Agricultural Information Service Research Articles

An integrated, ontology-based agricultural information system

This paper proposes an integrated, ontology-based agricultural information system (AIS) to provide all-round and precise information for efficiently guiding farmers and agri-professionals to conduct agricultural processing. Since the existing independent AIS platforms can only offer specific but incomplete agricultural information service, aiming at this issue, the newly proposed AIS system employs ontology techniques, including RDF-based representation and semantic reasoning, to integrate the index information provided by all involved independent agricultural information platforms. As a result, this newly proposed AIS system can provide users with integrated and accurate response information. Through a realistic case study and relevant experiments, it is clear that the accuracy ratio and integrity ratio of response information offered by this ontology-based integrated AIS can be enhanced to a great extent. In summary, not only agri-professionals, but also farmers, who might not understand information retrieval skills, can benefit from this newly proposed AIS to conduct activities in agricultural production life cycle.

Agricultural Information Service Quality Evaluation Algorithm Based on Genetic Algorithm, BP Neural Network and Multiple Regressions

Information service objects in agriculture relatively have a complex demand due to agricultural regional and seasonal. The construction of information service quality evaluation model contributes to analyze the influencing factors that influence the quality of information service, proving guidance for agricultural information service. Combined with genetic Algorithm, BP neural network and multiple regression, a hybrid BP network based on the integration of BP Network and multiple regression models is proposed, and the initial weights of hybrid BP network is optimized by hybrid genetic algorithm, effectively avoid the flaws when these methods used separately. Proved by the experiment, information service quality evaluation model constructed by a hybrid BP network based on the optimization of genetic Algorithm has a good accuracy and generalization ability, the mean error within 5%.

Research and Application of Cloud Computing Technology in Agricultural Information Resources Sharing Service

In order to realize the sharing of agricultural information resources and improve the level of agricultural information service in Jilin Province, this paper introduces cloud computing technology into the construction of agricultural information resources sharing service. Firstly, introduce the concept, service forms and architecture of cloud computing. Secondly, establish the agricultural information resources sharing cloud service platform and analysis the agricultural information consultation mode in cloud computing environment. Finally, analysis the advantages and significance of cloud computing technology in agricultural information resources sharing.

Design of Personalized Agricultural Information Recommended Based on Data Extracted

In order to improve the accuracy and efficiency of agricultural information service, a personalized recommended service strategy is proposed, which based on data extracted. This recommended strategy combined the characteristics of farmers with agricultural information services, and improved the individual applicability of recommendation, also provided a new way to overcome the collaborative recommended sparse matrix.

The Construction of Agricultural Information Service Support and Information Management System

The agriculture information service support and information management system is the provider of agriculture information, which can provide large amount of effective agriculture products information. Through the effective management of information, it is able to regulate the process of production and sales of agricultural products. The rural grassroots information service management system is based on B/S (Browser/Server) distribution network technology, application system engineering thoughts and software technology. The system can provide some information security protection mechanisms to ensure the safety during operation. The establishment and application of the system can greatly improve the rural information service level to promote the rural information development.

Using Information and Communication Technologies for Enhancing the Accessibility of Agricultural Information for Improved Agricultural Production in Tanzania

AbstractThe study assessed how ICTs can enhance access to agricultural information needed for fostering agricultural production and agribusiness in Tanzania. Specifically, the study determined the role of specific ICTs in agricultural production and agribusiness and assessed the effectiveness of the commonly used ICTs in the creation and sharing of agricultural knowledge and information services. It further evaluated the factors which limit the effectiveness of ICTs in facilitating agricultural production and agribusiness in Tanzania. The study involved a mixed approach in collecting data, relying on a structured questionnaire, interviews, content analysis and observations during the data collection. Results show that radio, mobile phones, television, computers and internet have potentials to transform the sector if they are used effectively. Findings show further that not all ICTs are suitable for all categories of actors in the agricultural sector. Mobile phones and radio were preferred as communication channel among farmers while researchers and extension staff mentioned to prefer using computers and internet. Moreover, some of the ICT applications such as calls, short messaging services and sim‐banking were mentioned to be used often. From these findings it is recommended that internet and mobile service providers should widen their infrastructure and reduce tariffs associated with usage of their services so as to increase the number of users of their services. This can enable more information exchange among agriculture stakeholders and this increase agricultural production and agribusiness.

