Adoption of Industry 4.0 Technologies in Horticulture for Meeting Sustainable Farming

What is it about?

The United Nations emphasized a significant agenda on reducing hunger and protein malnutrition as well as micronutrient (vitamins and minerals) malnutrition, which is estimated to affect the health of up to two billion people. The UN also recognized this need through Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2 and SDG 12) to end hunger and foster sustainable agriculture by enhancing the production and consumption of fruits and vegetables. Previous studies only stressed the various issues in horticulture with regard to industries, but they did not emphasize the centrality of Industry 4.0 technologies for confronting the diverse issues in horticulture, from production to marketing in the context of sustainability. The current study addresses the significance and application of Industry 4.0 technologies such as the Internet of Things, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and big data for horticulture in enhancing traditional practices for disease detection, irrigation management, fertilizer management, maturity identification, marketing, and supply chain, soil fertility, and weather patterns at pre-harvest, harvest, and post-harvest. On the basis of analysis, the article identifies challenges and suggests a few vital recommendations for future work. In horticulture settings, robotics, drones with vision technology and AI for the detection of pests, weeds, plant diseases, and malnutrition, and edge-computing portable devices that can be developed with IoT and AI for predicting and estimating crop diseases are vital recommendations suggested in the study.

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Why is it important?

The Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report,45 million children die from the deadliest form of malnutrition under the age of five [1]. A chronic deficiency of essential nutrients in their nutrition has also resulted in delayed development and growth in two billion children under the age of five. This indicates that there is a need to have more emphasis on overcoming food insecurity and malnutrition due to climate extremes and economic disruption. Even the SDGs (SDG 2 and SDG 12) of the UN emphasize eradicating hunger and enhancing food security with responsible consumption and production toward sustainability [2,3]. Healthy micronutrients for overcoming malnutrition can be achieved with sustainable farming of fruits and vegetables, i.e., horticulture [4]. India is currently the world’s second-largest producer of fruits and vegetables, trailing only China. Horticulture comprises fruits, root and tuber crops, mushrooms, vegetables, spices, aromatic plants, flowers, bamboo, coconut, cashew, and cocoa. Different strategies such as technology promotion, research, post-harvest management, and marketing are key for the growth of horticulture. Improving horticulture production, increasing farmer income, improving nutritional security, and improving productivity by using quality germplasm, planting material, and micro irrigation to save water are the key vision of India for the promotion of holistic horticulture growth.

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