17 pages, Modern agriculture is facing unique challenges in building a sustainable future for food production, in which the reliable detection of plantation threats is of critical importance. The breadth of existing information sources, and their equivalent sensors, can provide a wealth of data which, to be useful, must be transformed into actionable knowledge. Approaches based on Information Communication Technologies (ICT) have been shown to be able to help farmers and related stakeholders make decisions on problems by examining large volumes of data while assessing multiple criteria. In this paper, we address the automated identification (and count the instances) of the major threat of olive trees and their fruit, the Bactrocera Oleae (a.k.a. Dacus) based on images of the commonly used McPhail trap’s contents. Accordingly, we introduce the “Dacus Image Recognition Toolkit” (DIRT), a collection of publicly available data, programming code samples and web-services focused at supporting research aiming at the management the Dacus as well as extensive experimentation on the capability of the proposed dataset in identifying Dacuses using Deep Learning methods. Experimental results indicated performance accuracy (mAP) of 91.52% in identifying Dacuses in trap images featuring various pests. Moreover, the results also indicated a trade-off between image attributes affecting detail, file size and complexity of approaches and mAP performance that can be selectively used to better tackle the needs of each usage scenario.
India (Southern, Asia), agricultural, information, cell phones, extension systems, advisory services, technology, To achieve gainful development in agriculture to ensure food security in the north-eastern Himalayan region of India, an initiative was taken to develop mobile phone based agro-advisory system with the objective to empower the farmers by providing right information at right time through Information and Communication Technol- ogy mediated extension approach. 2000 farmers and farm women were selected as beneficiaries through snowball sampling method based on certain criteria. The major features of the system to deliver the farm advices (Pull Based) and information services (Push Based) through toll free Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS), Smart Phone Application, Mobile phone and Web based agriculture advisory system. It was found that on an average almost 200 advisories were provided every month, which even shoot up to almost 300 calls per month in the peak Kharif seasons as bulk of the advisories were provided during the months of May to November as most number of calls from the farmers came during the period. Majority of the advisories were provided on fishery management practices (17.32%), source of seed (9.95%), livestock management (9.18%), disease and pest management of crops (8.75%), training information (9.35%), rural development schemes (7.76%) etc. Moreover, the inclusion of need based train- ing component and convergence with different extension functionaries helped to develop an ICT based Stakeholder Interface (Experts-Line Departments-Agripreneurs-Farmers) in the field of agriculture in the region. This alternate extension system also helped to develop better rapport with the farmers and can be replicated in other hilly region of the world.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 131 Document Number: D11317
Notes:
6 pages., Pages 37-42 in 27th annual meeting of the Caribbean Food Crops Society. Dominica, Volume 27., Authors recall some aspects of agricultural information before analyzing the problems of this information sector, the importance of which sometimes is unrecognized by agricultural administrators, researchers, extensionists, and producers. Perspectives for the development and better management and use of information resources are proposed through the use of new information technologies (databases, microcomputers, software, agricultural thesauruses, CD-ROMs, etc.), networks, and the sharing of resources through cooperation at local, regional, and international levels."
The potential for rural areas to benefit from telecommunications technology is a persistent question. This article examines data for the USA concerning the "digital divide" and access of residences and businesses, which tend to suggest that all is (or will soon be) well. The article also presents data on aspects of digital infrastructure in rural America, including points of presence and digital telephone switches, which suggest that there are major shortcomings in most rural communities. Demand aggregation is a possible solution, but more serious pitfalls are those related to shortages of human capital. These might be resolved in some rural places, where immigration and return migration bring needed cerebral inputs to rural areas. A final set of improvements concerns how businesses use the Internet and e-commerce. In the end, telecommunications is not a "quick fix" solution for rural development, and the desired improvements will be limited to a fraction of rural places.
