## 2 Background
### IoT in Agriculture  
IoT applied in agriculture can reshape all concepts, transforming traditional farming into smart farming (or Agriculture 4.0). It uses different types of sensors to collect data (e.g., temperature, humidity, light, pressure, presence, etc.), and enables precision agriculture. Precision agriculture uses data-driven decisions with a base of information technology to ensure that crops and soil receive exactly what is necessary for optimum healthy and productivity [10; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30; 31]. Figure 1 summarizes most of the challenges in farming and livestock production, subdivided into monitoring, measuring, tracking, and controlling. The most important and common variables for production are connected to each of these sections. On the right side, different approaches based on IoT solutions through digitalization of a \"thing\" [32] are shown. Each of these solutions can generate a huge amount of data, called big data [33; 34], which is collected in real-time and processed by optimization AI-based algorithms for data driven decisions and other technologies [16; 17], aiming at monitoring, measuring, tracking or controlling, allowing to improve production results [10; 11; 13; 15; 18; 19; 24; 25; 35; 36; 37; 38; 39; 40; 41; 42; 43; 44]. Block chain is an emerging technology and is con sidered a solution for the cybersecurity of IoT devices [22]. Several approaches like robotics are considered as solutions as well [12; 14].  
In the rest of the FSC, IoT can significantly reduce constraints, loss and waste during postharvest, processing, distribution, and consumption. While in postharvest, processing and in distribution, improvement is mostly linked to logistics; in the consumption level, it could change a consumer's perception or behavior, using intelligent packaging. In all FSCs food loss and waste can be reduced with the implement of IoT [45].  
Despite of all benefits that IoT technology can bring to organizations, as previously noted, the main barriers for its implementation from a MSME farmer's perspective are infrastructure, knowledge, costs, risks, and cybersecurity. Most papers point to IoT as a solution and discuss technical issues and applications related to it. Just a few papers consider a farmers' reality in a generic approach. This research is summarized in Table 4[4; 11; 46].  
Thus, the best results and success depend, not only on the application of IoT, but also on the approach, choosing the right solution according to an organization needs. Thus, it is very important to discover an actual framework for MSME farming organizations in the central region of Portugal, and answers research questions 2 and 3. To assess the sophistication and the potential for IoT transferability for companies, a survey was carried with 21 organizations. Additionally, 5 companies were be chosen for a more detailed survey.  
Thus, this study reveals the maturity stage, sophistication, potential, opportunities, solutions and barriers of IoT deployment, through a case study performed in the central region of Portugal, within the scope of the project Development of Technological Capabilities for the Industrial Application of the Internet of Things (IOTEC) [47]. The results of the survey and discussions will be presented in subsequent sections. Section 3 includes a description of the Materials and Methods. It includes details of the two-step survey. The sample characteristics are provided, as is the structure of each questionnaire. Section 4 presents the results and includes a discussion. It includes an analysis of the Phase 1 survey, devoted to assessing the potential and maturity of IoT solution implementation, as well as the Phase 2 survey to the assess a real scenario of IoT opportunities and solution implementation. Section 5 provides some suggestions and recommendations for the digitalization  
Figure 1: Main challenges and IoT solutions.  
of the agro-food companies, based on an analysis of the results of the surveys. Section 6 describes the main conclusions of the study.