Social Life Network for Farmers in
Sri Lanka
Professor Athula Ginige
School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics
University of Western Sydney, Australia
1
• What are Social Life Networks
• Information Flow Issues in Sri Lankan Agriculture Sector and resulting problems
• Initial Solution and Research Methodology
• Participatory Design and Evolution of the proposed Solution
• Current Solution
• Next Step
Outline
2
Mobile phone used to be a phone. It is now a:
– Phone– Camera and an album– GPS– Music system– Video Game console– Communication device– Personal BUTLER– Computer– Information source– … much more
A Mobile Phone based Solution
A Sensor in a Hand of a Human4
Middle 3.5
Billion
Top 1.5
Billion
Bottom 1.5 Billion
MOP: Strengthening
Information
Environment
TOP: Strong Information
Environment
BOP: Deprived
of Information
Middle of the Pyramid
Ref: Ramesh Jain 5
Connecting People
And
ResourcesAggregation
and
Composition
Situation
Detection Alerts
Queries
Information
Health Education Agriculture Transportation Social
Ref: Ramesh Jain
7
N’Eliya carrot
farmers in the
dumps:
Bumper harvest, but
prices lowThe Sunday Times, April 22, 2012
Over Production problem in Sri Lanka
8
11
Current Information Flow
Farmer
Agriculture
Extension
Officer
Agriculture
Department
Collected
farmer data
Government
Organization
Research
institutes
Web Pages
Reports & Static
information
Data on cultivation extent, crop types etc
Static knowledge on
crop varieties,
solving pest &
diseases etc
SLN4MOP Research Methodology
Exploring possibilities
using Action
Research
Requirements for Aggregation Unit
Aggregation Unit
Requirements for Processing Unit
Processing Unit
Requirements for User Interface Unit
Mobile App
Evaluation
Stakeholder Needs
SLN for Farmers
Requirements
Artefacts
Evaluations
13
Collaborative Research Team
14
Mobile User Interface by the Italian
research groupInformation Aggregation
Unit by the American
research group
Empowerment Model by Macquarie University
KM and Query Engine by UWS
Agriculture Ontology and localisation of application for SLN by the Sri Lankan research group
SRI LANKA
Participatory Design
Scenarios Transformation
Current Practice Scenarios
Usability Specifications
claims aboutcurrentpractice
analysis ofstakeholders,field studies
metaphors,informationtechnology,HCI theory,guidelines
iterativeanalysis ofusability
claims andre-design
ANALYZE
PROTOTYPE & EVALUATE
DESIGN
Scenario Based Approach
Interviews and Surveys
Number % Number %
Young(<36) 4 33% 0 0%
Middle aged (36-45) 4 33% 2 15%
Old(>46) 4 33% 12 92%
Graduate 1 8% 0 0%
A/L 4 33% 0 0%
O/L 7 58% 3 23%
Above 8th Grade 0 0% 4 31%
Below 8th Grade 0 0% 6 46%
Ability to Read 12 100% 12 92%
Ability toWrite 12 100% 11 85%
Ability to Read 1 8% 0 0%
Ability to Write 1 8% 0 0%
Basic 11 92% 12 92%
Sophisticated 0 0% 0 0%
Taking calls 11 92% 12 92%
Sending sms 11 92% 9 69%
Playing games 0% 1 8%
Model
Purpose
Mobile Phone
Usage
Respondants
Survey 2
Respondants
Survey 1CharacteristicsUnit of
MeasurementCategories
Age Years
Year of
Schooling
R/W
Capability
R/W
Capability
Literacy Level
16
Actors - Sirisena
• Sirisena is a 45 years old farmer withlong experience in truck farming.
• Is part of Sinhalese ethnic group. • Attended the primary school, and has a basic knowledge of
English. • Does not have advanced technical skills, • Is pretty distrustful of the technological support and• During his work, is accustomed to rely on his farmer
experience. • Manages the crop production of his family farm.• Takes decisions on the kind of production and the time to
start . Moreover he establishes an indicative selling price.
Actors - Premasiri
• Premasiri is a 40 years old low price
fertilizers seller.
• In order to raise his revenues he also
acts as market middle man.
• He can speak English as good as Sinhalese and has a basic knowledge of Tamil, so his intermediary role is well recognized by the farmers of the area.
• During the market activities his responsibility is to negotiate the best selling price of the product trying to match the expectations of his clients.
