Chapter 7: Internet of Things Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture: Analysing Challenges Using ISM Approach

The present chapter provides an in-depth examination of the challenges and opportunities of incorporating the Internet of Things (IoT) in agriculture. While IoT holds significant potential to drive innovation and lead to breakthroughs in modern farming, addressing the various challenges currently faced by farmers, it's essential to recognise these potential benefits. There are many key areas where IoT can benefit agriculture. The chapter aims to develop a structure for analysing the relationship between these challenges using the interpretive structural modelling (ISM) approach.

The chapter establishes a structure for analysing the relationships amongst the variables with the help of ISM approach. For this technique, six professionals having expertise in this area were approached.

This technique groups the variables into clusters based on their driving and dependence power. The variables “Early Phases of Development” and “Digital Divide” are identified as having high driving power while “Compatibility” has high dependence power at the top of the hierarchy.

The suggested method provides managers a better knowledge of the challenges which have maximum effect on other variables and those variables which are most influenced by other variables. The information will help the individuals for identifying which variables to be given more emphasis on and how the balance between the variables can be obtained.

The chapter puts spotlight on deploying ISM as the managerial decision-making tool to identify and rank a set of challenges.