Blockchain and IoT in Smart Agriculture: Analysis, Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Research Directions

Globally, the adoption of modern technologies in agriculture represents a crucial step toward improving the agricultural sector. Research and experiments conducted in precision agriculture have demonstrated that the application of innovative techniques and production methods can lead to both economic and technical advantages. The primary motivation behind embracing emerging technologies lies in their ability to facilitate rapid and highly accurate implementation of agricultural operations compared to traditional methods. However, not all techniques yield positive results when employed. To assess the impact of new technologies on the agricultural sector, it is essential to measure the development in production quantities achieved from crops. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that it is designed for the specific environment and context. Rigorous testing in a targeted area is necessary to validate the technology’s effectiveness and quality.

Numerous statistical reports have declared that precision agriculture accomplishes this, leading to further improvements in the global economy based on the use of cutting-edge technologies across all agricultural sub-sectors. According to market research and consulting firms, the global precision agriculture market will grow by an average of 13.7% to reach 10.55 billion USD by 2025 (Xinhuanet, 2020) [1]. Apart from global precision, the agriculture market is expected to grow from 7.0 billion USD in 2020 to 12.8 billion USD in 2025 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.7% (Markets and Markets, 2020) [2].

The agricultural sector today needs more innovations and new technologies to develop, avoiding the use of traditional technologies that were limited only to traditional monopolistic and centralized agricultural management systems. These systems would cause many difficulties, such as easily attacking the central system to manipulate the integrity of the data, and for this reason, lead to the application of blockchain technology in modern agriculture. It is considered one of the most important applications as it works to improve agricultural system activities in particular supply chains, Internet of Things (IoT)-based systems, food safety, quality control, waste traceability, reliable analysis of operating data, and efficient exchange of contracts and transactions to reduce economic costs, which positively affects support for small farmers.

Internet of Things (IoT) represents a link between objects attached to a connection network (often wireless type Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 4G) in view of transmitting, storing, or even processing data specific to these objects. The use of the digital transformation of this data makes it possible to convert it into services and actions.

Modern technology, using temperature sensors, humidity, aerial photography, and GPS technology, has brought dramatic changes to the field of agriculture, especially hydroponics. The application of IoT and blockchain in agriculture is expected to grow by at least 20% per year, and the global smart farming market is expected to reach $15.3 billion by the end of 2025.

Many publications and scientific research mentioned in this article show the importance of these techniques.

Pandithurai et al. (2017) [3] have proposed a wireless sensor network technology for agricultural engineering that could become an important turning point in the improvement and development of traditional agriculture. Internet of Things applications will be used to record, store, and update the activities of various sensors that farms can access to monitor fields, soils, and crop management.

Tran et al. (2018) [4] used the Internet of Things (IoT) to make agriculture smart so that farmers can estimate the ideal harvest time

There are many reasons to implement a smart farming solution in commercial and local agriculture as well as in various agriculture-related institutions and organizations. In a world where IoT is accelerating the adoption of automation and data collection, an important industry like agriculture can certainly benefit. Our project to make agriculture smarter will certainly contribute to the growth of this industry (Mishra, 2019) [5]. The authors enable the implementation of an IoT based device that can monitor soil moisture and temperature to grow and produce a good crop, and to turn on and off light and water pump remotely using clouds.

Designing an IoT based system for farmers to remotely receive updates on soil moisture, temperature, and other parameters of a farm will also allow farmers to control pumps and supply plant water via internet or mobile phone application (Vadapalli, 2020) [6]. Olakunle Elijah et al. (2018) [7] present how the combination of IoT and data analytics can make agriculture smart. Authors indicate that IoT integrates many technologies, such as the wireless sensor network (WSN), cloud computing, middleware systems, etc.

Farooq et al. (2019) [8] explain the main components of the Internet of Things, showing the use of innovative applications based on smartphones by presenting sensors developed in the agricultural sector.

Rahman et al. (2020) [9] indicate existing challenges in confronting IoT based smart agriculture. Additionally, a data sharing system should be scalable and distributed using a high-performance smart contract platform.

Integrating blockchain technology with the Internet of Things is an approach used by researchers (Biswas et al., 2021) [10]. Developing smart agriculture is crucial, as it offers farmers a secure and open transaction method to increase their profits. Others believe (Umamaheswari et al., 2019) [11] that the agricultural sector will reap the benefits of IT by introducing innovation and deployment of blockchain technology in IoT applications to improve quality of life, which today should be a trending topic in the research community (Abdelmaboud et al., 2022) [12]. IoT systems enable the integration of a range of existing advanced solutions and technologies, such as (WSN), cloud computing, big data, and end-user applications (Quy et al., 2022) [13].

