Agriculture Wrapped with Social Networks, Data Mining and Mobile Computing to Boost up Crop Productivity
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43 International Journal of Biological Sciences and Engineering
Vol. 01, No. 01, January 2010, pp. 43-48
Agriculture Wrapped with Social Networks, Data
Mining and Mobile Computing to Boost up Crop
Productivity
HARITHA AKKINENI and VASAVI JUNAPUDI
Asst. Prof, Department of Information Technology,PVP Siddhartha Institute of Technology
Email:haritha_akkineni@yahoo.com,vasavi.singh@gmail.com
Abstract: “The backbone of Indian economy” –agriculture which is known for its multi-
functional success in generating employment, livelihood, food, nutritional and ecological
security is facing several problems in improving the crop productivity. As we had good
expertise in the field of agriculture the crucial information is not reaching the farmer
community in a timely manner. In this paper we made an effort to find a way out to bridge
the gap in the broadcast of information so that timely decisions can be taken for a better
farming. We are trying to propose a system which provides advisory services as a decision
support to farmers on crop related issues using the mobile services. In addition to these,
the effort is being made to familiarize this information through a social network where a
human being is a resource to influence others instead of mass media. Initially the proposed
system is designed to collect the climatic data and it will be passed to the mobiles of all
farmers through messages. There is a coordinator for each region to provide suggestions
periodically. At the end of cropping, the coordinator will collect the information like
• Had the farmer utilized the climatic information
• Type of soils
• Type of seeds
• Pesticides used
• Yield information, etc
will be maintained in a database. Applying data mining techniques the results are analyzed.
In each location identifying a person, who utilized the services and achieved the higher
productivity. He will act as a motivator/educator to other farmers. Through him we will
educate/motivate other farmers about to consider and follow the climate alert message
information as valuable as mass media.
on a global scale. Climate is usually defined
Introduction:
as the "average weather," or more
Agriculture is the backbone for the India’s rigorously, as the statistical description in
economies as two-third of the population terms of the mean and variability of relevant
lives in rural areas and depends (directly / quantities over a period of time ranging
indirectly) on agriculture for living. In from months to thousands or millions of
Agriculture the irrigation systems and the years. The classical period is 30 years, as
weather are the key factors for cultural defined by the World Meteorological
productivity, as well as soil properties and Organization (WMO). These quantities are
natural communities. The effect of climate most often surface variables such as
on agriculture is related to variability’s in temperature, precipitation, and wind. The
local climates rather than in global climate Indian farming community is facing a
patterns. On the other hand, agricultural multitude of problems to maximize crop
trade has grown in recent years, and now productivity. In spite of successful research
provides significant amounts of food, on a on new agricultural practices concerning
national level to major importing countries, crop cultivation, majority of the farmers are
as well as comfortable income to exporting not getting upper-bound yield due to several
ones. The international aspect of trade and reasons. It is true that India possesses
security in terms of food implies the need to valuable agricultural knowledge and
also consider the effects of climate change expertise such as usage of Crop Weather
#03010107 Copyright © 2009 CAFET-INNOVA TECHNICAL SOCIETY. All rights reserved.HARITHA AKKINENI and VASAVI JUNAPUDI 44
Calendar by the Agricultural Meteorological mining is becoming an increasingly
Division India Meteorological department. important tool to transform these data into
Such crucial information is not reaching the information. It is commonly used in a wide
farmer community in a timely manner. range of profiling practices, such as
Indian farmers need timely expert advice marketing, surveillance, fraud detection and
regarding the climate information to make scientific discovery.
them more productive and competitive. In An important part of the process is the
this article, we have made an effort to verification and validation of patterns on
present a solution to bridge the information other samples of data. Data mining is the
gap which can be reduced significantly process of discovering from the previously
through the IT techniques like mobile unknown and potentially interesting patterns
computing, data mining and social networks. in large datasets [1].
