This is something i want Nerves to be better at. I built a device similar to what you are describing, but backwards, and Nerves doesn’t exactly support the pieces you need for it to work out of the box.
I wanted to use the Xbox One controller on my original xbox. (don’t ask why) turns out the Xbox one controller uses bluetooth, and the original Xbox controller is usb 1.1, so i just stuck an rpi0w in between them in gadget mode and every thing pretty much fell into place. Problem is, Nerves by default doesn’t expose configurable usb gadgets, or bluetooth so i had to do some work getting that up and running.
and yeah, looks like some of those sensors could definitely help in mass food production as well! Wonder if the FarmBot team have looked into it? It could be quite a lucrative market?