農業物聯網-如何將物聯網運用在厄瓜多的農業上 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學商學院國際經營管理英語碩士學位學程 International MBA Program College of Commerce National Chengchi University. 碩士論文政治. 大. 立Master’s Thesis. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 sit. y. Nat. 農業物聯網-如何將物聯網運用在厄瓜多的農業上 n. al. er. io. IoT in Agriculture - A Proposal of Smart Agriculture in. v i Ecuador n Ch en hi U gc. Student: Erick Alejandro Morán Montero Advisor: Professor Shari S. C. Shang. 中華民國一〇八年六月 June 2019. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(2) 農業物聯網-如何將物聯網運用在厄瓜多的農業上 IoT in Agriculture - A Proposal of Smart Agriculture in Ecuador 研究生：任秉晨. Student: Erick A. Morán M.. 指導教授：尚孝純. Advisor: Shari S. C. Shang. 學. ‧ 國. 立. 政治大國立政治大學. ‧. 商學院國際經營管理英語碩士學位學程. er. io. a. A Thesis. sit. y. Nat. 碩士論文. n. Submitted iv l to International MBA Program. n U i e n g c hUniversity National Chengchi. Ch. in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master in Business Administration. 中華民國一〇八年六月 June 2019. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(3) Acknowledgments. My sincere and humble gratitude to TaiwanICDF and to the IMBA Program for opening doors. To my parents, for teaching me every day how to enjoy the opportunities.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. “Nunca habrá revolución, sin evolución de conciencias” Tirone José González Orama. i. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(4) Abstract IoT in Agriculture - A Proposal of Smart Agriculture in Ecuador By Erick Alejandro Morán Montero Agriculture in Ecuador is not efficient due to the limitations in terms of technology in its production processes. Research has shown that Ecuadorian farmers do not use any technology. 政治大. to work their land, generating waste of resources and slow development. This study aims to. 立. show the historical delay of certain countries, using Ecuador as an example, due to the lack of. ‧ 國. 學. information. In this context, the application of IoT throughout the world has been studied, in order to evidence the positive results obtained. Based on a content analysis, this research takes. ‧. a brief journey, from the four Industrial Revolutions to the current applications of the IoT. sit. y. Nat. (Internet of Things) technology in agriculture. In addition, the research analyzes the situation. n. al. er. io. of agriculture in Ecuador with respect to the use of technology. Additionally, two simple and. v. useful IoT systems have been studied and explained, with the purpose of illustrating their. Ch. engchi. i n U. specific and real positive effects. Finally, a proposal for the implementation IoT Technology in agriculture is analyzed, through the associative and cooperative models, revealing a promising scenario of opportunities.. Keywords: IOT, Agriculture, Smart, Farming, Ecuador. ii. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(5) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction ...........................................................................................................................1 1.1. Background ......................................................................................................................1 1.2. Research Motivation and Research Objectives................................................................3 1.3. Research Questions ..........................................................................................................4. 政治大. 2. Literature Review .................................................................................................................6. 立. 2.1. The Internet of Things Development and Innovation ......................................................6. ‧ 國. 學. 2.2. Smart Farming Applications ..........................................................................................10. ‧. 2.2.1. Sensors and Actuators ...........................................................................................12 2.2.2. Communication Technologies...............................................................................12. y. Nat. er. io. sit. 2.2.3. Cloud Technologies...............................................................................................12 2.3. Agriculture in Ecuador ...................................................................................................14. al. n. v i n Ch General Aspects .................................................................................................... 14 engchi U. 2.3.1.. 2.3.2. Use of Technology in the Ecuadorian Agriculture ................................................17. 3. Research Method ................................................................................................................19 3.1. Research Approach ........................................................................................................19 3.2. Data Collection ..............................................................................................................21 3.3. Data Analysis .................................................................................................................21 4. Research Results .................................................................................................................23. iii. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(6) 4.1. Experiment 1: Smart Irrigation System .........................................................................23 4.2. Experiment 2: IoT Risk-mitigation System of Meteorological Disasters and Pest Threats...................................................................................................................................26 4.3. Infrastructure ..................................................................................................................30 4.3.1. Communication Technologies for the Proposed Systems .....................................30 4.3.2. Cloud Technology for the Proposed Systems .......................................................31. 政治大. 5. Application Proposal ...........................................................................................................32. 立. 5.1. Agricultural Associations and Cooperatives ..................................................................32. ‧ 國. 學. 6. Conclusions ..........................................................................................................................34. ‧. References ................................................................................................................................37. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. Appendix 1 ...............................................................................................................................41. Ch. engchi. iv. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(7) List of Figures and Tables. Figure 1 Internet users by world region since 1990 ....................................................................7 Figure 2 Smart Agriculture Applications .................................................................................. 11 Figure 3 IOT Deployment Scenario ..........................................................................................13 Figure 4 Smart Irrigation System..............................................................................................25 Figure 5 IoT Risk-mitigation System .......................................................................................29. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. Table 1: Illustrative applications and actors in IoT services .......................................................9. ‧. Table 2: Ecuador’s Areas Information ......................................................................................14 Table 3: Ecuador - Macroeconomic Indicators .........................................................................16. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. v. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(8) . 1. Introduction 1.1. Background It is not a secret that the use of technology has improved the production processes in every single industry around the world. The Industrial Revolutions generated significant growth in terms of efficiency and productivity in manufacturing processes. Although this is well known, it is important to internalize the evolution of this process taking into account the impacts in those places where the wave of progression did not hit with the same intensity than others;. 治政 because, even though the revolution of technology is a true 大 fact of the human being history, it 立 did not and do not occur at the same level and during the same time lapse for everybody. ‧ 國. 學. As Rabeh Morrar stated in the introduction of his Journal “The Fourth Industrial. ‧. Revolution (Industry 4.0): A Social Innovation Perspective” (Rabeh Morrar, 2017), the benefits and challenges that every industrial revolution brought are only for the socioeconomic status of. y. Nat. io. sit. the countries that have engaged in such transformations. A simple example of this reality is that,. n. al. er. while the first Industrial Revolution appear in Great Britain, during the second half of the. Ch. i n U. v. century XVIII, Latin-American countries started seeing its lights one hundred years later with a weaker impact than the pioneers.. engchi. Three Industrial Revolutions have passed so far, generating changes in people and countries. All of them had been influenced for so many elements such as social, economic, wars, governments systems, and so on. Every Industrial Revolution had had specific characteristics. In fact, the first Industrial Revolution, between the years 1760 and 1900, led by Great Britain, made a gigantic step in the textile and steel industries by the use of the steam engine. Later on, from 1900 to 1960, the metallurgy, machine, auto, building, and chemistry industries grew up by the use of internal combustion engine, during the second Industrial Revolution with the. 1. