Empirical investigation of barriers and benefits of smart farming

Purpose Smart farming (SF) holds immense potential in making farming viable and improving farmers' livelihoods. However, its adoption is still in the early stages, and the resulting impacts are underexplored. This study investigates the information systems/policy and implementation barriers to the adoption of SF and its implications for various socioeconomic aspects. Design/methodology/approach This survey research used a structured questionnaire to collect data on farm details, farmer characteristics and usage of SF technologies from a sample of 197 farmers based in the State of Karnataka, India. Exploratory factor analysis with principal component extraction is used to validate the proposed questionnaire constructs. Results are analyzed using one-way and two-way ANOVAs and interaction plots. Findings Our study throws light on the benefits and barriers of SF technologies. Advanced SF technologies displayed a significant positive effect on socioeconomic variables compared to startup SF technologies, which displayed no significant effect. Overcoming information systems/policy barriers for adopting startup and advanced SF technologies displayed significant positive effects on farmers' health and net income, whereas overcoming implementation barriers for adopting advanced SF technologies led to improvement in the farmers' gross income. Originality/value Although the technical feasibility of SF has been explored in the literature, its adoption barriers and socioeconomic impacts have been underexplored. To the best of our knowledge, the interaction between different types of barriers and the level of SF adoption has not yet been investigated in the literature. Our study addresses those research gaps using data from a previously underexplored context, viz. developing nations.