfall might come in the form of storms that lead
to ﬂooding and damage thereby doing more harm
than good. Climate change poses a series of risks
to water availability and water management
systems, although much uncertainty remains.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/catastrophic-fall-in-2009-global-food-production/12252
Countries experiencing droughts highlighted

Land
Human
Natural
Landuse
Soil
contamination
Land degradation leads to a signiﬁcant reduction of the
productive capacity of land.
• Unsuitable agricultural land use
• Poor soil and water management practices
• Deforestation
• Removal of natural vegetation
• Frequent use of heavy machinery
• Overgrazing
• Improper crop rotation
• Poor irrigation practices
• Landslides
• Natural disasters
• Droughts
• Floods
Land degradation
Human
Resources

Global Assessment of Soil Degradation (GLASOD) was undertaken in the early
1990s (Oldeman, Hakkeling and Sombroek 1990, UNEP 1992) and a land
degradation assessment of drylands (LADA) was initiated by GEF and UNEP in
2000 and is now being developed with FAO.
http://www.unep.org/dgef/LandDegradation/tabid/1702/Default.aspx

Landuse
Soil
contamination
Water
Land
Excessive withdrawal
from surface waters
Excessive withdrawal of water
from underground aquifers
Pollution of fresh water resources
Inefﬁcient use of freshwater
Poor irrigation practices
Leakage in water delivery systems 
Wastewater
Water (mis-)use
Human
Resources

–Giovanni Mela
“Farming accounts for around 70% of water
used in the world today…”.

Landuse
Energy
dispersion
Airemission
Wastewater
Soil
contamination
Solidwaste
Water
Fertilizers
Land
Pesticides
…and also contributes to water pollution from excess nutrients,
pesticides and other pollutants.
Other products
Soil contamination
Human
Resources

• High applications of fertilizers and pesticides can
increase nutrients and toxins in groundwater and
surface waters, incurring health and water puriﬁcation
costs, and decreasing ﬁshery and recreational values.
• Agricultural practices that degrade soil quality
contribute to eutrophication of aquatic habitats and
may necessitate the expense of increased fertilization,
irrigation and energy to maintain productivity on
degraded soils.
• Practices that change species composition or reduce
biodiversity in non-agricultural systems may also
diminish goods and services, because the ability of
ecosystems to provide some services depends both on
the number and type of species in an ecosystem.

“Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices”
David Tilman, Kenneth G. Cassman, Pamela A. Matson, Rosamond Naylor and Stephen Polasky
Nature 418, 671-677(8 August 2002)
doi:10.1038/nature01014
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v418/n6898/ﬁg_tab/nature01014_F1.html4th BEMM 2016, Hammamet,Tunisia

c, total global pesticide production3 and global pesticide imports (summed across all countries)
“Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices”
David Tilman, Kenneth G. Cassman, Pamela A. Matson, Rosamond Naylor and Stephen Polasky
Nature 418, 671-677(8 August 2002)
doi:10.1038/nature01014

Agriculture doesn’t mean just food

Landuse
Energy
dispersion
Airemission
Wastewater
Soil
contamination
Solidwaste
Machinery
Seeds
Livestock
Water
Energy
Fertilizers
Other products
Land
Pesticides
Feed
Food
Biomass for
energy production
Grains and starch crops:
Sugar cane
Corn
Wheat
Sugar beets
Industrial sweet potatoes, etc.
Agricultural residues:
Corn stover
Wheat straw
Rice straw
Orchard prunings, etc.
Forestry materials:
Logging residues
Forest thinnings, etc.
Animal byproducts:
Tallow
Fish oil
Manure, etc.
Energy crops:
Switchgrass
Miscanthus
Hybrid poplar
Willow
Algae, etc.
Food waste:
Waste produce
Food processing waste, etc.
Urban and suburban wastes:
Municipal solid wastes (MSW)
Lawn wastes
Wastewater treatment sludge
Urban wood waste
Disaster debris
Trap grease
Yellow grease Waste cooking oil, etc.
‘food-vs.-fuel’ debate
Human Resources

