International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2011)
Enhancing Paddy Cultivation in Sri Lanka through a Decision Support System 1
P.A.D.M.D.Ponweera , S.C.Premaratne
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Faculty of Information Technology, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
[email protected] Abstract – Information Technology (IT) has connected the world together and now changing our life styles and social insights dynamically. In all stages of the agricultural industry, information technology plays a vital role in the management and success of a business. Hence agriculture has been greatly influenced by IT. This paper briefly explains one such attempt aimed at designing an information management and a decision support system for paddy cultivation enabling both decision making authorities and farmers to make effective decision making. Using this information system the frequent fluctuation of prices of products of paddy cultivation can be avoided by setting up paddy purchasing centers to purchase the excess harvest and import the shortage of such product if any, in time. At the same time the expected price of the paddy harvest can be predicted in advance before the end of each season and they can prepare for the situation coming up by adopting counter strategies. We consider a number of parameters for the harvest prediction and we develop a classification model based on a decision tree to predict the harvest. Further individual farmers’ productivity reports, reports on fertilizer subsidiary distribution and reports on tax on paddy lands are the other useful artifacts that could be generated from the system. The system was evaluated based on the information we collected from different Govi Jana Kendra.
Key Words: Decision Support System, Information Communication Tecnology, Web Application, Data Mining, Paddy Cultivation, Data Preprocessing, Crop Estabilishment, Insect Pest Management, Soil Composition, Weeds in Rice, Water Management I.
INTRODUCTION
The application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in agriculture is increasingly important and agriculture is an emerging field focusing on the enhancement of agricultural and rural development through improved information and communication processes. Sri Lanka is an agricultural country and the agriculture sector in Sri Lanka employs 30% of the total labor force of the country. Therefore one third of the families of the country solely depend on agricultural sector. Unfortunately it is observed that those families are in vulnerable position during last couple of decades. This is mainly due to the inability to sell their harvest at a reasonable price.
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[email protected]
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Moreover the staple food of Sri Lankans is rice and produced in agricultural sector. Not like a developed country, the largest portion of their income is spent on food items and fluctuations in prices of such items are directly affected to their consumption pattern. Though regulatory bodies have attempted to control the price of such items it is seen that prices of these items are fluctuated seriously. As a result consumers of such products usually confront with difficulty in managing their day to day life with such price hikes. The main reason for these two issues is due to non availability of accurate information for the parties who make decision. If current and accurate information is available decision making authorities can get the correct decision and make the necessary steps to avoid such price fluctuations in advance. Therefore IT can add immense advantages to Sri Lankan agricultural sector safeguarding the farmers and consumers in the country. The main emphasis of this paper is to present the developed system which provides more accurate information about the expected harvest in the each season. This expected figure is available in various levels such as individual farmers, Govi Jana Kendra, District and Province giving more opportunities to make necessary decision making. Hence Government can view the expected harvest at prevailing environmental factors at any time under each land level, Agrarian Service Center level, District level and Provincial level. The System estimates the expected price of harvest by analyzing the past data using the regression analysis. The system assist to minimize the price fluctuations safeguarding the customer and farmers as a result of proper decision making using the information provided by the system. As a result of this the farmers are protected from unexpected decreases in price of paddy by providing information on the expected price of paddy under prevailing situations for making the counter strategies to adapt to that price. Facilities are provided for the Authorities to view the fertilizer distributed to each Agrarian Service Centers, Districts and Province in each category and monitor the process avoiding corruptions in the distribution process of fertilizer subsidiary.