In this paper we propose a framework for a
Social Networks:
cost-effective agricultural information
propagation system, to propagate expert is a social structure made of individuals (or
agricultural knowledge to the farming organizations) called "nodes," which are tied
community in order to improve crop (connected) by one or more specific types of
productivity. interdependency, such as friendship,
This framework is an amalgamation of kinship, financial exchange, dislike,
mobiles computing, data mining and social relationships of beliefs, knowledge or
networks. This framework is scalable which prestige.
can be incrementally developed and Social networking can be defined as,
extended to cover all the farmers (crops) of grouping of individuals into specific groups,
India in a cost-effective manner. It enables like small rural communities or a
the farmer to cultivate a crop with expertise, neighborhood subdivision. Although social
as that of an agricultural expert, by networking is possible in person, especially
disseminating climate information through in the workplace, universities and high
mobiles in a timely manner. schools, it is most popular online. This is
because unlike most high schools, colleges
Techniques Used:
or workplaces, the internet is filled with
Mobiles: millions of individuals who are looking to
Ø Now days the cellular phones are meet other people, to gather and share
personalized with the usage of first-hand information and experiences
human being. The mobiles are used about any number of topics from
by many people for many purposes. golfing, gardening, developing friendships
Main features of mobiles are: and professional alliances.
Ø For sending messages (text / voice / Social network analysis views social
multimedia) relationships in terms of network theory
Ø Communicating with other people about nodes and ties. Nodes are the
Ø Entertainment purpose like taking individual actors within the networks, and
photos, recordings, storing movies ties are the relationships between the
and using as mp3 player. actors.
Ø As a data carrier with the help of
Background:
Bluetooth.
Recently, with help of 3G technology the Mobile phones are an important
people can make video calling i.e. communication channel today. Be it
communicating with other by seeing their personal or business, dependency on the
image. Here the image is not a static one. It hand held instrument has become an
will change with our movements. absolute necessity.
But with the onset of the technological
Data Mining:
revolution mobile phones are also being
is the process of extracting patterns from used to help the farmer today by informing
data. As more data are gathered, data him when to sow his crops and what
International Journal of Biological Sciences and Engineering
Vol. 01, No. 01, January 2010, pp. 43-4845 Agriculture Wrapped with Social Networks, Data Mining and
Mobile Computing to Boost up Crop Productivity
fertilizers to use. Thanks, to wireless and curriculum artefacts are shared with
solution provider Handygo Ltd, farmers educators and designers who are developing
across the country can now learn about instructional multimedia materials to align
good farm practices and share their views with and enhance the primary science
with experts on their mobiles. With more curriculum by including indigenous
than one in every third Indian a mobile knowledge about sustainable agriculture
phone owner, Handy go has tied up with from elders in the communities.
mobile service provider Bharti Airtel to offer Data sources and analysis:
expert advice and information about farming Data sources include:
as a value-added service. (1) audio-recorded interviews with African
Handygo is also negotiating with Tata community elders to learn about the
Teleservices and Idea Cellular to further feasibility on connecting sustainable
increase its reach, Handygo Chief Executive agricultural practices to the primary school
Officer Praveen Rajpal told PTI. Farmers will curriculum;
have to call the company’s service centre on (2) audio-recorded interviews with African
a particular number charged at Rs. 1 per teacher educator and teachers to assess
minute to get inputs about weather, their feasibility of using mobile, web-based
fertilizer, seeds, pesticide and irrigation devices as a means of connecting
through its interactive voice response (IVR) understandings of the use of indigenous
technology. The company has hired a team scientific knowledge in the curriculum;
of farm sector experts to answer the (3) Primary school curriculum guides and
queries. The service will also provide other artifacts that pertain to indigenous
weather forecast using its tie-up with the knowledge. Formative evaluation has
Indian Meteorological Department. employed the model proposed by Tessmer
Recently a new research work has been (1993) and with additional techniques for
done in agriculture using mobiles and by alpha and beta testing from Alessi and
taking the elders suggestions. This work has Trollip (2000).
been done in Africa. The people took the From a post-colonial theoretical framework
ideas, suggestions and the cultivation [4], we are interested in understanding the
process by the elders. That information is cross hybridization of ideas from Western
added as the curriculum for the youngsters and indigenous science perspectives as we
to teach about the cultivation process in explore teaching about sustainable
agriculture. They tried to familiarize their agriculture.