“By 2050, global population is projected to be
50% larger than at present and global grain
demand is projected to double.
This doubling will result from a projected
2.4-fold increase in per capita real income
and from dietary shifts towards a higher
proportion of meat (much of it grain-fed)
associated with higher income.”
Diet shift
Nature 418, 671-677 (8 August 2002) | doi:10.1038/nature01014
review article
Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices
David Tilman1
, Kenneth G. Cassman3
, Pamela A. Matson4,5
, Rosamond Naylor5
& Stephen Polasky2

Landuse
Energy
dispersion
Airemission
Wastewater
Soil
contamination
Solidwaste
Machinery
Seeds
Livestock
Water
Energy
Fertilizers
Other products
Land
Pesticides
Feed
Conscious consumption
Food
Human Resources

Landuse
Energy
dispersion
Airemission
Wastewater
Soil
contamination
Solidwaste
Distribution Factory
Retail
Store
Machinery
Seeds
Livestock
Water
Energy
Fertilizers
Other products
Land
Pesticides
Feed
Consumers
Conscious consumption
Human
Resources

How can we deal with “Food Security”?

Landuse
Energy
dispersion
Airemission
Wastewater
Soil
contamination
Solidwaste
Retail
Store
Foodwaste
Foodwaste
Machinery
Seeds
Livestock
Water
Energy
Fertilizers
Other products
Land
Pesticides
Feed
Foodwaste
Foodwaste
Consumers
Human
Resources

Landuse
Energy
dispersion
Airemission
Wastewater
Soil
contamination
Solidwaste
Retail
Store
Foodwaste
Foodwaste
Machinery
Seeds
Livestock
Water
Energy
Fertilizers
Other products
Land
Pesticides
Feed
Foodwaste
Foodwaste
Consumers
Current estimates put global food loss and waste between one-third and one-half of all food
produced. Loss and wastage occurs at all stages of the food supply chain or value chain.
In low-income countries, most loss occurs during production, while in developed countries
much food – about 100 kilograms per person per year – is wasted at the consumption stage.

http://www.fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/en/, http://www.huﬃngtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/10/food-waste-half-of-all-fo_n_2445022.html, http://
large.stanford.edu/courses/2012/ph240/briggs1/docs/mb060e00.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_waste
100
kilograms
per person
per year
global food loss and waste
Human
Resources

Landuse
Energy
dispersion
Airemission
Wastewater
Soil
contamination
Solidwaste
Pharmaceutical
Nutraceutical
Cosmetics
Machinery
Seeds
Livestock
Water
Energy
Fertilizers
Other products
Land
Pesticides
Feed
Food
Biomass for
energy
production
M 
U 
L 
T 
I 
F 
U 
N 
C 
T 
I 
O 
N 
A 
L 
I 
T 
Y
Waste valorization
Human
Resources

Machinery
Seeds
Livestock
Water
Energy
Fertilizers
Other products
Land
Landuse
Energy
dispersion
Airemission
Wastewater
Soil
contamination
Solidwaste
Factory
Retail
Store
Foodwaste
Foodwaste
Pesticides
nutraceutical
cosmetics
Feed
pharmaceutical
Foodwaste
Foodwaste
Waste valorization
Consumers
Human
Resources

• The European Union has sponsored several
projects on the topic during the Seventh
Framework Programme and, now, during
Horizon 2020.
• Several private companies are also starting to be
active in this ﬁeld, such as Anemon (Switzerland),
eCow (UK), Connected Cow (Medria Technologies
and Deutsche Telekom). Smart ﬁshing is at initial
stage with some projects in Europe, South Korea,
North America and Japan.
Federico Guerrini, The Future Of Agriculture? Smart Farming, Forbes, FEB 18, 2015,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2015/02/18/the-future-of-agriculture-smart-farming/#1e0857bd337c4th BEMM 2016, Hammamet,Tunisia
Research funding

Smart Farming
1. Fleet management – tracking of farm vehicles.
2. Arable farming, large and small field farming. Meteorological Station Network: Study
of weather conditions in fields to forecast ice formation, rain, drought, snow or wind
changes.
3. Livestock monitoring. Location and identification of animals grazing in open pastures
or location in big stables. Offspring Care: Control of growing conditions of the
offspring in animal farms to ensure its survival and health. Toxic Gas Levels: Study of
ventilation and air quality in farms and detection of harmful gases from excrements.
4. Indoor farming – greenhouses and stables: Control micro-climate conditions to
maximize the production of fruits and vegetables and its quality. Compost: Control of
humidity and temperature levels in alfalfa, hay, straw, etc. to prevent fungus and other
microbial contaminants.
5. Wine Quality Enhancing. Monitoring soil moisture and trunk diameter in vineyards to
control the amount of sugar in grapes and grapevine health.
6. Fish farming
7. Forestry
8. Storage monitoring–water tanks, fuel tanks

