An IoT and Blockchain-Based Framework for Sustainable Vertical Farming

Abstract

With ongoing global challenges like population growth, resource deficiency, climate change, and global warming, the demand for efficient procedures to produce sustainable, efficient, and safe food is increasing. Thus vertical farming, a pioneer emerging technology may play a vital role in addressing such challenges in agriculture. This article presents an innovative framework integrating IoT and blockchain to offer an efficient, reliable, and secure ecosystem for vertical farming. The IoT devices allow real-time monitoring and controlling of essential parameters like temperature, moisture, light, nutrient levels, and alike, while the Blockchain technology provides a transparent and immutable ledger of the records regarding crop growth and resource consumption of the farm, enhancing the framework’s traceability. A prototypical system of this framework was developed and simulated in the lab environment to evaluate its performance for a specified use case. By generating required control instructions to maintain the ideal environment, the prototypical system proved to be effective, efficient, and reliable.