Technology Trends in ICT – Towards Data-Driven, Farmer-Centered and Knowledge-Based Hybrid Cloud Architectures for Smart Farming

Over the past four decades, advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have resulted in unprecedented opportunity and innovation for improving farming outcomes. Ongoing innovations such as mobile, social media, agricultural drones, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, and cloud computing present new challenges and opportunities for agribusinesses to redefine and rethink the role of ICT towards achieving better farming outcomes. With recent advances in infrastructure, data (collection, storage and retrieval), and a better understanding of all aspects of the food chain, new challenges and opportunities are presented. Unstructured data is now being generated real time, in large volumes, at high speed and unknown quality that results in challenges to current approaches for decision making, and require a focus on analytics. These new sources of data create the opportunity to inform and drive a change in decision making from one that is highly intuitive to one that is data driven and processed in real-time. This paper highlights recent trends in ICT and introduces a hybrid cloud architecture for smart farming. The proposed architecture emphasizes data-driven, farmer-centered, and knowledge-based decision tools through service integration, aggregation and interoperation. As a customized solution for farmers, the proposed architecture contains components of 1) data integration of on-farm sensors and data from public sources, 2) farm management modules, 3) knowledge-based software solutions from different providers, 4) service integration, aggregation and interoperation, and 5) a customized dashboard focused on usefulness and usability. This cloud-based solution allows the integration of businesses services, things, and technology from any channel and can be used anywhere. At this time, hybrid cloud environments have shown promise to integrate these different services and provide smart farming solutions to both big and smallholder farmers. 

Agriculture, Environmental Science, and Information Technology

Contributing institution: University of FloridaProfessor Zazueta is the Director of the Office of Academic Technology (OAT) at University of Florida (UFL), which provides information technology services in support of the academic mission of the University, including teaching, research, extension and outreach. At OAT, Dr. Zazueta has overseen the successful deployment of one of the nation's largest enterprise level course management systems, a state-wide video transport infrastructure, grid-based high performance computing resources, and institution of a faculty training program focused on technology. Zazueta has taught and developed UFL courses at the undergraduate and graduate level, including web-based courses and distance education courses using multimedia, and helped launch the Agricultural Information Technology Minor. His reach extends to the international level, where he provides agricultural and biological engineering consultation and participates in university exchanges. In the 1990s, Zazueta led the creation of the IFAS Software Support Office, later folded into the IFAS Office of Information Technology, which was instrumental in accelerating the adoption of information technology by agricultural audiences in Florida. Professor Zazueta is currently Chair of the Education Division of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) and Chair of the Information and Communication Technologies Technical Section of the International Commission of Agricultural Engineers (CIGR). Zazueta received his Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering from Colorado State University, and both his M.S. (Water Use and Conservation) and B.S. (Civil Engineering) at the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico

ICT, Innovation and Knowledge Challenges as seen by a World Conference of Experts

The World Conference on Computers in Agriculture (WCCA), held in San Jose Costa Rica in 2014, provided a forum where professionals from different disciplines exchanged research finding and experience on the use of ICT in a wide variety of contexts. This special issue is a collection of manuscripts by experts in agriculture and food related disciplines presenting the results of their research and experience on uses of ICT, which although not comprehensive in their scope, partially address the issues discussed in the editorial

Use of Personal Digital Assistants for Extension Program Record Keeping

This article describes the use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) in Extension program record keeping, focusing on the recent deployment of handheld computers by University of Florida IFAS county Extension faculty. The project aimed to reduce the excessive workload on county Extension agents due to reporting requirements. A pilot to assess effectiveness in the use of handheld computers by Extension faculty was initiated in the fall of 2000. Adoption rate had reached 87% penetration by 2002

ICT, Innovation and Knowledge Challenges as seen by a World Conference of Experts

Over the course of the past two decades important developments in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) took place that enabled new approaches to production, harvest, storage, transport, distribution and delivery of food and other products. Of particular interest are innovations that increase the quality of food, reduce its cost to the final consumer and create opportunities for developing countries to address food security issues in a sustainable way. Technology evolved resulting in the convergence of: 1) Consumerization of technology (mobile devices and “Bring You Own Device”), 2) social networks, 3) cloud computing, and 4) big data. This created new opportunities for innovation. These resulted in decision making aids capable of using data over large networks, locally acquired data, location, and socially constructed knowledge, intelligent device networks, used anytime, anywhere on any device. One particular focus is the use of ICS in process and management improvement resulting from the application of process re-engineering, optimization, simulation and business intelligence systems leading to targeted management decision making tools that improve the use of resources and outcomes in production. Moreover, growing consumer demands are driving global needs for traceability that can only be enabled by the use of ICT. Challenges remain in acquiring knowledge, especially from non-traditional sources, that can be integrated into current knowledge systems. Furthermore, making ICT accessible at locations where infrastructure is lacking or of limited capacity has created a gap between the technologically enabled and the technologically not-enabled. Achieving ICT‘s potential contributions will require that technology strategies and actions be enacted to promote capacity building, reduce the digital divide and increase access to information and markets. The World Conference on Computers in Agriculture (WCCA), held in San Jose Costa Rica in 2014, provided a forum where professionals from different disciplines exchanged research finding and experience on the use of ICT in a wide variety of contexts. This special issue is a collection of manuscripts by experts in agriculture and food related disciplines presenting the results of their research and experience on uses of ICT, which although not comprehensive in their scope, partially address the issues discussed above