Towards Smart Farming, Agriculture embracing the IoT Vision, 2014 Beecham Research Ltd.
• Precision agriculture aims to optimise the yield per unit of
farming land by using the most modern means in a
continuously sustainable way, to achieve best in terms of
quality, quantity and ﬁnancial return.
• Precision agriculture makes use of a range of technologies
that include GPS services, sensors and big data to
optimise crop yields. Rather than replace farmer expertise
and gut feeling, ICT- based decision support systems, backed
up by real time data, can additionally provide information
concerning all aspects of farming at a level of granularity not
previously possible. This enables better decisions to be made,
resulting in less waste and maximum efﬁciency in operations.

Internet ofThings beyond the Hype: Research, Innovation and Deployment
Ovidiu Vermesan1, Peter Friess2, Patrick Guillemin3, Raffaele Giaffreda4, Hanne Grindvoll1, Markus Eisenhauer5, Martin Serrano6, Klaus Moessner7,
Maurizio Spirito8, Lars-Cyril Blystad1 and Elias Z. Tragos9
“Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept and a
paradigm that considers pervasive
presence in the environment of a variety of
things/objects that through wireless and
wired connections and unique addressing
schemes are able to interact with each other
and cooperate with other things/objects to
create new applications/services and reach
common goals.”
43

microcontroller
Scatol8®
: A Path To Sustainability
sensors
actuators
transmission
4th BEMM 2016, Hammamet,TunisiaProf. Riccardo Beltramo

Sensors
Environmental parameters
Acceleration
Power consumption
Wind direction
Distance
Liquid flow rate
Air quality (presence of smoke, benzene, carbon dioxide, LPG, propane,
hydrogen, oxygen, methane, carbon monoxide)
Illuminance
Mass (eg. Production waste )
Movement (eg. Intrusion, counting pieces, etc.).
Oxidation-Reduction Potential
pH
Rain
Atmospheric pressure
Radioactivity (α, β, γ decays)
Noise
Temperature of liquids
Soil temperature
Air temperature
Soil moisture
Humidity
Wind speed
Vibration
Biometric parameters
Biometric parameters (ECG, EMG, respiration rate, glucose and blood pressure,
pulsation of the heart, galvanic skin response, body temperature)

Actuators

Sensors networkTailor-made sensors & network
4th BEMM 2016, Hammamet,Tunisia Prof. Riccardo Beltramo

Sensors networkTailor-made sensors & network
Sensing layer
Access layer
Network layer
Middleware layer
Application layerto capture
to transfer
to integrate
to manage
to build practical
application

Examples
Proprietary
John Deere is using the IoT to connect each of its vehicles to a mobile online platform
called JDLink, which gives farmers and their dealers remote access to see location,
utilization and diagnostic data for each machine.
Its John Deere Operations Center offers comprehensive IoT solutions for farmers, including
wireless data streaming of production data, mobile monitoring, and weather and crop
reporting in real time.
Networked sensors and both historical and real-time data on weather, soil conditions and
crop status help farmers enhance the value of their operations by ensuring equipment is
operating reliably. They optimize each job by ensuring that crops are planted and
harvested when and how they will produce the best yields, and achieving what John Deere
calls “agronomic optimization” by engaging the trusted partners of the farmer to analyze
data and recommend changes for future crop years.

New machines from John Deere can not only plow,
sow and reap, they can also collect a Farmer’s
Almanac worth of data, including air and soil
temperatures, moisture, wind speed, humidity,
solar radiation and rainfall.
Smart watering systems sprinkle just enough water
on the ﬁelds, in just the right places, and can detect
leaks in water pipes—vital in dry and drought-
affected regions like California.
THE FUTURE IS SMART, Alec Scott, 8 ways the Internet of things will change the way we live and work,
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/the-future-is-smart/article24586994/

OnFarm
http://bluehillresearch.com/
In 2011, Lance Donny, the CEO and founder of OnFarm,
identiﬁed a unique opportunity to leverage his extensive
personal agricultural knowledge with connected
applications to create and deliver a transformational
suite of Internet of Things-based agricultural
management services. These services would be
delivered as easy-to-use, smart, connected product
applications that would provide OnFarm's customers
with the ability to have a real-time big picture of the large
and varying data points necessary for them to create
optimal agricultural working and growing conditions.