International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2011) By considering this situation Government has employed the various schemes to improve the living standards of the farmers. Various irrigation projects covering a large portion of the island, fertilizer subsidiary scheme, establishment of agricultural product purchasing centers, various loan schemes at low interest rates, free distribution of agricultural equipment, seminars and awareness programme for introducing new technology and methods, social security benefits schemes such as pension schemes, insurance schemes.etc are the some of these concessionary measures taken by the government for the betterment of farmers. Various irrigation projects implemented using the foreign and local funds has affected immensely for the improvement of the agriculture sector. Department of Irrigation has identified and published 59 major irrigation schemes in 13 districts over the country. [5]During the period between 1950 and 1975 several new constructions and rehabilitation activities have been performed on major reservoirs such as Kantale, Hurulu Wewa, Padaviya, II. ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM AND ITS Kaudulla, Rajangana and Wahalkada. In the recent past, IMPACT TO THE NATIONAL ECONOMY. planning and design of the Uda Walawe reservoir, Samanala Wewa and the Mahaweli Development Sri Lanka has a tropical climate and Rice is the staple food Progoramme were carried out. As a result, most of the of 18.6 million Sri Lankans. The main cultivation and lands which could not be cultivated due to lack of irrigated source of income of more than 50% of farmers who are water can be cultivated providing the employments and living on agriculture sector is generated from paddy new revenue sources to the farmers. Basically this would cultivation. In other words it employees about half of the help to expand the extent of land to be harvested in the total agriculture labor force. [7] Moreover 5% of gross island. Further these irrigation projects generated a new Domestic Production [12] is contributed by paddy source of value additions like power generation, etc, to the cultivation. It covers around one million hectors or 47 gross domestic production of the country. percent of total area under agriculture. [8]Rice accounts Then fertilizer subsidy plays main role among such for approximately ¼ of the consumer good basket, about concessions granted to farmers by the government and has 1/3 of the total grain consumption and nearly 50 percent of been widely used in Sri Lanka since 1962 with the the calorie intake in the country. Hence it is so clear that intention of encouraging the use of fertilizers and offpaddy dominates non plantation agriculture. Therefore due setting the effects of low crop prices and high costs of to the efforts made by the Government, domestic rice production. It initially covered only paddy but was requirement which could be met from local production extended to all other crops in 1985. The government could be able to increase to 98 percent in 2005 from 89 withdrew the fertilizer subsidy in 1989, but re-instated the percent in 2004. scheme in 1994. In 2005, the fixed rate of subsidy was Rs. 23,000 per metric ton of urea. Since then a fixed price A. Government involvement for paddy sector development. scheme has been utilized where the price of a 50 kg bag of After independence the Governments which came to urea has been fixed at Rs. 350 regardless of the world power have made reasonable efforts to develop the market price. Fertilizer subsidies continue to drive up agriculture sector giving special attention to the paddy recurrent expenses, particularly in the wake of higher cultivation. The main ideas of such efforts are achieving global oil prices which pushes up the market price of the self sufficient in paddy and upgrading the living fertilizer. The fertilizer subsidy as a percentage of market standards of the farmers. Unfortunately we are still not price exceeds 90 per cent in all three major fertilizers. able to achieve said objectives as planed due to various From the societal point of view, the fertilizer subsidy reasons. The considerable numbers of farmers in every may have certain benefits for the poor farmers such as year have committed suicide showing the severity of the higher agricultural output, income, and food security. problem of inability to sell their harvest at reasonable However, from the economic point of view, the subsidy price which create the situation that they cannot settle granted should be cost effective. Since we do not have a their loans which are taken for cultivation purposes. proper system to exchange the information on how technology and methods can be used, still farmers are using old traditional ways and methods for cultivation which give very low productivity. The decision support module provides some additional reports for the higher level authority for decision making. The productivity of harvest can be analyzed with respect to each farmer and measure the productivity compared to the fertilizer applied. If the performance is so below the expected level, the system will predict some possible situations which enables the difficulty and special attention can be given to support the farmers of such paddy land are given necessary instructions to improve the harvest. The reporting module can generate several reports such as the report regarding tax collected, arrears to be collected and expedite the process of tax collection.. Even farmers can review their status such as whether they have paid the correct amount, whether arrears are to be paid, etc. Information and new technology can be easily exchanged among Govi Niyamaka using the emails generated by the system.
