A Life Cycle Framework of Green IoT-Based Agriculture and Its Finance, Operation, and Management Issues

TLDR

Growing global population drives the need for higher crop yields, and while IoT offers precision agriculture to boost productivity, its large‑scale adoption is hindered by high investment costs, limited farmer tech‑savviness, and energy concerns. The study aims to map IoT applications across controlled environment, open‑field, livestock, and aquaculture, and to broaden the implementation focus from crop growth to the entire agri‑product life cycle. Using a life‑cycle framework, the authors identify emerging finance, operation, and management challenges—such as IoT financing, supply‑chain and big‑data funding, node recharging/repair, and data management—in green IoT agriculture. These identified FOM challenges highlight the need for innovative farm production models and new agribusiness enterprise types.

Abstract

The increasing population in the world forces humans to improve farm yields using advanced technologies. The Internet of Things (IoT) is one promising technique to achieve precision agriculture, which is expected to greatly increase yields. However, the large-scale application of IoT systems in agriculture is facing challenges such as huge investment in agriculture IoT systems and non-tech-savvy farmers. To identify these challenges, we summarize the applications of IoT techniques in agriculture in four categories: controlled environment planting, open-field planting, livestock breeding, and aquaculture and aquaponics. The focus on implementing agriculture IoT systems is suggested to be expanded from the growth cycle to the agri-products life cycle. Meanwhile, the energy concern should be considered in the implementation of agriculture IoT systems. The construction of green IoT systems in the whole life cycle of agri-products will have great impact on farmers' interest in IoT techniques. With the life cycle framework, emerging finance, operation, and management (FOM) issues in the implementation of green IoT systems in agriculture are observed, such as IoT finance, supply chain and big data financing, network nodes recharging and repairing, and IoT data management. These FOM issues call for innovative farm production modes and new types of agribusiness enterprises.