suggestions taken from the elders through For this project, the nodes of the network to
mobiles. Why they took the help of mobiles connect knowledge cultures within Africa
is now days mobiles are becoming and in the United States include the
personalized devices for the human being in following:
day-to-day life. For example, in the year 1. A community elder in sub-Saharan
2000, one sub-Saharan country had 49,000 Africa is a farmer providing
cell phones in use and by 2004 the number knowledge of sustainable agriculture
increased to 2, 22,100. Mobiles are explored practices, including channel
as a platform for delivery of instructional irrigation, composting, and organic
multimedia and are critical for addressing pest control;
the digital divides [2], but also progress in 2. A science and agriculture educator in
developing countries [3]. sub-Saharan Africa is conducting field
In this project, science educators and testing of mobile devices and
instructional designers are collaborating with sustaible agriculture curriculum with
elders, teachers, teacher educators and pre-service teachers; and
community members in a sub-Saharan 3. A target primary school classroom
African country to establish a mobile and teacher has been selected from a
network to develop curriculum that draws primary science and agriculture class
from local resources and makes them in sub-Saharan Africa.
available on a global network. These ideas
International Journal of Biological Sciences and Engineering
Vol. 01, No. 01, January 2010, pp. 43-48HARITHA AKKINENI and VASAVI JUNAPUDI 46
Moreover, taking the lead from projects retrieve large amounts of data to deliver the
such as MobilED (http://mobiled.uiah.fi/), information instantaneously to the needy.
we are exploring text-, voice-, and Data mining technology can be used to
multimedia messaging, and the potential of extract useful knowledge from huge
solar-powered devices, including battery databases.
chargers (Solio, http://www.solio.com/) and We already defined the social network can
wireless outdoor routers (Meraki, built on a specific topic. Any information can
http://meraki.com/). The rationale for using be spread through media like newspaper,
mobile phones and hand held devices is that television and so on. But the “word of
they consume less power than other mouth” works best than other Medias. For
hardware (e.g., laptops and tablet PCs) and example let us a person wants to purchase a
can access the Internet via a cellular house. To take a decision can be hard to
network, much needed in a African make. The decision to purchase a house by
countries. a person can be based on many parameters
such as the price of the house, distance
Proposed Work:
from the workplace where he / she working,
Now day’s Mobile phones are an important quietness of the neighborhood, etc. Further,
communication channel today. Be it many such parameters are highly subjective
personal or business, dependency on the and difficult to evaluate or quantitatively
hand held instrument has become an compare with respect to other parameters.
absolute necessity. The usage of mobiles are Therefore, people very often refer to their
ONE can observe that during the last decade friends for advice. However, how can the
progress in information technology (IT) is person be sure that opinions from friends
affecting all spheres of our life. Due to represent fairly diverse viewpoints so that
progress in hardware technologies, we are she can make a wise choice? This can be
able to procure high-speed reliable applied to agriculture to educate and
computers with huge storage capacities at motivate the farmers in the cultivation
affordable cost. But many of the farmers are process.
illiterate. Due to this many of the farmers
Algorithm:
are not able to utilize the facilities in
agriculture. We are taking the advantage of Step 1: Collect the climatic data
the mobiles to educate them in agriculture Step 2: Forward the information to the
by sending the messages. farmer’s mobiles.
By end of the year, at least half of India's Step 3: Analyze the information using data
1.2 billion people could be walking with mining techniques.
mobile phones, making it the world's largest Step 4: Identify the farmer with high yield
cellular market, perhaps only rivaled by its who will act as a motivator for other
neighbor China. India is experiencing an farmers.
unprecedented spurt in the number of Optimum dates for sowing have been
mobile phone users across the country determined for the states of Maharashtra,
which has breached 450 million subscribers. Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka and Madhya
"We be confident that with 470 million Pradesh by using daily rainfall data from
mobile connections in September 2009, we 1901 onwards. Such information helps in
will be well poised to cross yet another deciding the best period for sowing
landmark of 500 million mobile connections operations, water conservation measures
before end of this year", said A. Raja, and evolution of appropriate cropping
Minister of Telecommunications and patterns. Correct determination of sowing
Information Technology. This shows the dates is one of the most crucial decisions in
enormous usage of the mobiles across India. any agricultural operation. India
This stand as a stimulator for opting the Meteorological Department has therefore
mobile technology. started providing on a scientific basis the
Also, database and data warehousing detailed information on this particular aspect
technologies can be used to store and of climate for different states in the form of
International Journal of Biological Sciences and Engineering
Vol. 01, No. 01, January 2010, pp. 43-4847 Agriculture Wrapped with Social Networks, Data Mining and
Mobile Computing to Boost up Crop Productivity
publications. Based on daily rainfall Recently Scientists have harnessed a free
distribution for 80 years (1901-80), dates operating system to turn a mobile phone
ideal for commencing sowing operations in into a device for collecting data in the
five states are computed. A number of developing world. The Open Data Kit (ODK),
stations, representing nearly all climatic, soil developed by scientists at the University of
and cropping zones in the state are selected. Washington, United States, is a free set of
With the help of suitable rainfall criteria, the tools that helps organizations collect
sowing dates are identified and their information in areas with poor
statistical properties are brought out. infrastructure. It uses Android, an open-
The climatic data collected from the Indian source mobile operating system launched
Meteorological Department and is divided two years ago by a number of companies
based on the regions. The required including Google.