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International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2011) obstacles. One of the main difficulties faced by this sector is that the inability to sell the production at reasonable price. As earlier mentioned Government has set up paddy purchasing centers, due to the unorganized and untimely nature of this mechanism farmers are not much benefited as planned. This is also mainly happens as accurate information on expected harvest is not available. If such accurate information is available Government can plan to set up enough storage facilities and purchase the such excess harvest in advance before private sector vendors purchase it at lower price. In spite of the politicians‟ loyalty to protect the monopoly of rice millers than farmers are also effected to this situation, accurate information can play a major role to protect the farmers‟ interest. Moreover due to the nature of the changes in the quantity supply of the agricultural product, prices of the product and supply generally fluctuate throughout year. As a result the price of the agricultural product varies and when the price of such products goes up Government has to take necessary counter strategies to mitigate the bad effects on customers from such high prices. Then the government has to import such products from various countries. Unfortunately since the government does not have accurate information these counter measures are employed after the prices are going up. Since it is required some time to complete the import procedure the government cannot quickly intervene the reduction of prices by importing rice. Therefore the importance of having accurate information on expected harvest to B. Objectives stipulated to achieve in ten years plan. intervene the market activities of importing these products By adopting above strategies and measures Government in advance is viewed important. Then government can plans to achieve the following objectives and goals as release those products to the market in time protecting the stated in their Mhinda Chithana ten year plan[11]. customers. Finally it is cleared that even though government has involved for agricultural development, country is still Achieving food security. unable to achieve the said objectives and present situation Productivity Enhancement. is not in satisfactory state. Therefore information Facilitating marketing and related infrastructure. communication technology can revolutionary change the Adopting stable trade policies. agricultural sector towards the positive trend filling the Reducing the high post harvest losses. gap existed between decision making authorities and up to Enhancing agricultural research. date and accurate information. Technology dissemination. Participation of community based organizations. III. LITERATURE REVIEW (CBOs). Minimizing environmental degradation. A. International experience. Utilizing and sharing plant generic resources. A Israel Company, Hold Hasharon developed a Enhanced youth involvement in agriculture. software for fertilizer management.[4][6] That software Ensuring seeds and planting material production. provide a tool that delivers optimal fertility programs and Maintaining the bio diversity. calculate the precise mix of fertilizers required based on Enhancing the agricultural export based. soil and water composition and crop requirements. This software facilitates to obtain maximum yield with C. Present situation. Although Government has several aims and goals on maximum profit using all his available fertilizers without agricultural sector specially paddy sector and deployed waste. various strategies to upgrade the paddy sector. Unfortunately this sector is suffering from various Several agricultural mechanization processes are introduced to overcome from this issue.[2] Two institutions, Agricultural Mechanization Research Center at Maha Illuppallama and Agriculture Mechanization Training Center at Anuradhapura have been set up to facilitate this transforming process. Though using machines instead of manual work, some advantages such as timely cultivation, quality improvement and less production cost can be achieved, balance should be ensured between available labor and machinery in a country like Sri Lanka where unemployment rate is also high. Some of the large commercial companies who have large extent of paddy field use some techniques which need minimum amount of fertilizer and pesticides lead to large saving in the value of inputs. Reasonable number of seminars and awareness programs at various levels are conducted to introduce new technology and methods by Governments. But farmers are still reluctant to use the methods introduced due to various reasons. Hence continuous support should be delivered to them to achieve the objectives which Government expects from such seminars. Institutions have been established to ensure the social security benefits and provide the insurance schemes to the farmers. Agrarian and Agriculture Insurance Board is one of the institution formulated for above purpose. They implement the pension scheme for farmers and some insurance schemes for agricultural products and cultivations.
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International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2011) With the experience of the project, the database will be extended to all Agrarian Service Centers where the “Cyber Extension” units are available. Cyber Extension units are able to maintain the database for respective areas. Census and Statistics Department provide information on paddy harvest for the year for the purpose of national accounts. Using that information Central Bank calculates the contribution attributed to Gross Domestic product by paddy cultivation. For this purpose first they have prepared the schedule showing the name of the farmers and extent belong to farmers. By adding the extent belongs to each farmer they derived the information on paddy extent which can cultivate under divisional SST Products and Services have developed information secretariat, district and province. management system called FarmRite [3] and they Then using the sampling techniques appropriate recommended this software is ideal for agricultural service samples from cultivated paddy field is selected and takes providers. This software facilitates for making better the harvest of each sample and measures it. Finally harvest decision on soil sampling and variable rate applications, obtained from sample is multified by the land extent yield mapping and analysis, record keeping and reporting, which sampling is done. By adding these figures the total etc. Moreover SST has developed Farm Management output is measured. This figure is shown in national Software for farmers and this also instrumental for accounts (Figure 3.1., 3.2, 3.3) and all these processes are mapping, crop planning, budgeting, record keeping and done manually at Census and Statistic Department. reporting. Moreover Government has planned to aware and In other countries like India, America, Jamaica, Ghana, provide necessary guidelines to the farmers by combining etc are implementing agricultural information systems for and coordinating the computer center named „Nanasala‟, the usage of interested parties. Gathering and publication Department of Agriculture and Agriculture Research of weekly prices, as retail, and wholesale, market Institute, Ganoruwa. In this effort when farmers encounter information and intelligence, information on research and the problem it is referred to Ganoruwa Agriculture development are the main function of such information Research Institute using the facilities available at systems. Further it provides most up-to-date and precise Nanasala. If the problem is related to deceases a information to the different participants in the photograph can also be attached to the e-mail and Agribusiness sector such as the farmers, Traders, forwarded to institute. Then experts at the Institute go Processors of Agricultural Outputs, Suppliers of through the problem and send the recommended solutions Agricultural Inputs etc. and grant precious analyses to the and remedial action via email to Nanasala at where farmer trade participants that will improve their decision taking can view the e-mail. Unfortunately due to the lack of capabilities in trade. and facilitate E-commerce in computer literacy, farmers do not get the maximum Agricultural products via this vertical portal. benefits of this mechanism. This will further help to a greener planet promoting compliance with modern standards for environmental protection, minimizing ground water and soil pollution. This software can be applied for all type of soils, growing media, irrigation systems and fertilizer methods. Save money by cutting back on fertilizer cost ,maximize crop yields and quality, avoid mistakes in fertilizer dosage and use, save time and frustration by getting instant error free result, eliminate guess work and laborious calculations, prevent clogging of irrigation system are the main advantages of this software.