Chigurh et al. 2021 [14] used blockchain and cloud computing to create a transparent, tamper-proof digital marketplace platform for agricultural products where farmers and consumers can create a cooperative method of farming.

Many applications of blockchain (BC) and IoT in smart agriculture are improving various aspects of agricultural systems, particularly supply chain quality, product management (Chen et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2014) [15; 16] and Internet of Things (IoT) based systems (Biswas et al., 2021) [10]. Baranwal et al. (2016) [17] aims to accentuate innovative technologies, especially the Internet of Things (IoT), in agriculture to solve many problems, such as rodent identification, crop threats, and notifications in real-time based on the processing of information without human intervention, also referred to as the Secure Trust Model (Zhu and Badr, 2018) [18]. Some applications can be developed using existing blockchain platforms (Abdelmaboud, et al., 2022; Choto and Wafula, 2019) [12; 19] to facilitate quick and easy developments.

Emerging IoT and blockchain technologies in the agricultural sector are also complex. These technologies will require more open futuristic research and challenges. The following part will present research works on the adoption of IoT/BC in smart agriculture.

(Table 1) provides a brief summary of research into the use of emerging technologies and machine learning in intelligent agriculture.

The combination of IoT and blockchain will make the farm more independent, intelligent, far more efficient, and better at the management of precision farming.

The evolution of IoT in recent years has provided many opportunities to promote precision agriculture. (Table 2) lists various research works concerning the adoption of the Internet of Things in agriculture.

These projects (Figure 1) aim to enhance agricultural productivity, sustainability, and resilience. As technology continues to evolve, we can expect even more exciting developments in the intersection of IoT and smart agriculture.

Figure 1.

Recent Internet of Things (IoT) projects in smart agriculture

As a more detailed explanation of the previous work related to blockchain (BC) and its current innovations in the context of smart agriculture, (Table 3) presents an exhaustive survey of the previous work based on blockchain (BC) and their current innovations in smart agriculture.

The evolution of blockchain and IoT research in smart agriculture holds promise for sustainable food production, efficient supply chains, and resilient farming practices (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Evolution of blockchain and internet of things research in smart agriculture

Precision agriculture aims to optimize farming practices by leveraging real-time data, automation, and smart devices to improve crop yields, resource efficiency, and sustainability. The combination of IoT and blockchain (Figure 3) offers great potential for improving traceability, supply chain transparency, and data-driven decision-making in the agricultural sector.

Figure 3.

IoT and Blockchain progress in precision agriculture

Many researchers are exploring and deploying these IoT/Blockchain technologies due to improved agricultural productivity. These emerging technologies are important and effective in precision agriculture applications, as they provide reliable services.

Smart agriculture relies on modern technologies to ensure and improve agricultural productivity, soil fertility, irrigation technologies, temperature, and humidity control.

Blockchain should present existing solutions to provide permanent security and the ideal performance of the IoT network in precision agriculture.

Our future plan is to apply these techniques to create applications that meet our goals in the advancement of smart agriculture. This work suggests future research directions in the field of intelligent applications for precision agriculture that combine modern technologies and machine learning [53]. Furthermore, creating new blockchain models can serve as a meaningful solution to the grand challenge of IoT-based precision farming systems. Blockchain plays a key role in replacing traditional methods of storing, sorting, and sharing agricultural data in the form of files, making it more reliable, stable, transparent, and decentralized in precision agriculture. The integration of the two technologies of the Internet of Things and blockchain in agriculture will make the management of precision agriculture more independent, smarter, and more efficient. The connection between blockchain and IoT should also be closely explored to further explore use cases for precision farming technology.

The article proposes a detailed literature review to examine the latest developments in IoT systems and blockchain technology in the field of smart agriculture.

Our main objective is to demonstrate the importance of these proposed emerging technologies and their architectures. This study summarizes precision agriculture as an approach used in large or small farm management and crop control through information technology and the use of agricultural applications. It draws on existing modern IoT/blockchain technologies to guarantee and improve agricultural productivity, soil fertility, irrigation technologies, and temperature and humidity control.

For these technologies to become mainstream, it is essential to solve scalability and cost issues. Further research is needed to make IoT and blockchain solutions more affordable and accessible to small farms. The future of smart agriculture lies in the convergence of these technologies, their acceptance by industry players, and their adaptation to the specific needs of farms.