IoT Technologies and the Agricultural Value Chain 2023
A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Internet of Things".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 August 2023) | Viewed by 1293
Special Issue Editors
Interests: modeling; automatic control; and robotics techniques applied to agriculture; safe energy; building comfort
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: control; greenhouse; modeling; climate; fertigation; CO2; Internet of Things; DSS; MaaS
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: sustainable agriculture; business models; change management; organisations; digitalisation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Food and agribusiness form a $5 trillion global industry with continuous growth (McKinsey). In the EU, around 11 million farms produce agricultural products for processing by about 300,000 enterprises in the food and drink industry. Food processors sell their products through the 2.8 million enterprises within the food distribution and food service industry, which deliver food to the EU’s 500 million consumers (EU Eurostat). Agriculture, food, and related industries contributed $992 billion to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2015, a 5.5-percent share (USDA).
Large retail organizations are increasing their requirements concerning food safety and sustainability. Exporters are affected by the increasing supply chain transparency and traceability required by retailers and wholesalers. In addition, consumers increasingly want more information in relation to food they consume. At the same time, sustainable agriculture must be also part of this approach. Agricultural systems are characterized by a demand for intensive and optimal use of land, water, energy and inputs, increasing productivity, and improved product quality, all the while maintaining competitiveness and market value within a sustainability framework.
Agrifood value chains are complex systems, involving physical, chemical, and biological processes, taking place simultaneously, reacting to environmental factors with different response times and patterns, and characterized by multiple interactions, which have to be controlled to obtain the best results for the grower and all actors in the agricultural value chain.
Technology and data sharing can be essential tools in seeking solutions through the introduction of technology in each of the phases of the supply/value chain, creating relationships among the different steps based on transparency and product and process information. As well, through the mediation and use of publicly available data, it can leverage such agricultural data´s value and improve societal use.
IoT implementation presents some benefits to the different actors and activities along the supply and value chain in terms of improved resource use, less waste, better data access and sharing, synchronization, reduced storage and cost, and enhanced consumer information access. IoT allows the collection of information about all links in the value chain, connecting systems so as to allow an integrated, multidimensional view of farming and agrifood activities, enabling deeper understanding on how the whole ecosystem works. Intensive use of ICT involving a large amount of data, intelligent and soft or virtual sensors, control loops, communication networks, storage, cloud services, and optimization techniques help to improve all value chain links. Moreover, IoT systems ideally should be based on flexible and efficient production focusing on important aspects like social and environmental added value, through the improvement of air, soil, water and energy efficiency and quality and overall social–economic–environmental sustainability.
The food and farm supply chain is increasingly complex as it involves numerous activities in growing systems, production planning, handling, logistics, traceability, and markets. As such, new business models and value propositions are necessary to reflect and leverage improved processes and products and the overall transformation of agri-food activities through IoT.
Papers included in this Special Issue will address the following areas:
- IoT systems development;
- Precision farming;
- System integration and interoperability;
- Data models;
- IoT networks;
- Intelligent sensors;
- IoT sensors;
- Visualization interfaces;
- Decision support systems and data-driven decisions;
- Virtual–soft sensors;
- IoT-based business models;
- Data sharing;
- IoT-based control systems;
- Robotics;
Prof. Dr. Francisco Rodríguez
Dr. Jorge Antonio Sánchez-Molina
Dr. Cynthia Giagnocavo
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- Internet of Things
- Precision farming
- DSS
- Modeling
- Soft sensors
- IoT business models
- Interoperability
- Data sharing
- Data models
- Automatic control
- Intelligent sensors