B. Systems developed in Sri Lanka.
C. Manual system verses computerized system.
In Sri Lanka agricultural information are basically published in official web sites of Department of Census and Statistics and Department of Agriculture. But there is no proper mechanism to disseminate update information on agriculture for necessary decision making. The information supplied by said Departments are past nature and outdated which cannot use for current decision making. Few years before Dambulla Economic centre has attempted to disseminate the information on vegetable prices but due to various reasons it can not be continuously carried out. Department of Agriculture in their web site has allocated a page to create a data base on farmers. This is a pilot project and initially established for farmers in Marassana and Thalathuoya Agrarian Service Centre areas to prepare and maintain an on-line database on cultivated crops and extents, time of harvesting, expected yield and contact information.
Further maintenance of report on fertilizer distribution, the fee charge for fertilizer, the amount charged as land tax for paddy field are done in manual system. It is required more time to maintain such data. Therefore by implementing this project instead of data prepared by Census and statistics Department which are in past and less useful for current decision making, more accurate and current information will be given to relevant parties to make effective decision making. Individual farmers‟ performance could be obtained easily and further steps to be taken to improve the productivity of them identifying the issues encountered by them. In addition to that report on distribution of fertilizer, the revenue collected from distribution of fertilizer subsidiary, tax revenue collected and arrears could be easily and quickly obtained from the new system avoiding corruption in distribution of fertilizer subsidiary.
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International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2011) IV. SYSTEM DESIGN
This architecture consists of a database, which contains data on agriculture and various other modules in the web application for performing various tasks such as user authentication, data entering, generating reports, publishing and sending emails (FIGURE 1). Since we have large number of users and we should give the access to large number of users and these users are spread over the large geographical area, as a more suitable solution, we have selected web based technology for this project. Further this technology facilitates to administrate, modify and manage the system from the centralized administration, and minimize the administration cost. Since we are really keen on cost saving we host the system on a web belong to web hosting company. Since we don‟t have very sensitive data we are not going to adopt secure technologies such as VPN network into our solutions. A. Database module.
This module facilitates to log into the users and these users can be categorized as system administrator, agricultural officers and farmers. The requirements of each user are different and privileges granted to each user are also different base on those different requirements. Therefore all the users should be registered with the system before entering the system. So this is very important module which helps to control and manage the access to the system. C. Report generating module.
This module assists to create the reports which are important for decision making using the data entered through reference data and variable data. So this module generates various reports such as expected harvest at province, district, agrarian level, expected price, fertilizer distribution report, tax collection report, tax arrears report, performance report, etc as output of the system. D. Publishing module.
This module helps to manage the database and mysql has been used for development of database. This also has number of sub modules such as entering cultivation data, entering fertilizer charges, entering fertilizer usage, and entering tax receipts. This provides facilities to store large amount of data and can be considered as central module in the system. Therefore it interacts with all other module. Client (Web Browser)
Client
B. User authentication module.
Ajax / Post (Request and Response)
Web Application
Apache + PHP Engine
Data Mining Module
This will help to publish the news, events, meetings, and notices on the website in text form. This is independent module and agricultural officers can send these news even without entering any data to the system. E. email module.
