Digitization of agriculture: a survey on Smart Farming through Cloud computing

Abstract

Agriculture plays a vital role in the overall economic and social well-being of any nation. Agriculture is the main occupation in India especially in rural areas. India depends heavily on the agriculture sector, especially after the 1960 crisis in food sector. Since then, India has put a lot of effort for food production and this led India to the Green Revolution. Smart Farming refers to the application of ICT in agriculture. The challenges of the traditional agriculture are addressed and can be transformed by using information and communication technologies (ICT) tool such as cloud computing. The agricultural industry is relying on the power of cloud computing more than ever before. Cloud computing is an information technology paradigm through which users can access shared pools of configurable system resources over the internet. Such a sharing of resources enables coherence and economies of scale, which functions like a public utility, which can be quickly allotted by service providers to users with very little managerial effort. Cloud computing service providers typically work on a pay-as-you-go model. Apart from that, the user can also opt for options like Software as a service (SAAS), Platform as a service (PAAS) or Infrastructure as a service (IAAS). IAAS is one of the most commonly used services, as it helps organizations do away with infrastructure costs. In modern era of cloud computing technology very helpful for centralized the all-agricultural related data bank (Soil-related, weather, Research, Crop, Farmers, Agriculture marketing, fertilizers and pesticide information) in the cloud.