基于云计算的农业信息服务应用模式构建<br>Application Mode Construction of Agricultural Information Service Based on Cloud Computing

围绕农业信息服务的海量数据存储与大规模数据计算问题，资源获取的便捷性、安全性、可靠性和低成本问题，结合农业信息服务自身特点，按照云计算平台架构和面向服务的体系结构(SOA)理念，采用虚拟化、集群等技术，研究构建符合农业现状和发展需求的云服务应用模式，主要包括基础设施云服务(IaaS)，为用户提供海量存储和大规模计算能力；平台云服务(PaaS)，为用户提供开发、部署等环境服务；软件云服务(SaaS)，为用户提供在线软件和数据服务。基于云计算的农业信息服务应用模式的成功构建将为国内外其他地区农业信息服务体系建设提供可借鉴模式。 Focusing on the problems including mass data storage, computing with large-scale data, the convenience, security, reliability and low cost of access to resources, with its own characteristics of agricultural information services, in accordance with cloud computing platform architecture and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) concepts, by using technologies of virtualization and cluster etc., the application pattern of cloud service is studied and constructed in the needs of the current situation and development of agriculture, which includes mainly three parts, the first is Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) which provides mass storage and large-scale computing capabilities for users; The second is Platform as a Service (PaaS) which provides the environmental services of development and deployment for users; The third is Software as a Service (SaaS) which provides online software and data services for users. Successful construction on application mode of agricultural information service based on cloud computing will provide a reference model for construction of agricultural information service system in other regions at home and abroad.

Research of Ontology-Based Agricultural Geographic Information Service Matchmaking

A semantic model is proposed in this paper for geographic information service composition. It descript the content of service and user request semantically based on ontology, it takes process model of composited service into account to improve the efficiency of service matching Algorithm. The matchmaker affords to obtain the services list as result to meet the intent of user by advanced matching Algorithm. The result of experiment shows that the method this paper proposed performs well.

How Research Assisted the Rollout of a Mobile Agriculture Information Service: The Day Peepli went [Live

Knowledge is power. It can help you transform the way you live and the way you do business, and can help you to reap benefits that you never thought possible. A small bit of information can enable you to take informed decisions in a proactive manner and save yourself the agony of various losses: time, money and so on. The client discussed herein is the world's leading provider of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. It wanted to empower the mass of the Indian population - the agricultural community - with basic information on weather, commodity prices and crop advice. The question was ‘How feasible is this?’ To answer this, the client partnered with IMRB International nearly five years ago. The research project was long drawn out and completed in varied stages, starting with checking the acceptance of a paper concept through a house-to-house survey of farmers, converting the same to a tangible offering upon acceptance and testing the same through central location testing, where all farmers were collectively given a demonstration of the product, their reactions recorded and, finally, a working model developed to be tested in real time by a select set of farmers to bring the finishing touches to the product. The client still touches base with subscribers through IMRB International, to garner post-usage feedback, satisfaction with services being provided and to discover any other thing that could be done better. From providing the service in one state, the client has progressed to successfully providing the service to 13 states in India. The service has enjoyed unprecedented success and is estimated to have been taken up by more than two million farmers through its usage and sharing in more than 15,000 villages. The decision-enabling nature of the information has had a direct impact on the livelihood of the farmers, enabling them to lead a better life through increased incomes and reduced losses. Individual farmers claim to have reaped significant return on their investment, achieving up to INR200,000 (US$4000) of additional profits, and savings of nearly INR400,000 (US$8000) by using this service, which costs roughly INR250 (US$5) for three months.

From Web Resources to Agricultural Ontology: a Method for Semi-Automatic Construction

In recent years, with the rapid development of information science, ontology becomes a popular research topic in the fields of knowledge engineering and information management. The reason for ontology being so popular is in large part due to what they promise: a shared and common understanding of some domain that can be communicated across people and computers. In the field of agriculture, FAO has started up the Agricultural Ontology Service (AOS) study project since 2001, AOS aims at providing knowledge service by agricultural domain ontology, it is the new seedtime for agricultural information service. However, establishing the ontology necessitates a great deal of expert assistance; manually setting it up would entail a lot of time, not to mention that there are only a handful of experts available. For this reason, using automatic technology to construct the ontology is a subject worth pursuing. A semi-automatic construction method for agricultural professional ontology from web resources is presented in this paper. For semi-structured web pages, the method automatically extracted and stored structured data through a program, built pattern mapping between relational database and ontology through human-computer interaction, and automatically generated a preliminary ontology, finally completed checking and refining by domain experts. The method provided a viable approach for ontology construction based on network resources in the actual work.

VIPMET: New Real-Time Data Filtering–Based Automatic Agricultural Weather Station

Agricultural weather stations are normally utilized to register weather variables (e.g., temperature, relative air humidity, solar radiation and wind speed). These data can be used to estimate daily and hourly reference crop evapotranspiration (ETo), which can provide important information for water resources optimization in irrigation scheduling. However, data captured by actual agricultural weather stations are not filtered, which may lead to a bad estimation of the parameters and consequently a deficient water management, endangering the horticultural crops. This paper presents the validation and filtering process for automagic agricultural weather stations (VIPMET), a new station that is endowed with a real-time data filtering process to ensure validation of the acquired data. In addition, the station can be remotely controlled for automatic data collection and management tasks through a 3G mobile router. A comparison between data registered by the station and data supplied by the nearest Murcian Agricultural Information Service (Spain) was carried out for evaluation purposes.