This is also independent module and used for sending emails to agricultural officers informing the possible treats spreading the area controlled by those agrarian officers. Agricultural officers contact details entered into the system through reference data has been used for sending those emails. F. Help module.
This is for users of the system to guide them on how to use the system correctively. This is also independent module in the system. I. Data mining module
For the decision support system it is required to generate hidden frequent patterns. Therefore we use a tool called WEKA which has the majority of machine learning algorithms implemented in java. The data may also require considerable „cleansing‟, to remove outliers, handle missing values, detect erroneous values, and so forth. I.1 DATA Preprocessing
MySql Databace
FIGURE 1: System Architecture
A simple binning method is used to prepossess the expected harvest since for the classification model the class labels should be categorical values. A sample data segment is given below in the TABLE 1. We used eight equal width bins with the width 0.5 and smoothed using bin boundaries.
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International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2011) These conditions are characterized by greater daily than annual temperature ranges and moderate average temperatures in comparison with the more continental tropics.
Initially we used a linear regression model to forecast the expected price using historical data on price and quantity. Firstly this system estimates the slope of the linear regression line and then using that value, intercept has been calculated. Therefore using the in the database system calculate these two coefficients and substituting those values to the quantity of harvest, expected price has been calculated. The formula used for this purpose is as follows, Regression Equation(y) = a + bx Slope (b) = (NΣXY - (ΣX)(ΣY)) / (NΣX2 - (ΣX)2) Intercept (a) = (ΣY - b(ΣX)) / N Where N = Number of values or elements X = First Score Y = Second Score ΣX = Sum of First Scores ΣY = Sum of Second Scores ΣX2 = Sum of square First Scores ΣXY = Sum of the product of first and Second Scores
Expected harvest MT/Acre 1.015 1.252 1.203 1.305 1.377 2.086 2.533 2.622 2.682 2.622 0.9639 1.101 0.8262 2.176 2.252 TABLE 1: Sample data segment for expected harvest
For the prediction of the expected harvest, we use a classification model. Using the historical data from the parameters indicated in the next section, we construct a decision tree.
Temperature conditions in Sri Lanka are also characterized by a significant temperature decrease in the central highlands according to the vertical atmospheric lapse rate. The Wet zone receives relatively high mean annual rainfall over 2,500 mm without pronounced dry periods. The Dry zone receives a mean annual rainfall of less than 1,750 mm with a distinct dry season from May to September. The Intermediate zone receives a mean annual rainfall between 1,750 to 2,500 mm with a short and less prominent dry season. As low temperature is an important climatic factor affecting plant growth in the Wet and Intermediate zones of Sri Lanka, a sub-division based on the altitude takes into account the temperature limitations in these two climatic regions. In this delineation, the Low-country is demarcated as the land below 300 m in elevation and the Mid-country with elevation between 300 - 900 m while the Up-country is the land above 900 m elevation . Both Wet and Intermediate zones spread across all three categories of elevation while the Dry zone is confined to the Low-country resulting seven agro-climatic zones covering the entire island . These seven agroclimatic zones have further sub-divided into AgroEcological Regions (AER) with a total of 46 AERs covering the entire island.[15] 1 Agro-ecological regions of Low Country Wet Zone 2 Agro-ecological regions of Mid Country Wet Zone 3 Agro-ecological regions of Up Country Wet Zone 4 Agro-ecological regions of Low Country Intermediate Zone 5 Agro-ecological regions of Mid Country Intermediate Zone 6 Agro-ecological regions of Up Country Intermediate Zone 7 Agro-ecological regions of Low Country Dry Zone The distributions of the different climate conditions are shown below in the figure 2.
V. PARAMETERS FOR CLASSIFICATION A. Climate
Despite its relatively small aerial extent, Sri Lanka exemplifies a variety of climatic conditions depending on the geographical settings of respective locations. The average annual rainfall of the island varies from about 900 mm (Maha Lewaya, Hambantota) to over 5,500 mm (Kenilworth Estate, Ginigathhena). Being located in the low latitudes between 6 and 10 N and surrounded by the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka shows very typical maritimetropical temperature conditions.
