Investigation of Developing Smart Agriculture in Greenhouses of Tehran Province

Document Type : Research Article-en

Authors

• Sodabeh Binaei
• Hossein Shabanali Fami
• Khalil Kalantari
• Aliakbar Barati

Department of Agricultural Management and Development, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22067/jead.2024.85975.1237

Abstract

Food production in controlled cultivation areas plays a crucial role in increasing productivity and offsetting supply shortages. Product yields, water consumption, and energy use are the main parameters determining the performance of food production in a greenhouse. Smart technology is an effective solution to improve these parameters. This study aimed to identify the components, challenges, and requirements for the development of smart agriculture in greenhouses. Our case study focused on Tehran province, which encompasses a significant portion of the total greenhouses in Iran. The statistical population consisted of 20 subject-matter experts with research or executive experience in greenhouse automation, selected purposefully. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used in this study to collect data. First, we identified the variables affecting the development of smart agriculture in greenhouses by using a literature review and semi-structured interviews with experts, Then, the experts were asked to evaluate the cross-influence of the identified variables through pairwise comparison. Finally, data analysis was done using MICMAC software. The findings indicate that the identified requirements and challenges have had a significant influence on the lack of smart agriculture in greenhouses. Through network analysis of influence and dependence relationships, it was found that economic requirements and challenges, technical and infrastructural requirements and challenges, legal and regulatory requirements, and institutional requirements were the most influential variables in the development of smart agriculture in Tehran province.

Keywords

• Smart agriculture development
• Smart greenhouse
• Smartening challenges
• Smartening requirements

Main Subjects

• Agricultural and Village Development

©2023 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source.

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