# A Review of Practice and Implementation of the Internet of Things (IoT) for Smallholder Agriculture
## 3 Results and Discussion
### Implementation Cases  
In addition to reviewing the literature and interviewing experts, we found it useful to study on-the-ground implementations of the IoT for smallholder agriculture. In particular, this research aimed to understand what helps to create an enabling environment at the country level, and the keys to success and the risks associated with active IoT in smallholder agriculture projects in India and Kenya. India is home to over 130 million smallholder farms [85] and is a common testbed and incubator for digital services for farmers. Site visits and discussions in India focused on identifying the factors that enable innovations in the agricultural sector in order to promote those in GFSS countries. The following is a summary of those factors. \(\bullet\) Mobile network connectivity and cost: Relatively cheap monthly mobile data plans of 0.21 USD/GB [38; 39] have helped IoT companies explore opportunities to work with sensors using cellular services for data transmission. \(\bullet\) Market opportunity: The large population size and density, and increasing incomes of the Indian middle class, make India a lucrative market for IoT providers [41]. Figure 6: Power consumption vs. range for common communication protocols [81; 82]. Bubble size is proportional to data rate. \(\bullet\) Policies to support farmers: Agriculture accounts for 17.32% of India's GDP and employs over 50% of the population, and some state governments are providing subsidies for new farm equipment that could be leveraged towards precision agriculture purchases [40]. \(\bullet\) Academic institutions: Some of the highest ranking academic institutions in India are performing research that benefits Indian farmers and are raising the awareness of farming challenges to students through hackathons. Kenya represents a very different landscape compared to India. The population and total number of farm holdings are vastly smaller, and many of the enabling factors discussed above are yet to emerge. However, Kenya was selected because, among the different GFSS countries, the authors' investigations and discussions revealed several active IoT for agriculture cases across different applications and locations in Kenya. These cases are summarized in this section along with some of the keys to the success and the associated risks with project sustainability. As part of the Kenya Resilient Arid Lands Partnership for Integrated Development (RAPID) project to manage the recently discovered Lodwar Basin Aquifer in northern Kenya, electrical current sensors were installed on solar-electric borehole pumps to monitor \"water system functionality, the approximate number of pumping hours and volume extracted per day, and the last report date for the sensor\" [86]. Data from the current sensors are transmitted via cellular or satellite network to a web server and dashboard where county government staff can monitor borehole use. While the pumped water serves a variety of community needs, some is used for irrigating small farm plots on municipal land that would otherwise be infertile (Figure 7). One of the keys to the success of this IoT implementation was the clear value and utility to the government officials responsible for the pumps, who indicated that access to the dashboard significantly reduced maintenance costs and pump downtime. The Kenya RAPID project also benefits from having a large, distributed, and well-coordinated team where each organization plays a clear role, including the supplier of the IoT technology. The sensor measurements have revealed detailed pump usage patterns in relation to rainfall [74], and this, coupled with a machine learning algorithm to predict failures and reduce detection time, has resulted in an increase in system-wide pump uptime from 70% to \(>\) 99% [87]. A risk for the project is the current reliance on grant funding, although the IoT component has now been incorporated into the county government budget.