FIGURE 2: Distribution of the climate conditions
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International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2011) D. Transplanting B. Crop Establishment
Method of establishment of rice can be broadly divided into direct sowing of pre germinated or ingeminated seeds and transplanting of seedlings. The choice of the method of establishment depends on factors such as, age of the variety, availability of moisture, climatic conditions, availability of inputs and labor. B.1 Direct sowing
This method is becoming more popular among rice farmer as it is economical than transplanting. The yields are also comparable with transplanted rice if crop is properly managed. Direct seeding methods could be divided into Wet seedling and Dry seeding. In Wet seeding pregerminated seeds are broadcasted into puddled and leveled field which are free from standing water. At the time of puddling basal fertilizer mixture should be added. After germination of seed, seedling desiccation due to water stress should be avoided by intermittent wetting of the field. When the seedlings are of about 5 cm tall (about a week after sowing) water is impounded to prevent germination of weeds and desiccation of the seedlings. C. Establishment Rice
Unfavorable environmental conditions and physical damages. Therefore seed rates should be adjusted accordingly to have the desired panicle number. Components of yield could be divided into panicle number, seeds per panicle and seed weight. Panicle number is mostly determining by the tillering ability of a variety which is a function of the number of seedlings per unit area. In general a healthy crop of new improved rice variety, under optimum condition, should bear about 350400 panicles per sq., meter. Thus seed rate should be adjusted accordingly to meet this requirement. A variety with a seed weight of about 26-28g/1000 seeds have a seed rate of about 18 g/m2. Seed rate decreases with seed weight thus, "Samba" type varieties have lesser seed rates. Decreasing seed rate would increase unproductive tillering. Increasing seed rate would also increase density, which increases unhealthy seedlings with small panicles due to competition for resources, and increase susceptibility to pest and diseases. Seeds can also be sown as ingeminated dry seeds in Kakulan or Manawari sowing. In this method dry seeds are sown to dry soil either in rows or in random. Seed rate generally vary with the severity of the environment and the type of physical damages to the seeds. Depending on the level of weed infestation in dry seeded rice the seed rate also varies from 150 kg/ha to 300 kg/ha. However if conditions for rice seed germination and subsequent operations are favorable the seed rate for dry seeding could be reduced.
The extent of transplanted rice is decreasing due to the scarcity of labor and other resources and the decrease cultivation of 4-4 1/2 month rice varieties. Transplanting will also decrease rice plants ability to withstand moisture stress. Transplanting is generally recommended for 4 -4 1/2 month varieties and if 3 month variety is transplanted it should be planted with young (12-14 days old) seedlings. Transplanting is also recommended when land preparation is not up to the standard and water management is poor. It has been reported that transplanting increase the yield of long age varieties when compared with broadcasting because transplanting reduces the excessive build up of vegetative biomass due to transplanting shock. In transplanted rice, spacing between hills vary with the age of the variety. A spacing of 20 x 20 cm2 and 20x15 cm2 is recommended for a long age (4-4 1/2 month) and short age (3-3 ½ month) varieties. A hill should be planted with 2-4 healthy seedlings. If random transplanting is practiced hill density of about 25 m-2 for 4-4 1/2 month varieties and 30-35 m-2 for 3-3 ½ month varieties is optimum. For transplanted rice seedling age is a major factor in determining yield. Transplanting shock, which is the set back of growth due to uprooting and replanting of seedling, increases with the increase age of seedling and with decrease age of the variety. In general the effect of transplanting on yield increases with decreasing age. Seedling age (in calendar days) also vary with the environmental condition and the type of nursery. The physical and bio-chemical factors would set a minimum and maximum age for a particular nursery. Minimum age of a seedling for transplanting would be about 12-14 days. For a three month age crop seedling age should not increased beyond 15 days while for a 4 month crop it is about 21 days. Seedling age of a dapog nursery should not exceed 14 days.[15] E. Insect Pest Management
On the basis of the extent and severity of the damage, the following insects are considered as major pests of rice in Sri Lanka (RRDI, 1996) [15]. The distribution for the insect pest management are shown in the figure 3.
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Brown Plant Hopper (BPH): Nilapavata lugens (Stal) (Homoptera: Delphacidae) Yellow Stem Borer (YSB): Scirpophaga incertulas (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) Rice Leaffolders (RLF): Cnaphalocrocis medinalis; Marasmia spp. (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) Rice Gall Midge (RGM) Orselia oryzae (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) Paddy bug (PB) Leptocorisa oratorius (Hemiptera: Alydidae)
International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2011) Some are of both regional and international important, others occur in local areas. Some diseases reach epidemic proportion and causes serious crop losses which others causes only negligible crop losses.[15] Some of the main diseases identified are given below and the distribution are shown in the figure 5.