The information environment of agricultural stakeholders in Botswana

The study surveyed the agricultural information needs, information sources used and the awareness of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA)’s products and services by the various agricultural stakeholders in Botswana. The survey covered 52 agricultural researchers/educators, 30 extension agents, 54 students, 12 commercial farmers, and 45 subsistence farmers. Data collection instruments used for the study were the questionnaire, interview and focus group discussions. The findings reveal that the agricultural stakeholders in Botswana had a wide range of information needs, especially on government programmes, farm problems and identification of market for agricultural products. The prominent information sources used were the Internet, journal articles and technical papers. The study also revealed that most of the stakeholders were not aware of CTA’s products and services and that the Spore magazine was the product mainly used. The Question and Answer Service was rarely used by the stakeholders. The study recommends that the Botswana College of Agriculture (BCA) Library should be selected as the agency to provide agricultural information services to all the stakeholders in Botswana, given its rich information resources in agriculture, and that CTA should reappraise its services in Botswana by ensuring that its services are well utilized by agricultural information stakeholders.

Agricultural Information Service Evaluation System

[Objective] This paper is to study how to build an agricultural information service evaluation system from the agricultural information service evaluation goals, ideas and methods. [Processes and Methods] Empirical and normative analysis processes methods combining with literature research and actual investigation are applied. [Results] Based on the classification under the unified index structure index system theory, the use of integrated design of quantitative and qualitative analysis and design, level of analysis, synthesis evaluation methods and etc., to build agricultural information service evaluation system. [Conclusion] On the one hand, to build agricultural information evaluation system, is beneficial to run on the status of agricultural information evaluate, to monitor trends in construction, on the other hand, it can help to optimize management decisions and to guide the construction of agricultural information for decision-making basis.

An ontology-based knowledge representation and implement method for crop cultivation standard

This paper introduces a representation method which combines domain ontology and task ontology based on crop cultivation standards (CCS). It uses combined ontology to represent CCS through analysis of “Good Agricultural Practices” and theory of agricultural ontology. Domain ontology contains static information during growing, such as soil, seed and agricultural machines. Task ontology builds on the point of plant process: soil selection, seed selection, fertilization and irrigation. The process is divided into prenatal, birth and post-natal stages. Finally, we take pepper as an example to show the application of CCS ontology. Results show that the method implements knowledge management effectively and provides convenience for agricultural information services.

Evaluation of an M-Service for Farmers in a Developing Region

abstractThis paper addresses the issues relating to evaluating a mobile phone-based agricultural market information service designed for farmers in Bangladesh. The paper is grounded on a mixed methods research approach and case study supported by surveys and participant observations. The findings show and confirm that addressing the need assessment and “perceived ease of use” adequately, upholding management efficiency, adopting innovative strategies for sustainability, getting the involvement of local stakeholders, deploying appropriate technology to make the service fully accessible by targeted end-users, and processing and disseminating qualitative, and useful content are the major aspects of a good service. The lessons learned from the case study can be of special interest for academicians as well as for practitioners who are particularly concerned with the use of mobile technologies for rural development in emerging economies.

Innovative Agricultural Information Services by ICTProjects in India

In recent years farmers attitude to access to agricultural information have been changed because of very fast networking of information and communication technology. Especially rural marketing exploring in a new ways as farmers access to market information. Various projects have been developed that integrate ICTs into the dissemination of agricultural information to farmers. This paper discusses a number of innovative projects that utilize ICTs in delivering information to farmers, focusing its analysis on mobile telephony, internet kiosks, like ITC e choupal, Tata kisan kedras etc. internet portals, which has become more widespread in recent years as a means of disseminating agricultural information to farmers and offers various means of providing agricultural information. The objective of the study to evaluate different ICT projects running in India and to provide an overview of the types of services and projects that are in existence or being designed to disseminate information to Indian farmers in a new ways. attempted to facilitate technology transfer in the agricultural sector. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are crucial in facilitating communication and access to information for agricultural and rural development. Since agriculture is the national priority sector, it is one of the potentially beneficial areas for the application of ICTs for economic transformation. Development of networks and use of low-cost ICTs enhance timely access to accurate and reliable information. It therefore calls for investment of part of the country's limited resources for ICT development. Information and communication technologies are making tremendous impact on the rural economy due to its wide application and appeal. It may seem paradoxical that modem lets associated with developed country markets and capital intensive methods of production, has any relevance for country like India where many millions of people lack in basic needs. Nevertheless, there are many efforts in India and other developing countries to demonstrate the concrete benefits of ICT for rural population and to carry out the same in a manner that makes economic sense. (Singh, Nirvikar, 2004). A large numbers of initiatives has been made and are being made in rural India, to deploy ICT as a developmental tool for creating awareness among fanners and rural artisans, and for