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(9) . United States as the head. Years later, closer to these days, the third one revolutionized the petrochemicals, pharma, and auto industries by the use of computers, robots, and digitalization, from 1960 to 2000, during this period, the already more developed countries began a transition to the post-industrial era (Prisecaru). These three historical events happened in specific places in the world and developed certain industries of them. Although, there is a fourth Industrial Revolution with something different; a characteristic that any of its predecessors could have. The fourth revolution, happening in our days, has the potential to reach any industry in every. 政治大. place around the world since its main technical achievement is the use of the internet.. 立. The fourth Revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, is characterized by the utilization of. ‧ 國. 學. the internet as the mean of improvements. It is defined by Alev Kirazli as “the systematic development of an intelligent, real-time capable, horizontal and vertical networking of humans,. ‧. objects and systems” (Alev Kirazli, 2015). Its benefits can be spread in a wide range of concepts.. Nat. sit. y. In addition to others, one of the most important is the Smart Factory, as a generic term; which. n. al. er. io. is no other thing that equipping the production process with sensors and autonomous systems,. i n U. v. with assistance of smart technology, in order to collect data, process them and provide. Ch. engchi. information to the user who will be able to take better decision, which, will end on efficient results. (Heiner Lasi, 2014). Nowadays, with the deluge of digital information, social media, and access to the information, results redundant to explain the importance of the internet in the life of the people, since it has become part of it. The Fourth Revolution was born as a consequence of the first three, but, contrary to them, it can be easily harnessed and replicated for anyone worldwide. As a consequence of the innovation process that the Industry 4.0 generated, the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) emerged as a networking infrastructure to interconnect electronic objects with the Internet as a medium (Mohammad Ali Jazayeri, 2015). Currently, the Internet 2. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(10) . of Things is being applied in many different industries thanks not only to its big potential but also because it is a major area in the internet services to be developed (M. Stočes, 2016). Companies and countries around the world are taking advantage of new trends in technology. The Internet of Things has been in a constant evolution process for almost 20 years so far, and despite this fact, it is still making improvements every day. One major ramification of the aforementioned Industry 4.0, where the IoT is the main protagonist is smart farming, which is the application of information and communication technologies into agriculture. This. 政治大. segment of Industry 4.0 allows the farmers to get a more precise and resource-efficient approach,. 立. resulting in a productive and sustainable agricultural production (Ravi Gorli, 2017).. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. 1.2. Research Motivation and Research Objectives. sit. y. Nat. This study, far from analyzing the historical elements around the industrial revolutions and. io. er. their main actors, or from studying the economic and social gap generated between the pioneers, called developed countries, and those who reached the impact of technology at a lower level,. n. al. Ch. seek learning, understanding, and emulating the. engchi. iv n application U. of Internet of Things from. successful experiences and propose its application for those places where this technology is not used yet. Specifically, this research will analyze the experimentation of IoT in Smart farming in particular cases around the world and propose its application to conventional farming, in order to improve their efficiency and productivity. In addition, the research will provide detailed information on how to start the implementation of IoT by providing sufficient specifications for farmers and people in general without technical knowledge related to the new trends in technology. The aim of this research is to provide with integral information regarding the application. 3. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(11) . of IoT in conventional farming. For delimitation purposes, the country Ecuador has been selected as the place where the application of IoT in agricultural will be proposed. This country has the two elements needed for being a proper example for this research: 1. IoT technology has not been used yet in rural areas; and, 2. It is easy to reach information about the country since the author of this research comes from this country. Even though the investigation process and application will be focused in Ecuador, the information will be abundant in order to be able to be replicated in other countries with similar characteristics of the chosen country.. 政治大. As a first step, this study is going to show the current characteristics and situation of the. 立. agricultural rural area in Ecuador from a macro and micro perspective, including its evolution. ‧ 國. 學. and main obstacles. Once this information is presented, two different IoT experimentations will be analyzed, where the use of technology demonstrates an improvement in efficiency. Finally,. ‧. all these results will be examined and proposed for the Ecuadorian rural agriculture in order to. Nat. sit. y. overcome its obstacles. This proposal will contain a practical way of application of the IoT in. n. al. er. io. agriculture, including quotations, financing possibilities, providers, and implementation process.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 1.3. Research Questions In this study, I addressed the following questions: 1.. What is the current situation, limitations, and opportunities in rural agriculture in Ecuador?. 2.. How the application of IoT has developed the agriculture processes around the world?. 3.. How the IoT application can improve agriculture in Ecuador?. 4.. How farmers can reach IoT in their production process in the short term? 4. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(12) . The paper is structured as follows:. This research is composed of six chapters, starting from the historical background in the Introduction, the purpose of research and the establishment of objectives; followed by the research questions. The second chapter explores, through the literature review, the development and innovation of the Internet of Things, focusing on smart agriculture, and concluding with the reality of agriculture in Ecuador. The third chapter justifies the research methods and. 政治大. analyzes the benefits of using the data collection method for this research. On the other hand,. 立. in chapter four, an in-depth analysis is carried out, with the objective of identifying the IoT. ‧ 國. 學. systems applicable to Ecuadorian agriculture and their positive impacts. Chapter five studies an approach to achieve the application of IoT in smart agriculture in Ecuador. Finally, in chapter. ‧. six, the conclusions of the investigation are presented.. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 5. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(13) . 2. Literature Review 2.1. The Internet of Things Development and Innovation In order to reach the main points of this research, it is important to define the basic concepts regarding the Internet of Things. As it was stated in the background, the Fourth Revolution generated a significant impact in every industry around the world basically for the unlimited uses that internet offers. Internet is a powerful global communication system able to provide immediate information exchange, it is interconnected by infinite networks in small and big. 治政 scopes. It broke with the classic barriers such as cultural 大or geographical, providing access to 立 its billions of users to any kind of content, as well as, resources and services (Madakam, 2015). ‧ 國. 