FIGURE 3: Distribution of different soil conditions F. Soil compositions
Rice is grown in a wide verity of soils found in Sri Lanka. The major soil groups and their hydromorphic characters vary among the different agro ecological zones of the country[15]. The predominant rice growing great soil groups in the dry zone and Reddish Brown Earth(RBE),Low Humic Gley soil (LHG),Non Calcic Brown soil (NCB) and alluvials.The major great soil groups in the low country intermediate zone are Red Yellow Podzolic (RYP),LHG,NCB and Alluvials. Red Yellow Podzolic,Reddish Brown Latosolic (RBL) and Immature Brown Loam(IBL) are the predominant rice growing great soil groups in the mid country wet and intermediate zones. Soils in the low country wet zone are classified as mineral and organic soils[14].the main six categories of soil types considered are show below in figure 4
Rice blast – Magnaporthe grisea Rice sheath blight – Rhizoctonia Brown spot – Cochiobolus miyabeanus False smut – Ustilaginoidia virens Grain spotting and pecky rice – many fungal species and bacteria Leaf scald – Gerlachia oryzae Narrow Brown Leaf spot – Cercospora janseana Sheath rot – Sarocladium orysae Root Knot – Meloidagane spp Bacterial blight – Xanthomonan campestris pv oryzae Bacterial leaf streak – Xanthominan campestries PV oryzicola.
FIGURE 5: Distribution of different disease H. Seed verities
There are more than fifty seed verities and those can be categorized under five groups considering the time taken for yielding as follows [15]. FIGURE 4: Distribution of different soil conditions
Five to six month age Four to four and half month age group Three and half month age group Three month age group Two and half month age group.
The distributions of the seed verities are shown below in the figure 6.
G. Disease Management
Numerous disease of rice, caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses and nematode has been recorded in literature. Some diseases occur where ever rice in grown.
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International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2011) Then we gradually increased the training set and examined the results. The results are shown in the figure 7. Initially the false prediction rate was around 60% and when the training set is increased the false prediction went down to 22%.
FIGURE 6: Distribution of the seed verities I. Water management
Rice is cultivated either as a rainfed or as a supplementary or fully irrigated crop. The system of rice cultivation mainly depends on the available rainfall and its distribution. In general, except in semi arid areas where rice cultivation is marginal, average rainfall in rice growing areas of Sri Lanka can meet at least part of the water requirement for a rice crop during it cropping season. Thus in strict terms there is no fully irrigated rice cultivation in Sri Lanka. Rice is a semi aquatic plant and does not need standing water for a successful rice crop. However, uncertainty of water supply, either through irrigation or rain, and to reduce weed infestation rice is always cultivated as a crop with standing water. Response of the rice plant to water stress varies with its growth stage and other agronomic practices. Direct sown rice crop is less prone to drought than a transplanted crop. Highest water use is during the preparation of land, thus land preparation with minimum timing and maximum use of rain water at the correct time of the season is recommended[15].
This software is basically developed for catering the requirement of decision making authorities as decision support system fulfilling the objectives stated at the beginning of the paper. Therefore this software has been given to farmers, agricultural officers and decision making personnel like regional Directors for getting their comments. Since there was limited time to conduct detailed evaluation using questionnaires and summarizing the results of that, giving demonstrations about the software, interview method has been used for evaluation. Usability is the central goal of any system developed. Therefore in these criteria, main concentration is drawn to the area of easiness of using and learning the system and flexibility of the system. Hence in the discussion with the above users they are satisfied with the system in the context of easiness of using. Further users will be able to do things quickly; they accepted that developed system is efficient. Effectiveness of system has been achieved in the way that things are arranged in appropriate manner in the software. Since the system has been developed using widely used standards and symbols, anyone can easily learn and remember. Further this system has been addressed the severe issues, it provides the high utility to the users.
J. Weeds in rice
Weeds are vary from place to place based on soil composition method of irrigation,etc. More than 70 species grasses,50 species sedges,20 species broad leaves are identified in Sri Lanka as main weeds in rice. However 10-20 species may be considered as economically important in rice culture Grasses are considered as the major weed group in rice fields in Sri Lanka.[15]. VI. RESULTS AND EVALUATION Experiments were performed to evaluate our classification model using different data sets. Initially we used a set of 50 farmers and evaluated the model by identifying the correct predictions. We used a data set of 100 farmers for the test set.