information is passed to the farmers mobiles ODK enables users to collect a range of data
as Short Message Service. In parallel we are including GPS locations and barcode scans.
assigning a coordinator for each region and "The tools we've developed can help them
sending the information like the type of collect a wide variety of data, create
seed, pesticides and so on to be used. Based visualizations, and analyze it very quickly,"
on the requirements of a farmer this Hartung said. This tool can be used by the
information is propagated as a suggestion coordinators to analyze the data. The
while farming. It is left up to the farmer’s coordinators of all regions will send the
choice whether to use the provided analysis report to the system for global
information or not. visualization.
As a part of this process for each region we Finally the coordinator identifies a farmer
are assigning a Coordinator for supervising with high yield as the educator/motivator for
the cultivation process. other farmers in that region. Here we are
• Role of the Coordinator in each including the social network concepts for
region is to collect and maintain the improving the yield of whole farming
information like community in that region. The motivator will
• Receiving the pesticides and other motivate other farmers by illuminating the
information from the designed methodology of his farming.
system. Based on that data she/he Note: The designed system can also analyze
will guide the farmers. the data. Both the analysis is verified to
• Visiting the farmers and the land ensure the accuracy of the information.
periodically. Sending a report to the Same can be applied for selecting a
designed systems about the updates motivator.
of farmers and their farming.
Conclusion:
• Suggesting them what sort of
pesticides to be used for what pests. Through the designed system the former will
• After completion of cultivation be benefited to get the high yield, by
process the coordinator collects receiving the knowledge about the climatic
below data for analysis. information through the mobiles, he will sow
o Had the farmer utilized the the seeds. With the help of coordinators the
climatic information farmers will get the suggestions immediately
o Soil information about the pesticides for the different pests.
o Type of seeds All the pest information is provided by the
o Pesticides used designed system to the coordinator. Based
o Yield information on the farmer’s requirement coordinator will
The coordinator uses the system having the guide the farmers. By following the
data mining techniques to analyze the data. suggestions / guidelines of the coordinator
In Parallel he will send the information to the farmer can improve the yield. We are
the designed system for the global analysis trying to motivate the all the farmers to take
of data. guidelines from the coordinator to improve
their yields too.
International Journal of Biological Sciences and Engineering
Vol. 01, No. 01, January 2010, pp. 43-48HARITHA AKKINENI and VASAVI JUNAPUDI 48
References:
Future Work:
[1] Piatetsky-Shapiro, G., and Frawley, W.J.,
• Implementing the proposed system
eds. (1991) Knowledge Discovery in
in the real world with all facilities like
Databases. Menlo Park, CA, AAAI Press.
providing the solar batteries for the
[2] Jone, M. & Marsden, G. (2006). Mobile
mobiles to recharge i.e. recharging
interaction design. West Sussex, England:
the mobile batteries with the help of
John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
solar system. Through this we can
[3] Curry, J, & Kenney, M. (2006). Digital
reduce the global warming.
divide or digital development. First Monday,
• Though information is now being
11(3). Retrieved July 1, 2007 from:
provided through text messages, the
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_
system is targeting to make the
3/curry/index.html
service interactive very soon. It is
[4] Carter, L. (2004). Thinking differently
dispersing information in local
about cultural diversity: Using a postcolonial
languages. If the information is in the
theory to (Re)read science education.
form voice message in the regional
Science Education, 88(6), 819-836.
local languages then the problem
“the uneducated people are not able
to utilize the climatic information
through the mobiles” can be solved.
International Journal of Biological Sciences and Engineering
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