Scenario of Current Practices
Crop SelectionCrop
Production
Getting to the
local market
Farmer
Activities
Middleman
Activities
Harvest selling
Causal Analysis
21
Revenue
New Methods
FertilizerPest and Diseases
Weather
Surplus / OversupplyShortage / Undersupply
DemandSupplyYield Quality
Selling Price
No of Suppliers
Previous Year
Prices
Seeds Quality
Gov’mnt. Policies
No of Buyers
Is determined by
Is determined by
Leads toDepends on
Control
Crop choosing pattern Crop selling patternCrop growing pattern
ControlControl
Depends on
Depends on
User Empowerment
Given some information
How can we assist user to act on that information
From user action
How can we extract useful information
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• Seeds
• Soil
• fertilizer
• Weather
• Pest
• disease & remedies
• places to buy
• places to sell
• Prices at markets / economic center
• traditional knowledge and practices...
Knowledge Management
24
Existing
Sources
Semi Structured /Unstructured
Knowledge
Extraction &
Representation
SLN4FarmersFarmer
Agriculture Officers / Farmer
Associations
Processing
Input
Capture
Output
Visualisation
Information
Identification and
Extraction
Connecting Farmer with Information
Farming
Process Decision Points
What crop to
grow?
Which Pesticide?
Which Fertilizer?
When to
Harvest?
Questions to
System
What are Suitable
Crops?
What are the
relevant Govt
Policies?
What are the known
pest problems?
What is the
predicted weather
condition?
What was the last
years selling price?
What is the current
production level?
Contextual
Information
Variable: SoilValue: Clay
Var : Season
Value: Maha
Var: Elevation
Value: Up
Phases
Pre-sowing
Storage &
Packing
Post Harvesting
Transport
Selling
Information in Context
26
Proposed Architecture of SLN Farmers
Query
Expansion
and
Aggregation
Module
Agriculture
Ontology
Real time
data
aggregation
module
Mobile
Crop
Soil
User profile
DB
Current
Cultivation
information
Past harvest
data & prices
WeatherUI
Management
Module
Language
Translator
27
Farming Phases
Crop Selection
Pre Sowing
Packaging & Storing
Harvesting
Growing
Selling
• Crop Colour, Weight, size
• Elevation, Zone/ Rainfall, Season
• Soil type, pH level, Temperature, Harvesting time,
Expected yield
• Nursery Mgt – Suitable period, Bed preparation, water
requirement, Seeding,
• Transplanting, Watering, Weed control
• Symptoms, Harvesting time, method
• Fertiliser recommendation, Pest control, Disease control
• Seed suppliers
• Post harvesting treatments
• Storage requirements
• Packaging methods, Transporting
methods
• Markets, Prices, Transporting
Existing Information about Crops
Farmer Preferences
• Elevation - Up/Mid/Low country
• Zone – Wet/Intermediate/Dry
• Season – Yala/Maha , Month
• --------------------------
Controllable Factors
• Soil Type
• pH Level
Pre-determined Factors
Crop Requirements/ Characteristics
Agroecological
regions
Elevation (m)
Elevation (m)
Mean temperature
(°C)
Rainfall (mm)
Wet zone
Up country
Mid country
Low country
1000-2000
500-1000
0-300
10-15
20-15
20-25
2500-5000
2000-3000
2000-3000
Intermediate zone
Up country
Mid country
Low country
1000-1500
350-500
0-300
15-22
24-26
25-29
1500-2250
1500-2250
2000-2200
Dry zone
Low country
0-300 28-30 900-1000
Crop Selection – What Crop to Grow?
Populating Databases
Department of Agriculture, Srilanka, Retrieved 20 August, 2012, from
http://www.agridept.gov.lk/31
Knowledge ExtractionTomato prefers deep well drained sandy loam soils. The upper
layer needs to be permeable. Soil depth of 15 to 20 cm is needed
to grow a healthy crop.
Syntactic
Analysis
Tomato
Soil
Needs
Prefers
Noun
VerbSemantic
Analysis
Ontology
Formulation Relationship
between Entities
Output
Word Net
{Domain specific}
Agriculture Ontology
Parser
32
• Design and implement End-to-End system V0.
• Explore ways to collaborate with the Department of Agriculture in Sri Lanka.
• Field trial the initial system with farmers in December 2012.
• Interesting secondary project
– Collaborative development and knowledge sharing.
Next Step
34
Spread of Disciplines
Core Technologies
Infrastructure and the System
Human Mobile Interactions
Social and Business Aspects
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