學. According to the website “Our World in Data”, (a collaborative effort between researchers. ‧. at the University of Oxford and the non-profit organization Global Change Data Lab), the number of users, since internet first appeared back in 1990, has increased up to 44 million in. y. Nat. io. sit. 1995; only five years later in 2000, the number of users worldwide reached 413 million; and,. n. al. er. by 2016 the growth rate accelerated, even more, registering 3.4 billion of users in the whole. Ch. i n U. v. Globe. (Julia Murphy, 2019). Figure 1 summarizes the growth of internet users by region,. engchi. according to the same source, from 1990 to 2016.. There are many studies that cited a statistic generated by the ICT firm Ericson, which is that by 2020 there will more or less 500 billion devices connected in some way to the Internet, number of which around 50 billion will be mobile wireless devices. This fact brings with it important changes in the behavior of Society and in a globalized world where information is increasingly accessible (Economy, 2012). Now, it is important to clarify that just because a device, or a thing, is connected to the internet, it is not actually part of the Internet of Things world. Indeed, devices connected to a website that specifically stores data in a cloud for a user. 6. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(14) . who will collect them in the future and repeat the process is a usage that has existed a long time ago and does not have anything to do with our topic (Muench, 2014).. Figure 1 Internet users by world region since 1990. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Source: (Julia Murphy, 2019). The real innovation of the Internet of Things is the ability to connect two or more devices in a given network and leverage information in different ways, allowing them to become smarter in some way through the process of sharing information from one another. This process should provide continues computing performance, bringing useful results that are important for the user. The Internet of Things is not limited to collecting data from other devices, it is also about the interconnectivity between devices that are able to discover, talk and share control with each another (Ben-Zur, 2013). The Internet of Things is not just a network of sensors, all the things 7. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(15) . connected one another; the IoT has redirected the development of technology from the aim to connect people (social media, new apps, revolutionary devices), to connect devices with people and devices with other devices, known in other researches as machine-to-machine (Dutton, 2014). Indeed, the Internet of Things is an emerging technology defined as a comprehensive network of sensors, electronic, and software, which altogether are capable to gather and exchange data. (Bhandari, 2019). Internet of Things is a modern-day improvement in the field. 政治大. of communication and information. This concept opened the door for Smart Things, which are. 立. autonomous physical or digital objects equipped with the capability of sense, process, and act. ‧ 國. 學. (Madakam, 2015). With the current evolution of technology, more than a competitive advantage, the use of Internet of Things for companies or any business model, will become a necessity to. ‧. compete.. Nat. sit. y. That is to say, if it is expected that so many devices will be coming under this technology,. n. al. er. io. it is obvious to assume that the aggressive market will bring impressive strategies to gain market. i n U. v. share, among other aims, in every industry. In fact, the Internet of Things can allow companies. Ch. engchi. to improve their services or to generate more efficient production processes. These improvements and innovations bring with them advantages such as reduction of costs, mitigation of risks, increase in customer satisfaction and loyalty, environmental care, and so on. The correct use of this technology could impact heavily on any business model (Economy, 2012).. 8. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(16) . Table 1 Illustrative applications and actors in IoT services. Illustrative applications and actors in IoT services Type of Application. Device. Setting of Use. Remote monitoring, for diabetes, asthma, etc.. Sensor, webcam, microphone. Monitor wine cellar, childcare. Environmental monitoring. Smartphone pollution apps. Pedestrian motorist. 立. Manufacturing. Patient with a particular diagnosis. 學. ‧ 國. Health monitoring. 政治大 Smartphone app or email Sensors, RFID. Lean manufacturing. ‧. Source: (Ravi Gorli, 2017). y. Nat. sit. A main technical innovation of the Internet of Things networks are the sensors and. n. al. er. io. actuators. Sensors have a primary objective to detect specific stimulation or change in certain. i n U. v. conditions and translate into a language that can be read by the user or another thing. On the. Ch. engchi. other hand, actuators, as a respond to a received signal generate a pre-specified change in a system. With these two main concepts, it is easier to illustrate the main innovations that IoT has reached in the past year in a different context. Inside a wireless sensor and actuator network, the sensor nodes receive and gather the information on the physical world; and, are able to deliver messages with sensed values to other sensors or actuators (Morita, Aikebaier, Enokido, & Takizawa, 2008). Following the same line, the IoT Technology has developed different ways of detecting or sensing things, called identification technologies such as through RFID, the given letter for. 9. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(17) . Radio Frequency Identification. This system is capable, by using radio waves, to transmit a unique serial number of a thing, that could be a person or an object (Violino, 2005). All the data collected is stored in the cloud. According to Goran Čandrlić, over 1 Exabyte of data was stored in the cloud by 2013, which means 1.073,741,824 Gigabytes of data; moreover, by 2016, a big amount of companies worldwide started to store sensitive date of their customers in public clouds (Čandrlić, 2013). On the next section of this research, these concepts will be widely explained.. 立. 政治大. 2.2. Smart Farming Applications. ‧ 國. 學. Once the concept, the developments, and applications of the Internet of Things have stayed, it is the next step to focus the research to the smart farming; this is the application of IoT to the. ‧. agricultural field. In fact, the smart farming is basically the application of current and innovative. Nat. sit. y. information and communication technologies into agriculture, with the purpose of improve the. n. al. er. io. production processes, increase farmers’ revenue, develop efficiency, productivity, as well as,. i n U. v. generate positive impacts to the society and the people, such as environmental care, smart and. Ch. engchi. planned production, risk mitigation, and so on (Köksal & Tekinerdogan, 2018). Many applications have appeared since the concept of smart farming first came up, such us smart irrigation, environmental forecast, devices automation, etc. each of the generates improvements in important parts of the agricultural production process. Figure 2 shows the most important applications of smart agriculture nowadays.. 10. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(18) . Figure 2 Smart Agriculture Applications. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. sit. y. Nat. Source: (Ravi Gorli, 2017). io. er. It is a fact that one of the most important elements that affect the economy of a country is. al. agriculture because it is not only part of the benefits of the society, but also a way of living. It. n. v i n is important to mention that smartCfarming a profitable business thanks to its useful h e nhasg become chi U. and multiple applications. Some of the most popular are high precision crop control, automated farming techniques, and many others based on data collection that offers important advantages to the farming world. Indeed, smart farming is supposed to play a significant role in the coming years, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, due to the growing population of the Earth, by 2050 the world will have to be able to produce seventy percent more food than the produced in 2006 in order to fulfill the hunger of people (Ravi Gorli, 2017). With this information as fact, farmers need to start improving their processes, that is the reason why people, farmers, and companies already started to open their processes to the Internet of Things.. 11. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(19) . 2.2.1. Sensors and Actuators The sensors and actuators play an important role in smart farming applications. The decision of which of them should be used depends only on the outcome willing to obtain. Currently, there are in the market as many sensors as one can imagine something that could be sensed, and in several areas and applications, for instance gas sensors, commonly used for collecting data regarding pollution; sensors for monitoring the quality of the water; cameras for recording video and microphones for audio; and also traditional and common sensors such as. 政治大. moisture, temperature, environmental, pressure sensors, water flow, wind, atmospheric, and so. 立. on (Sharma, K., Bhondekar, Ghanshyam, & Ojha).. ‧ 國. 學. 2.2.2. Communication Technologies. ‧. After the information is collected it has to be transmitted for further processing within the. Nat. sit. y. IoT functionality. With respect to this many companies started to work in different. n. al. er. io. communication technologies. Indeed, since there are different kinds of sensors, there are. i n U. v. different kind of data platform-as-aa that need to be transmitted; therefore, there have to be as. Ch. engchi. much different communication technologies as needed to satisfy the demand of the IoT developing industry. The most common technologies, among others, are the LTE (Long-Term Evolution), supporting the IoT applications with features like longer battery life, longer range and lower cost (PRNewswire, 2017); the already well-known Wifi and Mobile phone 2G, 3G, and 4G; also, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), explained in the previous section; ZigBee, a low-cost and low-power-consumption wireless communication standard (ZigBeeAlliance, 2012); 6LoWPAN, and so on. (Sharma, K., Bhondekar, Ghanshyam, & Ojha).. 