The clients for information diversify geographically, economically, socially, from a wide range of literacy, and practice and there are language barriers amongst. Therefore, a unified information system cannot provide an answer to all players. Almost none would be interested to know that the north-east edge of a certain tomato field was infested with Helicoverpa armigera by the end of April.  But for the neighbor grower, this information might be indispensable. If integrated pest management is practiced in the region, then the moderators would want to know what pesticide was applied. Crop growers fifty km away would be alerted that there is a changed trend in pest population and might start with prophylactic measures. The target market might be interested to know that crop reduction might be expected and would look for alternative sources.

Everyone in the food chain uses as much information as they can get and digest. The level of details should harmonize with the needs and abilities. The data that is available to the user should match his language, terminology and cultural associations.

A network of distributed information systems allows local centers to manage their information efficiently. They can efficiently ensure data veracity and integrity. These local centers can be located and managed in farms or regional centers. They should be able to provide information services to queries from other centers, and that requires to have adequate thesaurus systems to ensure that differences in terminology would not render the erroneous information.

The fear from sharing information can better be managed locally where culture issues can be handled by natives to the region, yet this is certainly a long process.

 

 

 Hello all,

My name is Amots Hetzroni and I work in the institute of agricultural engineering which is part of a government research organization (ARO) in Israel. My major interest is the use of ICT, specifically data management in agriculture.

Recognizing that knowledge and information are key-factors in pest management decision making, we put an effort into establishing a collection, storage and dissemination system for pest scouting data, as part of a decision support system for pest management. We started by developing a data collection system based on pocket-PC’s. The concept was proven to be feasible; and has thus been accepted and used by the pest scouts. Yet, it lacked two-way communication to provide the feedback required in order to support decision making in the field. Therefore, the units were replaced by cellular phones linked to the repository data server.

The interface is rather friendly, and we continually working on minimizing the load on the user. Upon login, local data tables are being updated from the main server, data such as a list of plots and crops pertinent to specific user. The scouting records, including time and location are transferred, upon communication availability, to the server. The repository was designed for internet interface to respond to spatial queries. And interfaces are being developed. Predefined queries and filters, such as history of infestations, are available for the end user from the cellular terminal.

We make efforts to add more players who will use the system: farmers, extension officers, decision making in the region, researchers and more. And we make slow progress.

Some of the difficulties include the maintenance of valid data such as crop schedule and pesticide application, getting some farmers to contribute their data, training players to make use of the system, and more.

We have also created a regional repository for activities in date palm farms, where we linked together the activities and dates’ quality. We intend to use the database as tool to support precision horticulture and for future data mining when searching for quality issues that are associated with the activities, methods and timing. At the moment, the farmers utilize mainly the detailed data on machinery usage and manual labor for economic analysis.

 

Dear Sotiris, Could you please forward me a reprint of the papers you mentioned? Thanks, Amots <[email protected]>

Hello all. I am a researcher in the Agricultural Research Organization (ARO) in Israel. My research interests are within information technology. We are pushing forward technologies to collect data from field workers, currently we work mainly with pest scouts. We collect spatially anchored data on pest infestation in field crops. During the last summer we started to use cellular technology to send data to main server and to return real time information, with respect to space and time, to the field scouts. We are also implementing this technology to record data for date palms growers, such as for fruit counting. The purpose of data collection is to improve management, monitor and predict pest infestation and to support decisions in various levels from the individual worker, through farm management, growers organizations and for regional decision making.

Most usage of mobile telephony in rural area in Israel is the same as for all other sectors, i.e. for verbal communication. Because internet connections are available and commonly used by the agricultural sector, then very little, if at all, is for data transfer. As I described in my introductory remark, we have tried to take the cellular system a bit further and to use the devise as a data-logger with optional two-way communication. We have implemented cellular data collection for pest scouts, and counting dates fruit (which is part of the growing protocol). The recognition of the farmers on the need to maintain information was part of the shift in global marketing towards maintaining traceability. Nowadays, when discussing the issues with farmers, they understand and even raise the need for data collection and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) in situ. For example, when visiting a green house, the farmer needs to write notes, schedule activities, such as spraying, while being able to see previous activities in that plot, what chemicals could he spray etc. Our model to implement cellular data collection and dissemination include the clients that are: farmers, organizations, and contract workers; data maintenance services; and support. The user will buy his/her own cellular units and will pay for the data services. We need to remember that because cellular phones are so common, we actually not paying for the unit because we already have it, and if necessary all we have to do is replace the unit we are using with a different one. The quality of service for mobiles is such that we practically using a unit that will not fail. Amots Hetzroni <[email protected]>