FIGURE 7: Results of the Classification Model
Accessibility is another aspect which should be checked from users. Readability, predictability and input assistance are the main area to be tested under accessibility. As text content on the system can be readable, users conclude that system have met that criteria. Since web pages appear and operate and in predictable way, it is accepted that predictability has been achieved in the system.
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International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2011) Furthermore in Sri Lanka there is no derivative market VII. CONCLUSION for any product and financial market should be upgraded and strengthen for such market. This is mainly affected to The main objective of having more accurate figure on agricultural products as in other countries derivatives expected harvest for decision making is easily achieved market is more powerful for agricultural market and implementing this system. It is estimated that this figure benefitted to the farmers. Now discussions are going on can be obtained at more than 80 percent confidence level. the development of derivative market in Sri Lanka. Further system can estimate the expected price by Therefore as future development system should provide analyzing the past data using linear regression model. facility to farmers to search information on forward Therefore expected price also can be reliably used for contract agreements, swaps, options etc and then they can decision making purposes. Hence central issue of price enter into the derivative transactions in derivative market. fluctuations in paddy cultivation can be minimized using This will further help to reduce the indebtedness of the this system by protecting farmer and consumer. farmers as they can sell their product in advance before Then the objective of monitoring the fertilizer obtaining it. distribution is concerned, corruptions and misappropriation can be avoided as all the descriptive level of details of fertilizer distribution is available at individual land level to inland level and all these ACKNOWLEDGMENT information are available for general public. This may be highly impacted to achieve the transparency and This research is supported by the ministry of agriculture accountability of public money. and other relevant institutes. The authors also Further comprehensive performance report for acknowledge each individual farmer and other officials individual farmers can be produced for each farmer who gave valuable feedbacks showing their productivity comparing to inputs. This is also very important tool to improve the productivity of REFERENCES individual paddy cultivators giving special emphasis on Manoj Tibbotuwawa, Research Officer – IPS,Envionmental and individual land. Adding further advantage from this [1] economic effects of reducing pesticide use in agriculture. system, tax charged for paddy land can be effectively and [2] Thilakarathne H.M.,Thilakarathne I.G.,Farm mechanization in rice efficiently collected and this help to Government to cultivation.. [3] http://www.business.com/directory/agriculture/software/ increase the tax revenue. A. Problems encountered
Now with the changes in climate and rainfall the time period for each session has been changed. Since it is important to get the all report at each session, separate table has been created to store the seasonal data. Then data on each season can be altered in accordance with climate changes. Here for the estimation purposes linear regression method has been used as two variables price and quantity are taken dependent and independent variable. So other factors such as rainfall, government policies, inflation etc should be considered, but due to the time constraints those factors have not been incorporated in the project.
[4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
[14]
[15]
VII FUTURE WORKS
http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/x6905e/x6905e0c.htm http://www.irrigation.gov.lk/Reservoir%20Status.html http://www.smart-fertilizer.com http://www.statistics.gov.lk/page.asp?page=Population%20and%20 Housing http://www.statistics.gov.lk/agriculture/Paddy%20Statistics/Product ion. http://www.sljol.info/index.php/SS/article/viewFile/1231/1129 www.tradechakra.com/.../sri-lanka/agriculture-sector-in-sri-lanka335.php Mahinda Chinthana vision for the new Sri Lanka. Central Bank Report 2009. Wickramasinghe W.M.D B. A.,Wijewardhane J.D.H.,Soil Fertility Management and Integrated Plant Nutrition System in Rice Cultivation Wickramasinghe W.M.D B. A.,Wijewardhane J.D.H.,Soil and Nutrient Management for Increasing Soil Fertility Toward to Increase the Rice Productivity in Sri Lanka http://www.agridept.gov.lk/index.php/en/cropcommendations/903
This software basically has been developed for paddy cultivation and addresses the issues relating to paddy cultivation. Since this price fluctuation is common to other agricultural products, it is so important to have such system for that cultivation too. Therefore for the other cultivation such as vegetables, onions, potatoes, chilies, banana, and other fruits, system should be extended as future development and it will serve innocent farmers of such cultivations immensely.
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