Blockchain Ethereum-Backed IoT Platform for Real-Time Pest Detection and Intelligent Irrigation in Vegetable Farms

Abstract

The most important problems of sustainable vegetable farming are pests, inefficient data-based decision making, and poor irrigation. Another threat to productivity and the environment is that the conventional methods will cause excess use of pesticides, over-irrigation and unreliable harvest. In this research, we suggest a Blockchain Ethereum-Backed IoT Platform to ensure that these problems are resolved and provide pest detection in real-time and smart irrigation control. IoT sensors are used to measure soil moisture, temperature, and humidity and edge devices with lightweight deep learning models can detect pest infestations with a high accuracy. The resulting data is encrypted and checked in the Ethereum blockchain smart contracts are used to run irrigation programs and send alerts to control pests. It uses Layer-2 solutions of Ethereum to reduce latency and transaction cost to achieve scalability and efficiency. It is scientifically proven that the proposed platform can detect pests with an accuracy of 93.8 %, use 35 % less water, and produce 20% more crops than traditional solutions. Moreover, surveys of farmers show that the level of trust and readiness to implement solutions based on blockchain has risen considerably. The contribution of this work is a secure and transparent and resource-efficient digital agriculture framework enabling the development of precision-based farming and supporting sustainable food production.