2.2.3. Cloud Technologies Another main component of the IoT applications is the development of cloud computing 12. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(20) . technology. This system is changing every industry; in fact, it is broadly used in many businesses and, of course, in e-commerce-related companies. In general terms, the cloud computing is a disk drive, which can be private, public, hybrid, or communal, regarding the ownership, that is able to store, analyze, process and interpret any kind of data. This technology provides the user open accessibility from any place and any time through the internet, in order to provide a user-friendly service (Ngak, 2012). The clouds are made of two layers. On the first one, called front end layer, there is the. 政治大. user, the application, the user interface, and everything that the user interacts with. On the other. 立. hand, on the back end layer, there are the servers, the computers that run the applications, and. ‧ 國. 學. the storage systems. Finally, the middleware which is the software that allows computers to communicate with each other (Čandrlić, 2013). Based on the service to be provided, the clouds. ‧. are classified in IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service), and SaaS. Nat. sit. y. (Software-as-a-Service). The following graph illustrates how the whole IoT system works based. er. io. on the concepts explained above:. n. aFigure iv l C 3 IOT Deployment Scenario n hengchi U. Source: (Sharma, K., Bhondekar, Ghanshyam, & Ojha). 13. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(21) . 2.3. Agriculture in Ecuador 2.3.1. General Aspects Ecuador is a small South American country, with middle income, agrarian, and oilexporting economy. It is located right in the middle of the world where the equator line passes (Latitude 0°). It is a privileged area of the globe in terms of ecosystems, climate, land, temperature, and environmental conditions. Ecuador is a country with a vast natural wealth within its four regions, Coast, Andes, Amazon, and Galapagos Islands, each one different from. 政治大. the other. The capital city is Quito; the official currency of the Country is the US Dollar; the. 立. official language is Spanish; and, According to the Ecuadorian National Statistics and Censuses. ‧ 國. 學. Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Cesnsos , 2019), by 2019 there are 19,257,925 Ecuadorians. Gross Domestic Product totaled 99.9 billion in 2016 and 104.3 billion in 2017.. ‧. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the following. Nat. al. v i n C h Areas Information Ecuador's U i e h n c g Land Area Agricultural Area. n Country Area 25,637. er. io. sit. y. numbers represent the summary of Ecuador’s area-related information:. Table 2 Ecuador’s Areas Information. 24,836. 5,516. Forest Area 12,469.15 (numbers in 1000 ha). Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2016. Since 1970, the main source of revenue of the country is petrol extraction and exportation. Besides this, Ecuador still has an agricultural-based economy. In fact, agricultural activities still play an important role in the Ecuadorian economy. It represents almost 10% of the Gross Domestic Product for the last ten years, and even higher percentages in the previous years. In. 14. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(22) . terms of harvested area, the main products are fruits with 45%, sugar cane with 37%, oilseeds with 9%, and cereals and other grains with 7%. In addition, other crops that are not extensive and require large amounts of land are coffee, potatoes, and flowers. Moreover, other important products produced un the Ecuadorian agriculture are rice, corn, and soybeans (Ludena & Wong, 2006). The following table shows macroeconomic information regarding Ecuador, taken from The World Bank Group Organization (The World Bank, 2019). This table shows the Total GDP. 政治大. and the annual growth rate of the country; and, the share of the Agriculture activities from the. 立. Total GDP.1. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 1. Find the definitions of the indicators used in this table in Appendix 1.. 15. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(23) . Table 3 Ecuador - Macroeconomic Indicators. Ecuador – Macroeconomic Indicators Agriculture, forestry, and fishing, value-added GDP. Total GDP Millions - US. Annual. Millions - US. Annual. Percentage of. Dollar. Growth Rate. Dollar. Growth Rate. Total GDP. 1996. $25,226. 1.73. $5,234. 5.93. 20.75. 1997. $28,162. 4.33. $5,663. 5.22. 20.11. 1998. $27,981. 3.27. $4,890. -2.98. 17.48. 1999. $19,645. -4.74. $3,451. 8.85. 17.57. 2000. $18,327. 1.09. $2,823. 0.83. 15.40. 2001. $24,468. 4.02. $3,097. 4.97. 12.66. $28,548. 4.10. $3,206. $32,432. 2.72. $36,591. 政治大. 1.77. 11.23. $3,516. 6.61. 10.84. 8.21. $3,546. 2.39. 9.69. $41,507. 5.29. $3,935. ‧. 學. 2002. 立. ‧ 國. Year. 7.06. 9.48. 2006. $46,802. 4.40. $4,403. 4.31. 2007. $51,007. 2.19. $4,772. 2008. $61,762. 6.36. $5,537. 2009. $62,519. 2010. $69,555. 2011. $79,276. 2012. $87,924. 5.64. 2013. $95,129. 2014. 2003 2004. y. 9.36. 1.67. 8.97. 1.72. 9.91. 0.74. 9.73. 7.94. 9.60. $7,598. 0.78. 8.64. 4.95. $8,342. 6.69. 8.77. $10,172. 3.79. $9,284. 7.58. 9.13. 2015. $99,290. 0.10. $9,387. 2.91. 9.45. 2016. $99,937. -1.23. $9,513. 0.86. 9.52. 2017. $104,295. 2.37. $9,730. 5.53. 9.33. io. n. al. er. 3.42. Nat. 9.41. sit. 2005. i C3.53 $6,769 n hengchi U 7.87 $7,611 0.57. $6,198. v. Source: The World Bank. 16. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(24) . 2.3.2. Use of Technology in the Ecuadorian Agriculture The agricultural activities in Ecuador are recognized as part of the popular and solidaritybased economy, therefore, the agriculture industry is controlled by the Superintendence of Popular and Solidarity-based Economy, a public institution created in 2012 as an effort of the Ecuadorian Government to organize, supervise and control, among others, the agriculture activities under the cooperative model in the Country. The Superintendence, after its creation, started a recording process of all the organizations under its control. One of the purposes was. 政治大. to collect data and obtain the first real quantification and qualification of this kind of. 立. organizations because, until this time, there was not an official census data regarding the. ‧ 國. 學. agricultural activity.. After the first semester of 2013, the Superintendence found its first numbers. The job that. ‧. the Superintendence did was bigger than only the agricultural sector. Indeed, this process had. Nat. sit. y. two outcomes; first, to identify and record organizations, different than banks, working in. n. al. er. io. financial activities; and second, no financial-related organization, that have economic activities.. i n U. v. Within this second group, there was a sub-division, according to the main activity: production,. Ch. engchi. housing, services, and consumption (Chimbo, Pilatásig, & Ponce, 2018). For purposes of this study, the author will focus on the results related to the no financialrelated organizations with production activities. According to the Ecuadorian Organic Law of Popular and Solidarity Economy, the organizations with production activities are those in which their members personally dedicate themselves to licit productive activities, in a jointly managed and collective property society, such as agricultural, family orchards, fishing, craft, industrial, and textiles (Ley Orgánica de Economía Popular y Solidaria , 2014). Since this is the most accurate historical information that could be found, the author will isolate as much as possible the data regarding agriculture in order to expose the reality of Ecuador under this topic. 17. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(25) . Under this research, the Superintendence of Popular and Solidarity-based Economy found that by July 2013 Ecuador had 288 production organizations spread along with the country (Chimbo, Pilatásig, & Ponce, 2018). From this number, this Public Institution made sampling and took only the 14% of the total found population to find out data about specific indicators such as, among others, geographical distribution, administrative characteristics, ownership, educational level, gender equality, and information technology and communication. It is important to mention that the organizations taken for the sample are the biggest according to. 政治大. the income level, expenses, and taxes paid to the Internal Revenue Services of Ecuador (Chimbo, Pilatásig, & Ponce, 2018).. 立. ‧ 國. 