## 2 Food Security: A Global Challenge in View of Soil Pollutants and Heavy Metal Toxicants
### Quality of Internet Access in Developing Countries  
IoT provides an environment in which objects, animals, or humans have uniquely identified data that can be communicated over the internet without the need for computer interactions between humans and computer [65]. In 2015, over 13.4 billion devices were linked to the internet (as part of IoT) and it is forecasted that by the year 2020 there will be a rise in 18.5% to 38.5 billion devices, according to Juniper research (Juniper research 2015) [66]. Today, nearly every field of modern society is being overtaken by IoT [67]. The main areas include smart health, smart cities, intelligent industries, driverless cars, smart agriculture, precision farming, smart homes, etc. [68]. In this regard, it has been deemed necessary for every household and business sector to become connected with the internet, if we want to realize the maximum utilization of IoT. Figure 4a shows the graph of internet users worldwide on the basis of geographic division and Figure 4b shows the subsequent penetration rate till October 2020 [69]. It is worth noting that, although the number of users in Asia and Africa is high as observed in Figure 4a, if Figure 4b is analyzed, then it becomes evident that there is a clear-cut digital division, as the penetration rate in Asia and Africa is a mere 59.5% and 47.1%. In most of the developing and underdeveloped countries in Asia and Africa, the agricultural sector plays a prominent role in the contribution of overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Therefore, reforms in communication technology are deemed necessary in such regions to incorporate the IoT paradigm into the agricultural domain.  
Figure 4: (**a**) Internet users worldwide. (**b**) Internet world penetration rate [69].  
IoT has great potential and is one of the main areas for future internet services growth. IoT problems are exploratory in major IT companies and most countries. New uses of IoT are being searched for and developed, but most work has been done in the field of standardization of solutions [70]. IoT issues are included in the European Digital Agenda (2016) [66]. As part of the European framework for research and innovation HORIZON 2020, more than EUR 140 billion is estimated to have been invested in IoT technology between 2016 and 2017 alone (European Commission, 2015). In March 2015, the EU Commission launched the Innovation Internet Alliance. The objective of the alliance was to develop close cooperation on innovation and standardization of IoT (European Commission 2016) between the EU Commission, stakeholders, and parties involved in IoT [66].  
The fragmented existence of platforms and communications protocols is one of the major problems of the present day, and contributes to incompatibility problems between different IoT devices and features [71; 72]. IoT is well known in precision agriculture, but only proprietary solutions that lead to compatibility and connectivity issues between various equipment are being used [73]. New technologies need to be sought, based on open standards and frameworks that are compatible with smartphones. Many products that are based on open hardware at least partially are currently on the market and prices are considerably lower than proprietary solutions. Therefore, by keeping the current infrastructure in consideration, the agriculture methodological paradigm can be taken to the next level by connecting to the IoT.