Abstract:
An E-Agriculture advisory and monitoring system was developed aiming to enable rice farmers
in Sri Lanka to receive instructions on correct identification and recommended solutions for
their pest and disease problems of rice in time and, to facilitate relevant authorities for
monitoring of pest and disease incidents to identify potential outbreaks.
Many farmers are not competent to identify pests and diseases related issues and decide the
correct management practices themselves. They expect the assistance of the field officers of
government agriculture extension services for this purpose. However, lack of officers and the
knowledge gaps that exist among them hinder the achieving of these expectations.
The system developed is composed of a web application and a mobile application called “Govi
Vedaduru”, compatible with Android 4.0+ version. The mobile application was developed to
provide an advisory service through smart phones enabling the farmers to obtain expert
guidance from the Rice Research Stations of Department of Agriculture in identifying their field
problems and recommend remedial measures to follow. A user-friendly mobile interface was
designed in local languages (initially Sinhala) to upload maximum of five images and information
about the pest and disease problems by the farmer. Experts access individual incidents, analyze
the problem through the web application and make recommendations allowing farmers to
receive full advice in Sinhala language through the smart device. Data analysis and reporting
module was developed to display classified incidents of pests and diseases. The system was
initially deployed in selected five areas (yaya) of rice cultivation representing two agro ecological zones in the Galle district of Sri Lanka in minor season (Yala) of 2017, as a pilot
project and 60 farmers were registered to the system. During the period of June to October
2017, 19 inquiries on pest and diseases were received and correctly identified and solutions in
Sinhala language were sent back to the farmer accounts.
In Galle district, 33 “Govivedaduru” accounts were created to represent all 33 Agrarian Service
Centre areas and usernames and passwords were given to the Agri. Development Officers in the relevant area during maha 2018/19 to upload farmer field problems to the system. Apart from the farmer user accounts in Galle district, these 33 Agrarian Service Centre (ASC) accounts are expected to monitor the pest and diseases in the district and convey the advisory message for pest/disease problem to the relevant farmer. Problem of getting involved with this advisory & surveillance system by the farmer due to the unavailability of smart phones with them can be solved by this approach to some extent.The “Govi Vedaduru” mobile and web application was designed to the whole 25 districts and hence, this application can be implemented island-wide. However, language of “Govi Vedaduru” mobile application should be translated to Tamil language to extend it to Tamil speaking areas, Chat facility and news facilities are to be included for further improvements of the system to reduce the gap between farmer and agriculture authorities.