An agricultural market information service (AMIS) in Bangladesh: evaluating a mobile phone based e-service in a rural context

The farmers’ community in Bangladesh is one of the most deprived ones in terms of economy and access to social facilities. An agricultural market information service (AMIS) can be one of the important tools for reducing such social inequality by integrating the farmers with their markets more efficiently. Following the failure of a web-based AMIS initiated by the Government of Bangladesh and considering the wide availability of cellular networks, a mobile phone based AMIS was implemented on a pilot basis in some remote villages in Bangladesh. This paper evaluates the efficiency and effectiveness of this mobile service in terms of users, technology, process and facilitating conditions in a rural context. In general this is an interpretive case study as well as an evaluation research which is based on two small scale surveys and observations. Based on a literature review, a conceptual model is also applied for a systematic evaluation. Findings show that effectiveness of a rural e-service depends on the design and delivery of the service in accordance with the individual’s information needs, adaptive technologies with easy accessibility within a given infrastructure, affordable services with a rational business model, adequate awareness and efficient communication with the respective community.

Evaluation of the Agricultural Information Service (AIS) in Lesotho

This paper presents findings of a study conducted to evaluate the extent to which the Agricultural Information Service (AIS) is providing agricultural information services to farmers in Maseru district, Lesotho. The study used the survey method consisting of various components of data collection strategies including field work, document research and observations. A total of 300 farmers were surveyed from a population of 1700 farmers. The study yielded 215 respondents representing a 70% of response rate. Two hundred and nine respondents were farmers while 6 respondents were AIS staff members. The findings revealed that information services provided by AIS were somewhat of good quality in terms of relevancy, sufficiency and currency and had improved productivity but were not easily accessible to most farmers. Several problems that hinder the utilization of the AIS services were cited such as failure to visit farmers at their respective areas, wrong broadcasting time, lack of promotion of AIS services and lack of training of farmers on how to use AIS services. The study recommended regular and continuous training program, active promotion of AIS services, introduction of appropriate information channels/technologies and the encouragement for farmers to visit AIS so that they can utilize the existing services. Although the study was limited to the evaluation of the AIS in Lesotho, the outcome of the study sheds more light on the challenges of the provision of agricultural information in Lesotho and other similar countries in Africa.

An Integrated Approach for Agricultural Ecosystem Management

Sustainable development and growth of agriculture sector calls for improving its competitiveness through a better understanding of lands, weather and climate, and planting, especially prediction of events with increased accuracy, and systematic integration of observations and prediction into decision-making in agriculture management. In this short paper, a systematic approach based on integrated information systems (IISs) for agricultural ecosystem management is proposed. The approach involves establishing an IIS called agricultural ecosystem enterprise information system (AEEIS) that extracts data on terrain, land use, planting, and others, and integrates them for the purpose of agricultural and ecosystem management. The integration helps in generating managerial/policy alternatives in consultation not only with agricultural and ecological specialists, but also with agriculture and ecosystems management. AEEIS, a platform of enterprise information systems, includes operational database, extract transform and load, data warehouse, data mining, simulation modeling, and knowledge management for generating managerial strategies on land use, planting species/variety, and optimal coverage of plants. AEEIS is part of efforts on integrated agricultural information services that is one of the main applications of China's sustainable agricultural development plan. The short paper concludes that, for effective management of agriculture and ecosystems, a systematic approach is essential in which IISs play a crucial role.

A guerra e as laranjas: uma palestra radiofônica sobre o valor alimentício das frutas nacionais (1940)

Since the early twentieth-century, sanitarians have relied on the radio for educational purposes. Men like Geraldo Horácio de Paula Souza and Borges Vieira used radio waves to popularize hygienic habits and disseminate information on sanitary topics. On April 16, 1940, Paula Souza stood before the microphones at Rádio Educadora Paulista and gave a lecture on the nutritional value of oranges and the need to eat them as a patriotic act. Touting the fruit's nutritional qualities, Paula Souza launched the 'orange campaign'. Its success reached beyond the borders of São Paulo state, as the campaign found space in the press and took form as an advertising brochure published by the Agricultural Information Service, with the unconditional support of the Minister of Agriculture, Fernando Costa.