iFarm: Development of cloud-based system of cultivation management for precision agriculture
Precision agriculture is aimed at optimizing farming management and it requires records of agricultural work. Farmers conventionally write records on paper but it is difficult and tedious to check past agricultural-work data and control the cost of agricultural products. A system of cultivation management, iFarm, is proposed, which was developed to support efficient farming management. The system consists of smartphone applications, Web browsers and a cloud server. Farmers on farmland can easily refer to work plans, enter field data into the cloud system, and share them with head office in real time by using smartphones. Farmers at head office can analyze data in the cloud system with a Web browser and estimate farming costs and form work plans based on their analyses.
An Economical Wireless Sensor Network Based Solution for Precision Agriculture
In developing countries, crop production has declined due to inefficient agricultural and irrigation practices. Due to certain social and economic constraints, rural producers are reluctant to adopt efficient technologies that can help them obtain better yield. To increase the acceptance of technology in agriculture, we need a simple, cost-effective and reliable system that can help manage the farm based upon the critical parameters necessary to improve crop growth. This paper provides an introduction to an economical Wireless Sensor Network-based solution for precision agriculture that can help farmers to monitor their farms remotely. Our research examines the feasibility of implementing this proposed system in developing countries. Moreover, this paper gives an overview of our analysis for implementing our prototype using different wireless technologies that could be used to improvise the performance of the precision agriculture system. Keywords—Wireless Sensor Network, Precsion Agriculture, Field Conditions, GSM, GPS, Sensor Nodes
Livestock Aspects of Feed Grain Policy
It is a signal event that our topic should be included on this program. In recent years, the livestock and poultry economy has scarcely been considered in the making of price and income policy for feed grains. It has been disregarded by pragmatic policy makers. It has been almost equally bypassed by theoretical economists, who usually kibitz freely. Policy for support and target prices for corn, grain sorghums, and other feed grains has been made with an eye almost exclusively fixed on the producers of those crops. The target price has been set relatively high in order to protect crop farmers' income. The latest (and current) loan rate policy has been to hold the rate low. Although a low rate facilitates moving grain into livestock and poultry consumption when crops are abundant, it does nothing to provide buffer stocks for years when crops are short. In addition, a couple of years ago it became administrative policy to dispose of the stocks inherited from an earlier period, even subsidizing their sale abroad. But the foremost example of one-sidedness is the attitude toward release prices. In all the rhetoric heard recently about the peril of holding corn or sorghums in reserve, the scold has been that release prices would not be set high enough. What group can the spokesmen have had in mind? Feed producers, of course! Not feed consumers, that is, livestock and poultry men. It has been a one-sided consideration of a two-sided issue. If all groups are to have equal voice in policy making, how can livestock and poultry interests be so ostracized? The one-sidedness has more impact now that so much livestock and poultry production has become detached from feed supply on individual farms. The livestock-poultry economy is therefore more sensitive to the availability and price of feed. It is in fact a contradiction that historically, livestock and poultry got more attention when they were still closely connected with feed production on the farm. In the early years of farm programs, the "ever-normal granary" was consciously designed to level out the supply and price of feed for livestock and poultry. Now that livestock and poultry have become more commercial and more vulnerable to a volatile feed situation, feed price stabilization has been progressively removed from the councils of farm policy. And the ultimate contradiction is that the alleged price-depressing perils of a feed reserve have been proclaimed in disregard of the fact that the main defense of feed grain producers' incomes is the target price-direct payment mechanism, not support prices. If grains on reserve should cause market prices to be reduced below target level, producers would get bigger direct payments, that is, producers with a base on their farm are protected in that way. Admittedly, production outside such a base would not be eligible for payment.