OnFarm Grower DashboardTM

Precision Livestock Farming (PLF)

• Precision Livestock Farming is a subset of smart
farming. Sensors are used for monitoring and early
detection of reproduction events and health
disorders in animals.
• Typical monitored data are the body temperature,
the animal activity, tissues resistivity, pulse and
GPS position.
• SMS alerts can be sent to the breeder based on
predeﬁned events.
Federico Guerrini, The Future Of Agriculture? Smart Farming, Forbes, FEB 18, 2015,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2015/02/18/the-future-of-agriculture-smart-farming/#1e0857bd337c4th BEMM 2016, Hammamet,Tunisia

Development of specialized RFID tags that can be
embedded into trees, manually or by machine.
Some of these tags are made of biodegradable
materials, so they can be ground with wood
products to make pulp and paper.

"RFID can bring value by tracking timber through the whole logging
operation, through shipment, monitoring for deliveries and such."
In pilots and deployments worldwide, governments, research institutes,
forestry and sawmill companies, and wood products manufacturers are
employing RFID to optimize forest production and improve the quality
of wood products, as well as to minimize environmental damage and
enable companies to comply with U.S. and European rules barring
import of illegal or endangered timber products.
But before RFID-tagging becomes common practice in the forestry
industry, tag prices must come down and more solid business cases
must be demonstrated. Meanwhile, RFID shows promise as a tool to
help control wildﬁres.

SK Telecom’s connected eel
farm
The ﬁrst pilot of the IoT aquaculture management
system is being tested on an eel farm in Gochang,
South Korea. A set of sensors in dozens of 20-foot-
wide eel tanks wirelessly transmit data on water
temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen levels to a
sensor hub, which in turn connects to SK Telecom’s
LTE network using a machine-to-machine radio.
https://gigaom.com/2014/09/01/meet-the-slimiest-thing-on-the-internet-of-things-sk-telecoms-connected-eel-farm/

Expensive
Big farms can afford them
but
the average farm in Europe is…

http://www.globalagriculture.org/report-topics/industrial-agriculture-and-small-scale-farming.html

Average utilised agricultural area per
holding, 2010 and 2013 (hectares)
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/agriculture/farm-structure

Li Minbo, Zhu Zhu, Chen Guangyu, Information Service System Of
Agriculture IoT, ISSN 1848-3380, Print ISSN 0005-1144 ATKAFF 54(4), 415–
426(2013)
Duan Yan-e, Design of Intelligent Agriculture Management Information
System Based on IoT, Intelligent Computation Technology and Automation
(ICICTA), 2011 International Conference
Congcong. Li*, Yanxia Guo and Jingren Zhou, Study and design of the
agricultural informationization model based on internet of things, College of
Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Agricultural University of Hebei, Baoding,
China, Journal of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research, 2014, 6(6):1625-1630
Xian-Yi Chen, Zhi-Gang Jin, Research on Key Technology and Applications
for Internet of Things, 2012 International Conference on Medical Physics and
Biomedical Engineering
Shaik. N. Meera, Anita Jhamtani, and D.U.M. Rao, INFORMATION AND
COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT: A
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THREE PROJECTS FROM INDIA, The
Agricultural Research and Extension Network, Paper n. 135, 2004
A literature review…

Nikesh Gondchawar, Prof. Dr. R. S. Kawitkar Duan Yan-e, IoT based Smart
Agriculture, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and
Communication Engineering Vol. 5, Issue 6, June 2016
Chandrakanth.R, Harshith.B, Rakesh.K, Soujanya.N, Dipti Patnayak, SMART
FARMING SYSTEM USING IOT, World Journal of Engineering Research and
Technology, 2016
CHANDHINI. K., A Literature Study on Agricultural Production System Using IoT
as Inclusive Technology, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INNOVATIVE
TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH, Volume No.4, Issue No.1, December - January
2016, 2727 – 2731