學. Regarding the information technology and communication, the results are quite revealing and give an idea of the lack of the use of technology throughout the whole production process. ‧. chain of these organizations. The 95% of the analyzed organizations counted with at least one. Nat. sit. y. computer, taking into account that this is a necessary technological tool for daily activities of. n. al. er. io. any organization. In addition, 87% of the institutions had internet access; and only 10% had a. i n U. v. webpage (Aproximación a la caracterización de cooperativas de la Economía Popular y Solidaria, 2015).. Ch. engchi. Finally, in the annual magazine published in 2018 by the Superintendence of Popular and Solidarity-based Economy after having informed its administration about the fulfillment of its functions as a public entity during the previous year, it was written under the title “Challenges and Opportunities”, speaking about the future actions, to develop better management practices and research and development in technology to improve the expected results (Chimbo, Pilatásig, & Ponce, 2018).. 18. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(26) . 3. Research Method 3.1. Research Approach The Fourth Industrial Revolution “Industry 4.0” brought the development of the Internet. A powerful communication tool capable to cause a positive impact in as many industries as it is involved. Following this, as a consequence of the continuous research and development in technology, the Internet of Things made its appearance in the scene, revolutionizing and bursting the market. Although, the main favored of the use of the new trends of technology are. 治政 those who historically had occupied a privileged position 大 in terms of economic status, 立 development, and growth. Therefore, nowadays in countries such as Ecuador, there are farmers ‧ 國. 學. who still do not have the opportunity to use and enjoy this technology in their daily activities. ‧. simply because the knowledge and development of technology have not yet affected them. With this factual situation in mind, this research applied “Secondary Data Collection. y. Nat. io. sit. Method”. In this study the author sought to identify, process, summarize and simplify useful. n. al. er. information related to the application of the IoT in agriculture. In fact, there is vast information. Ch. i n U. v. regarding the application of different experiments with successful results. In the first place, the. engchi. objective was to identify the basic common problems that farmers experiment during the production processes, regardless the specific conditions of the country or the area where they are farming, so the smart system to be proposed can actually be applied everywhere. As a result, three main flaws were identified: irrigation problems, meteorological disasters, and pests’ threats. After studying, and understanding the current situation of the Ecuadorian agriculture, the country where the IoT systems were proposed, the method performed in the development of this study, was a thorough reading and investigation of the problems related to agriculture. 19. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(27) . around the world. Subsequently, how people around the world were approaching and solving those problems by the use of technology. The main purpose of this research was to identify simple but effective systems of IoT, tested by others that can be emulated in other places. The next step was to “disarm” the components of the system and define them in a simple and common language that any person with or without technical knowledge is able to understand. Finally, to explain, in the same way, the operation and application process, and finally, the positive results to be obtained.. 政治大. There are two main reasons why this methodology was applied. First, information. 立. accessibility. There are tons of information available regarding the Internet of Thing. In fact,. ‧ 國. 學. this topic has become trendy for the last 10 years, many people around the world have been researching and developing technology and information. It is not difficult to find journals,. ‧. conference papers, and books of enlightened people talking about this subject. Once again,. Nat. n. al. er. io. spread it. Second, successful previous experiences.. sit. y. thanks to the Internet, information is accessible, one only needs to know where to find it and. i n U. v. The experiments selected for this study were already applied and tested by their authors.. Ch. engchi. Thus, far from discovering or developing new technologies, this study sought to gather necessary data in order to learn from previous experiences and emulate successful cases in which farmers, through the use of the Internet of Things, overcame obstacles in their agricultural processes, or simply improved them, taking into account the Ecuadorian reality. That is why, this research has selected specific cases, learned from their experience, and proposed solutions. Secondary Data Collection Method is widely recognized and used in academic research papers worldwide. Thus, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, presented a guideline called “FAO Fisheries Technical Paper” with the aim to help those who 20. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(28) . design routine data collection programs, were amply developed data collection methods (FAO, 1999). In the same way, UNICEF supports this method in their study “Overview: Data Collection and Analysis Methods in Impact Evaluation” where is stayed that well-chosen and implemented methods for data collecting, are indispensable for all types of evaluation (Peersman, 2014).. 3.2. Data Collection. 政治大. The data and information collected for this research were sensibly selected, after studying. 立. a big amount of related material, and once the main objective was previously identified:. ‧ 國. 學. irrigation problems, meteorological disasters, and pest’s threats. In order to maintain high standards of research validity, the criteria to select the secondary data was the reliability of the. ‧. source, currency of the information, depth of analysis, technical contribution to the main. Nat. sit. y. objectives, and the development of the research. All the information used in this research was. n. al. er. io. taken from journals and papers from databases supported by university’s libraries worldwide;. i n U. v. governmental institutions, and international non-profit organizations. This information can be. Ch. confirmed in the Reference section.. engchi. 3.3. Data Analysis The main purpose of the data collection was to identify proper IoT application systems which can be used by Ecuadorian farmers in order to improve their agriculture processes. For achieving this aim the data analysis had to follow certain steps to get valuable results. First, to identify the problems to be fixed through the application of the IoT. Second, to research and find other cases where people had similar problems and applied any kind of technology to combat their situation. Third, to understand the IoT system and adapt it to the Ecuadorian. 21. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(29) . characteristics; to define every single component of the IoT system in order to make it understandable to any person with or without technical knowledge; to explain in not only a simple way but also complete and sufficient the operation process of the proposed IoT system. Finally, to enumerate the benefits of the proper application of the proposed technological solutions.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 22. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(30) . 4. Research Results 4.1. Experiment 1: Smart Irrigation System The following information is a result of the research and analysis made by the author and the application of the acquired information taken mainly from previous experiments contained in the papers: “Automatic IoT Based Plant Monitoring and Watering System using Raspberry Pi” (Anusha & Mahadevaswamy, 2018); and, “An efficient employment of internet of multimedia things in smart and future agriculture” (AlZu’bi, Hawashin, Mujahed, Jararweh, & Gupta, 2019).. 政治大. 立. What is watering irrigation?. ‧ 國. 學. According to the Irrigation Association, a membership organization for water. ‧. management companies and professionals in agriculture (Rochester, 2017), irrigation is the intentional and controlled application of water for sustained plant growth and production. y. Nat. io. sit. optimization purposes. Together with this term, the smart irrigation is an upgraded process by. n. al. er. the application of the Internet of Things in order to generate an efficient procedure which. Ch. improves the outcome occupying fewer resources.. engchi. i n U. v. Proposed Smart Irrigation System As a result of this research, the proposed application of the Internet of Things is a Smart Irrigation System where a group of moisture sensors distributed along with temperature and humidity sensors on the field to be irrigated, collect the environment and soil conditions, translated as data, allowing the system to efficiently distribute through pipes the specific amount of water needed on the field. The irrigation process must be able to be adapted depending on the needs of different crops. three. 23. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(31) . Equipment required §. Moisture sensors: An essential device for water irrigation that measures or monitors soil water content or tension (Rochester, 2017).. §. Humidity and temperature sensors: Devices that daily monitor the environmental conditions in the field (Anusha & Mahadevaswamy, 2018).. §. Wireless sensor-actuator network: It is a network composed of interconnected sensor nodes and actuator nodes where a sensor node sends sensed values to actuator nodes.. 