Analysing the Applications of Cloud Computing in Smart Agriculture

Abstract

Agriculture has been the backbone of human civilization. For ages, humans have been using traditional farming techniques to produce high-quality crops, but with the era of digitalization and the challenges of these methods, there has been a shift from traditional farming techniques to smarter farming techniques, which utilise the latest technologies to reduce labour and maximise the yield in a given scenario. Smart agriculture produces a large amount of data from sensors and IoT devices; this is where cloud computing comes into play. Cloud computing-based technology provides storage and analysis facilities to deal with huge amounts of data and produces real-time insights that can help the farmer make better decisions. Cloud computing also helps in reducing the cost and resources incurred in smart agriculture techniques, thus making the model more efficient and useful for farmers. This chapter will analyse various applications in which innovative cloud computing technologies can be used in smart agriculture and the drawbacks that should be considered while adopting the cloud model.