OPENSOURCE

Opensource
solutions…

Saving water with Smart
Irrigation System in Barcelona

Waspmote Sensor
Platform installed
in the park

Sustainable Farming and the IoT:
Cocoa Research Station in
Indonesia
http://www.libelium.com/sustainable-
farming-and-the-iot-cocoa-research-
station-in-indonesia/#!prettyPhoto-
img%5B20343%5D/1/
Parameters measured include:
• Temperature
• Humidity
• Photo-synthetically active radiation
(PAR)
• Soil water potential

Smart Strawberries Crop
Increases the Quality and
Reduces the Time from Farm
to Market
Parameters measured include:
• Air Temperature
• Soil water potential

Smart Agriculture:
Monitoring greenhouse
conditions to develop
new products in the
food industry
Flores en la mesa is an
Aragonese company
that grows and sells
fresh edible ﬂowers and
crystallized ﬂowers
Parameters measured:
Temperature – Ground + Ambient
Humidity – Ground + Ambient
Ultraviolet

Smart Farming: Monitoring Horses and Equine Facility
Management with Waspmote
http://www.libelium.com/smart-farming-monitoring-horses-equine-facility-management-waspmote/#!prettyPhoto

Preventing environmental impact in
wastewater irrigation area for the largest
meat industry in Australia
The deployment involve Libelium Plug & Sense soil
moisture sensors installed in a wastewater
irrigation area as the basis of a real-time operational
tool to guide management in turning irrigation
systems on and off using soil moisture as a key
indicator.
Management of soil moisture in wastewater
irrigation is essential for the protection of
groundwater from nitrate contamination.

• Monitoring environmental factors is not enough and complete solution to
improve the yield of the crops.
• There are number of other factors that affect the productivity to great
extent. These factors include attack of insects and pests which can be
controlled by spraying the crop with proper insecticide and pesticides.
Secondly, attack of wild animals and birds when the crop grows up. There is
also possibility of thefts when crop is at the stage of harvesting. Even after
harvesting, farmers also face problems in storage of harvested crop.
• So, in order to provide solutions to all such problems, it is necessary to develop
integrated system which will take care of all factors affecting the productivity
in every stages like; cultivation, harvesting and post harvesting storage.
• The paper aims at making agriculture smart using automation and IoT
technologies. The highlighting features of this paper includes smart GPS
based remote controlled robot to perform tasks like; weeding, spraying,
moisture sensing, bird and animal scaring, keeping vigilance, etc.
Secondly, it includes smart irrigation with smart control based on real time
ﬁeld data. Thirdly, smart warehouse management which includes;
temperature maintenance, humidity maintenance and theft detection in the
warehouse.
IoT based Smart Agriculture, Nikesh Gondchawar, Prof. Dr. R. S. Kawitkar, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and
Communication Engineering, Vol. 5, Issue 6, June 2016 4th BEMM 2016, Hammamet,Tunisia

Our experience

Precision Agriculture: Predicting
Vineyard Conditions, Preventing Disease
Wireless sensor networks enable many new
opportunities and innovations in the ﬁeld of
Predictive systems.
With these, pest prevention and irrigation can be
administered when necessary. The end result is
improved management, better grape quality, and
lower costs.

The sensors are camouﬂaged as fanciful animals…

…and the dashboard shows the intensity of
monitored variables…

Conclusions
• Data is the fundamental building block of smart
farming.
• Everyday farming applications are starting to
move into the cloud, with the aim of delivering
beneﬁts in terms of data access, synchronization,
storage and even cost to the farmer.
Towards Smart Farming, Agriculture embracing the IoT Vision, 2014 Beecham Research Ltd.

Internet of things will not be able to feed the world by itself. Its
spread and the consequent further reduction of costs can help
out. The technology is in its infancy.
It will be necessary, however, to work at the same time on the
development of management systems and of service activities
appropriate to the cultural level of the operators who will
beneﬁt of them. Human resources training is a focal point.
These perspectives open challenging landscapes for research
and training activities at international level, which involve
Universities, farmer’s organizations, farmers and international
organizations that deal with development of third countries.

Thank You for Your kind attention!
riccardo.beltramo@unito.it
http://scatol8.net
http://www.slideshare.net/scatol8
https://www.youtube.com/user/Scatol8
https://www.facebook.com/scatol8/

Will Internet of Things feed the World?

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