政治大. On the other side, the actuator node performs the method on actuation devices (Kiyohiro. 立. Morita, 2008).. Raspberry-Pi device: This is the main component of the Smart Irrigation System. It is a. ‧ 國. 學. §. computer which operates under the UNIX operating system. All the sensors are. ‧. connected with this processor. It is in charge of receiving the collected information,. Nat. n. al. Ch. engchi. Smart Irrigation System Operation. er. io. project (Anusha & Mahadevaswamy, 2018).. sit. y. process it and deliver the instructions. This device can be implemented in any kind of. i n U. v. 1. Distribution of the sensors on the field to be irrigated. For a better collection of information, the system will include moisture sensors for collecting information from the soil, and humidity and temperature sensors for collecting information of the environment. 2. The wireless sensor-actuator network is communicated with the Raspberry-Pi device, where the data is processed for taking the irrigation decisions.. 24. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(32) . 3. According to the received information from the soil and the environment, the Raspberry-Pi device gives the order to the motors to either switch on or off; and, the water is distributed to the field through pipes in a proper amount and direction. 4. As an additional feature, all the actions taken are recorded and communicated by email to the user. This information is valuable for future decisions. Chart flow of the Smart Irrigation System. 立. 政治大. Figure 4 Smart Irrigation System. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Source: Created by the author. 25. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(33) . Positive Impacts of the System Application ü Reduction of the amount of wasted water. ü Avoid the risk of over-irrigation in the agricultural area. ü Reduction of the irrigation cost. ü Generate the capacity of monitoring the moisture in the soil and the potential collection of historical data for future decisions. ü Reduction of manpower – Time and cost.. 治政 Environmental care and responsibility. 大立 Remote control of field irrigation. ü. 學. ‧ 國. ü. ‧. 4.2. Experiment 2: IoT Risk-mitigation System of Meteorological Disasters. sit. y. Nat. and Pest Threats. io. er. The following information is a result of the research and analysis made by the author and the. al. application of the acquired information taken mainly from previous experiments contained in. n. v i n C hService System Uof Disaster Comprehensive engchi. the paper: “The. Prevention in Facility. Agriculture\Based on GIS and Sensor Networks” (LIU Bing, 2011); and, “Application of Wireless Sensor Networks with GIS on the Soil Moisture Distribution Mapping” (Can Ayday, 2009).. What are Meteorological Disasters and Pest Threats? The meteorological disasters are such events resulted as a consequence of extreme weather variations that cause negative impacts in agricultural production, bringing with them economic losses for farmers. Indeed, the agricultural sector is the most affected after climate. 26. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(34) . changes. These meteorological disasters for farming, among others, are low and high temperature, flood, drought, storm, and low light (Meihua Wu, 2015). On the Other hand, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA.gov, 2019), pests are a potential risk of invasive species that threaten to harm plants, crops, and trees. Pests are able to destroy complete farming lands and productions, costing, as well as meteorological disasters, important economic losses for the farmers. 政治大. Proposed IoT Risk-mitigation System. 立. As a result of this research, the proposed application of the Internet of Things is a risk-. ‧ 國. 學. mitigation system for meteorological disasters and pests’ threats. The project is based on a network of sensors GIS, together with a B-C-M-S/S structure. The network of sensors is able. ‧. to perceive the temperature, humidity, pests in order to provide immediate and convenient. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. y. information to the users, and moreover, early warning at any time.. Equipment required §. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. GIS: The letters assigned for Geographic Information System which is an efficient computer-based system capable to collect, store, edit, evaluate, and display large amounts of special data (Can Ayday, 2009).. §. B-C-M-S/S Hardware Structure: This formula is formed by the conjunction of browser/server model (B/S), client/server model (C/S), mobile/server model (M/S), and sensor network model (S/S). o B/S: The objective of this model is to give the capability to users to connect the mobile phone or a computer to analyze and provide network inquiries. Thanks. 27. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(35) . to this feature, farmers would be able to reach information in real time and to receive periodical status and early warning from their lands. o C/S: This element represents service client. Its main purpose is to achieve internet and sensor network to data transmission by using the Oracle database. o M/S: This element refers to the mobile phone of the farmers and users in general, as the mean for receiving warnings, alarms and weather forecast. o S/S: Refers to a sensor network equipped with devices capable to collect. 政治大. information and to send it to a laptop via the internet. The network contains,. 立. besides a video and audio collector, air temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide,. ‧ 國. ‧. IoT Risk-mitigation System Operations. 學. radiation, and soil temperature sensors.. sit. y. Nat. 1. The sensor network is distributed to the field. They will collect the microclimate. io. er. information, farming production, and weather conditions according to their specific. al. features. The system operates full time and, by the C/S model, it is able to identify. n. v i n C haffected scale, analysis meteorological disaster grade, e n g c h i U on crops, the type of diseases and pests the 2. The information is sent to the GIS system where is processed, evaluated, and displayed. 3. The monitory environment and urgent information called early warning are sent right away, when necessary, to the mobile phone of the farmer, through the application of M/S mode. With this information, the farmer is able to take accurate, suitable, and timely decisions in order to add technical support to farming production.. 28. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(36) . Chart flow of System Figure 5 IoT Risk-mitigation System. 政治大. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 Source: Created by the author. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. Positive Impacts of the System Application. i n U. v. ü Improves efficiency in production processes and respond speed. ü Accurate and intuitive support to farmers ü Gives technical knowledge and forecasts possible threats. ü Controlled and comprehensive production. ü Risk of disaster effects mitigation. ü Reduces manpower. ü Increases farmer’s income.. 29. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(37) . 4.3. Infrastructure An important element for the implementation of the IoT systems developed and studied in this chapter, is the appropriate infrastructure which must be able to support properly these systems in order to have the expected results and benefits from their application. The infrastructure has three main components: sensors and actuators, communication technologies, and cloud technologies. The sensors and actuators were exposed according the specifications of both systems; thus, this section develops the other two components.. 立. 政治大. 4.3.1. Communication Technologies for the Proposed Systems. ‧ 國. 學. According to the characteristics of the proposed systems and the features of the agricultural. ‧. places in Ecuador, the most appropriate communication technology to be applied is RFID, which is capable, by using radio waves, to transmit a unique serial number of a thing, that could. y. Nat. io. sit. be a person or an object. The radio-frequency identification communication is a non-expensive. n. al. er. microchip with unique identity capable to stablish wireless communications. There are two. Ch. i n U. v. different options, active and passive RFIDs. The difference is the power source. Active RFIDs. engchi. are powered by batteries, providing superior capabilities such as a higher signal range. On the other hand, passive RFIDs do not use an external battery or power source; they are powered by the RFID reader’s RF interrogation signal to communicate (Sharma, K., Bhondekar, Ghanshyam, & Ojha). Therefore, in the Smart Irrigation System, even if the farms do not have internet connection, the sensors can still make communication with the Raspberry-Pi device and consequently to achieve an efficient water distribution. In the same way, the IoT Risk-Mitigation System of. 30. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(38) . Meteorological Disasters and Pest’s Threats can achieve proper communication between the network of sensors and the GIS technology, working in the same way than the first system.. 4.3.2. Cloud Technology for the Proposed Systems The application of a tool such as cloud technology in the development of the proposed systems, contributes with important improvements for its application. Indeed, this technology provides an on-demand network access of unlimited resources. According to the characteristics of the proposed Systems, the most suitable technology applicable, according to the service, is a. 治政 PaaS, Platform as a Service (Sharma, K., Bhondekar, Ghanshyam, & Ojha). With this cloud 大立 technology, farmers can generate their own configuration system, without technical knowledge ‧ 國. 學. nor background. Furthermore, they can acquire a private cloud with pre-ready applications and. ‧. software.. The implementation of this technology is important for the proposed systems, for an. y. Nat. io. sit. optimum functionality. For instance, the IoT Risk-Mitigation System of Meteorological. n. al. er. Disasters and Pest’s could generate immediate warning to the farmers when it discovers. Ch. i n U. v. something is going wrong, as well as, to record information for future forecasts. In the same. engchi. way, the smart irrigation system, will record information and generate every time a better distribution of water, based on information. And more important, farmers can any time review the collected data, remotely.. 31. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(39) . 5. Application Proposal 5.1. Agricultural Associations and Cooperatives The associativism has been present in social practices since the first civilizations in which human beings grouped into clans, bands, and tribes and helped one another. Since the emergence of agriculture, communities have begun to produce and distribute according to the criteria of domestic solidarity, that is, based on an autarkic unit the dynamic was to produce and store to meet the needs of the members of a closed group (Economía Social, Popular y Solidaria. 治政 y Cooperativismo, 2016). Nowadays, Ecuador has 大 organizations recognized by law as 立 associations and cooperatives. Under the proper management, the associations and cooperatives ‧ 國. 學. in Ecuador are able to implement new technologies in their farms. The Organic Law of Popular. ‧. and Solidarity Economy in its articles 18 and 21 defines these organizations as follows (Ley Orgánica de Economía Popular y Solidaria , 2014):. io. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. “Associations: the set of associations constituted by natural persons with productive. Ch. i n U. v. economic activities similar or complementary, in order to produce, market and consume. engchi. licit and socially necessary goods and services, self-sufficiency of material premium, inputs, tools, technology, equipment and other assets, or commercialize its production in solidarity and self-managed manner under the principles of this Law.”. “Cooperatives: societies of people who have joined voluntarily to meet their economic, social and cultural needs in common, through a jointly owned company and democratic management, with legal personality of private law and social interest.”. 32. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(40) . According to the Superintendence of Popular and Solidarity-based Economy, by 2017 there are 6,454 production associations and 489 production cooperatives in Ecuador. From those numbers, approximately 15% are dedicated exclusively to agriculture activities which means 970 associations and 75 cooperatives (Chimbo, Pilatásig, & Ponce, 2018). These organizations have as a main objective to perform economic practices with its members using their contributions that are done periodically in order to achieve the desired outcome (Chimbo, Pilatásig, & Ponce, 2018). In other words, through this kind of organizations, farmers can,. 政治大. communally, afford the expenses that the application of the IoT represents.. 立. Unfortunately, the reason why these organizations did not get the new trends of technology. ‧ 國. 學. for their farms is the lack of information. In fact, there is research made for the Superintendence that shows the most relevant degree of instruction of the manager or legal representative of. ‧. these organizations, and the numbers reveal this situation. From a population of associations. Nat. sit. y. and cooperative dedicated to production activities, only 3% of legal representatives have. n. al. er. io. postgraduate instruction; moreover, only 16% of them have technical education; besides this,. i n U. v. 44.79% and 35.57% got higher education and baccalaureate education; finally, 7.98% have. Ch. engchi. basic general education (Aproximación a la caracterización de cooperativas de la Economía Popular y Solidaria, 2015).. 33. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(41) . 6. Conclusions It is a fact that the technological development of the Internet of Things is revolutionizing the world. Countries, industries, and people are enjoying the benefits that innovation brings. Although, when we make a deeper analysis of these events, unfortunately, we can realize the inequality situation with which the technology’s kindness impacts in some places of the world. In many historical processes of the human being, such the Industrial Revolutions, there are two big and different groups, those who get a privileged position and those who got delayed their. 治政 progress, regardless the juncture of those episodes. Moreover, 大 this situation becomes a snowball 立 when the ones ahead keep going forward, being every time more difficult to reach. ‧ 國. 學. It has been shown the innovative application that the IoT has developed for agriculture, now. ‧. called smart farming, a technology that is being applied nowadays, as a necessary tool to compete (and soon to survive) in the market. Applications such as field and resource mapping. y. Nat. io. sit. based on sensors, remote equipment and crop monitoring, predictive analytics for crops and. n. al. er. livestock, climate monitoring and forecasting, smart logistics and warehousing, and so on.. Ch. i n U. v. Likewise, it has been shown with official data, the lack of use of the technology of farmers. engchi. in Ecuador. This is a country with an agriculture-based economy, where agriculture represents a portion of 10% of Total GDP, on average, during the last ten years, and where the discussion related to technology on farms is about having a computer or not. The current situation of the agriculture in Ecuador is the lack of application of technology in the production processes, mostly due to ignorance about new technologies. For this reason, the limitation of the agriculture in Ecuador is to be stuck in old production processes, wasting resources, manpower, and time, for lower results; as a consequence, the prices are higher for internal consumption and less competitive for exportation purposes. On the other hand, the. 34. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(42) . opportunities for Ecuadorian agriculture are countless. Ecuador is privileged for its location in the world for agriculture purposes. In a small territory, it has diverse ecosystems and fertile soils. All the natural resources plus the appropriate use of technology represent important opportunities for the country’s agriculture. The application of the IoT in Ecuadorian agriculture represents the reduction of water waste, costs, labor, and time; increase in production capacity; development of historical data for future applications; environmental care; control over production; improvement of efficiency; support;. 政治大. technical knowledge; comprehensive decisions ability; risk mitigation; and, higher income.. 立. Currently, it is impossible to demonstrate the positive effects of the IoT application in Ecuador. ‧ 國. 學. with numbers, simply because the available indicators take into account all the different inputs related to the agricultural production process. Although, the qualitative impacts enumerated. ‧. here are concluded from an analogous interpretation of the experiments on which this study is. Nat. sit. y. based, which have all positive results.. n. al. er. io. On the other hand, the concluded reason why the farmers of Ecuador actually do not apply. i n U. v. technology in their processes is that they do not know it. This statement can be concluded after. Ch. engchi. the data revealed by the Superintendence of Popular and Solidarity-based Economy, where the only technological device that farms had (and not all of them) is a single computer; and also not even the half of their representatives have higher education. Under the proper administration, and public policies farmers can focus their resources and acquire the necessary equipment in a short term. One of the attributions of the Superintendence, according to the article 147 of its Law, is to ensure the stability, strength, and correct functioning of the institutions subject to its control (Ley Orgánica de Economía Popular y Solidaria , 2014). In other words, it is faculty and obligation of the Superintendence to guide, inform, support the. 35. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(43) . farmers into the modernization process. Nowadays it is easy to get information, and information is development. It is only needed to share it with those who could not get it yet.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 36. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(44) . References Alev Kirazli, R. H. (2015). A conceptual approach for identifying Industrie 4.0 application scenarios. IIE Annual Conference. Proceedings, 862-871. AlZu’bi, S., Hawashin, B., Mujahed, M., Jararweh, Y., & Gupta, B. B. (2019). An Efficient Employment of Internet of Multimedia Things in Smart and Future Agriculture . Multimedia Tools and Applications, 1-25. Anusha, K., & Mahadevaswamy, U. B. (2018). Automatic IoT Based Plant Monitoring and. 治政 Watering System using Raspberry Pi. Engineering 大and Manufacturing, 55-67. 立 Aproximación a la caracterización de cooperativas de la Economía Popular y Solidaria. (2015). ‧ 國. 學. Quito, Ecuador: Superintendencia de Economía Popular y Solidaria.. ‧. Ben-Zur, L. (2013). All Things Digital: Connecting Things to the Internet Does Not an Internet of Things Make. Dow Jones Institutional News, 1-3.. y. Nat. io. sit. Bhandari, G. (2019). Internet of Things Market Report. Macrosource Media Pty Ltd, 1-60.. n. al. er. Can Ayday, S. S. (2009). Application of Wireless Sensor Networks with GIS on the Soil. Ch. i n U. Moisture Distribution Mapping. GIS Ostrava, 25-28.. engchi. v. Čandrlić, G. (2013, February 26). GlobalDots. Retrieved from How Cloud Computing Works?: https://www.globaldots.com/how-cloud-works/ Chimbo, C. P., Pilatásig, A. G., & Ponce, S. É. (2018). Desarrollo del sector económico popular y solidario en Ecuador: antes y después de la creación de la Superintendencia de Economía Popular y Solidaria. VII Jornadas de Supervisión de la Economía Popular y Solidaria, 23-50. Dutton, W. H. (2014). Putting things to work: social and policy challenges for the Internet of things. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 1-22.. 37. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(45) . Economía Social, Popular y Solidaria y Cooperativismo. (2016). Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, 1-18. Economy, O. D. (2012). Machine-to-Machine Communications: Connecting Billions of Devices. OECD Publishing, 2-44. FAO. (1999). www.fao.org. Retrieved from FAO FISHERIES TECHNICAL PAPER: http://www.fao.org/3/x2465e/x2465e00.htm#Contents Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations . (2016). Retrieved from www.fao.org:. 政治大. http://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/index/en/?iso3=ECU. 立. Heiner Lasi, H.-G. K. (2014). Industry 4.0. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 239-. ‧ 國. 學. 242.. Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Cesnsos . (2019). Retrieved from INEC:. ‧. M.. R.. (2019).. Our. World. Data.. Retrieved. from. Internet:. n. er. io. https://ourworldindata.org/internet#. al. in. sit. Murphy,. Nat. Julia. y. http://www.ecuadorencifras.gob.ec/estadisticas/. i n U. v. Kiyohiro Morita, A. A. (2008). A Data Transmission Protocol for Reliable and Energy-efficient. Ch. engchi. Data Transmission in a Wireless Sensor-actuator Netwrk. Telecommun Syst, 71-82. Köksal, Ö., & Tekinerdogan, B. (2018). Architecture design approach for IoT-based farm management information systems. Precision Agriculture, 1-33. Ley Orgánica de Economía Popular y Solidaria . (2014). Ecuador: Registro Oficial Ecuador. LIU Bing, L. X. (2011). The Comprehensive Service System of Disaster Prevention in Facility Agriculture\Based on GIS and Sensor Networks. Physical and Numerical Simulation of Geotechnical Engineering, 56-60. Ludena, C., & Wong, S. (2006). Domestic Support Policies for Agriculture in Ecuador and the U.S.-Andean Countries Free Trade Agreement: An Applied General Equilibrium 38. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(46) . Assessment. Ninth Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis, (pp. 1-50). Addis Ababa: Purdue University and Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL). M. Stočes, J. V. (2016). Internet of Things (IoT) in Agriculture - Selected Aspects. Agris online Papers in Economics and Informatics, 83-88. Madakam, S. (2015). Internet of Things: Smart Things. International Journal of Future Computer and Communication, Vol. 4, No. 4, 250-253. Meihua Wu, Y. C. (2015). Characteristics of meteorological disasters and their impacts on the. 政治大. agricultural ecosystems in the northwest of China: a case study in Xinjiang.. 立. Geoenvironmental Disasters, 2-3.. ‧ 國. 學. Mohammad Ali Jazayeri, S. H.-Y. (2015). Implementation and Evaluation of Four Interoperable Open Standards for the Internet of Things. Sensors, 24343-24373.. ‧. Morita, K., Aikebaier, A., Enokido, T., & Takizawa, M. (2008). A data transmision protocolfor. Nat. sit. y. reliable and energy-efficient data transmision in a wireless sensor-actuator network.. n. al. er. io. Telecommun Syst, 71-82.. i n U. v. Muench, C. (2014). The Difference Between the Internet of Things and the Internet for Things. Machine Design, 1-3.. Ch. engchi. Ngak, C. (2012, Ausust 10). CBS News. Retrieved from CBS News Web site: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-cloud-computing-amazon-google-driveicloud-dropbox-explained/ Peersman, G. (2014, 9). www.unicef-irc.org. Retrieved from Overview: Data Collection and Analysis. Methods. in. Impact. Evaluation:. https://www.unicef-. irc.org/publications/pdf/brief_10_data_collection_analysis_eng.pdf Prisecaru, P. (n.d.). The Challenges of the Industry 4.0. Institute of World Economy of the Romanian Academy, 66-72. 39. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(47) . PRNewswire. (2017). Progress in IoT Communications - Technologies, Markets and Applications. PRNewswire. Rabeh Morrar, H. A. (2017). The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0): A Social Innovation Perspective. Technology Innovation Management Review, 12-20. Ravi Gorli, Y. G. (2017). Future of Smart Farming with Internet of Things. Journal of Information Technology and Its Applications, 27-38. Rochester, E. W. (2017, 07 01). Irrigation Association. Retrieved from Glossary of Irrigation. 政治大. Terms: https://www.irrigation.org/Foundation. 立. Sharma, D., K., S. A., Bhondekar, A. P., Ghanshyam, C., & Ojha, A. (n.d.). A Technical. ‧ 國. 學. Assessment of IOT for Indian Agriculture Sector. International Journal of Computer Applications, 1-5. World. Bank.. (2019).. Retrieved. from. ‧. The. The. World. Bank:. Nat. sit. y. https://databank.worldbank.org/data/source/world-development-indicators#. n. al. er. io. USDA.gov. (2019, 05 06). Retrieved from United States Department of Agriculture :. i n U. v. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/resources/pests-diseases/hungry-pests/The-Threat. Ch. engchi. Violino, B. (2005). What is RFID? RFID Journal, 1-3.. ZigBeeAlliance. (2012). ZigBee Specification Document 053474r20.. 40. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(48) . Appendix 1 Definitions Table 3 Ecuador - Macroeconomic Indicators The following definitions are taken from the Source The World Bank (The World Bank, 2019). •. GDP at purchaser's prices is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the. economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the. 政治大 depletion and degradation of natural resources. Data are in current U.S. dollars. Dollar figures 立. products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for. ‧ 國. 學. for GDP are converted from domestic currencies using single year official exchange rates. For a few countries where the official exchange rate does not reflect the rate effectively applied to. Agriculture corresponds to ISIC divisions 1-5 and includes forestry, hunting, and fishing,. sit. y. Nat. •. ‧. actual foreign exchange transactions, an alternative conversion factor is used.. io. er. as well as cultivation of crops and livestock production. Value added is the net output of a sector. al. n. after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation. v i n of C fabricated or depletion h e n gassets chi U. and degradation of natural. resources. The origin of value added is determined by the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), revision 3 or 4. Data are in current U.S. dollars. •. The annual growth rate for agricultural value added based on constant local currency.. Aggregates are based on constant 2010 U.S. dollars. Agriculture corresponds to ISIC divisions 1-5 and includes forestry, hunting, and fishing, as well as cultivation of crops and livestock production. Value added is the net output of a sector after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or depletion and degradation of natural resources. The origin of value added is. 41. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

(49) . determined by the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), revision 3 or 4. •. The annual percentage growth rate of GDP at market prices based on constant local. currency. Aggregates are based on constant 2010 U.S. dollars. GDP is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources. •. Agriculture corresponds to ISIC divisions 1-5 and includes forestry, hunting, and fishing,. 政治大. as well as cultivation of crops and livestock production. Value added is the net output of a sector. 立. after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making. ‧ 國. 學. deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or depletion and degradation of natural resources. The origin of value added is determined by the International Standard Industrial. ‧. Classification (ISIC), revision 3 or 4.. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 42. i n U. v. DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900304.

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