PANI

Solution pour le système d'irrigation utilisant SIG et traitement d'image de sol

Large tracts of land in the delta region of Bangladesh are left fallow or are cultivated with low input crops during the dry winter months. Surface water based irrigation opens up new opportunities for sustainable intensification by enabling the production of a high yielding crop. The Ground Cover App project has been implemented by Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID), Dept. of ITC, University of Twente and CIMMYT and funded by Applied Research Fund of NWO-WOTRO. The project location is Barisal Sadar and Babuganj Upazilla of Barisal District of Bangladesh. The objective of the project is to design and develop a user-friendly smartphone app that estimates the per-cent of ground covered by green leaves when seen from above and will enable farmers to estimate the ground cover of their fields by taking photos with his/her smartphone. To achieve this objective, two versions of the mobile application will be developed, farmer’s version and researcher’s version and through the research using these two versions, a final version will be developed which will be for the farmers. The farmer’s version of the application named as “Ground Cover app” has been developed by BIID. From the app, information of the field e.g. coordinate, photo, type of crop, sowing date and irrigation date will be collected. The app can operated both in Bengali and English to make it more user-friendly for the farmers of Bangladesh. The “Ground Cover App” has four features, named as, add Fields on Map, Manage Fields, Call Support and Camera. In the “Add Fields on Map” option, farmer will select the location of the field in the Google map from which co-ordinate of the field is taken. After selecting the point lo-cation in the map, a form will be automatically opened where Field name, Crop type, Sowing date and Irrigation date has to be inputted and saved in the system. In the “Manage Fields” option, farmers will be able to see the data that has been entered and will be able to capture photo of individual field. One farmer will be able to get irrigation advice for several fields at a time using this mobile application. Using the “Call Support” option, farmers will be able to give a missed call to an Agriculturist of the e-Krishok Extension and Advisory Service who will give a call to the farmer later and will give solution to the agriculture related problems of the farmers. There is an audio based system to regulate the photo capturing process. A voice will give farmers instruction to make photos so that farmer can take 15 photos at a time from the same field. All the information and photo of the field is delivered to the server. An algorithm which is able to calculate percentage of ground covered by vegetation from RGB photos has been developed by Dept. of ITC. This algorithm will calculate ground cover value in the server and the result along with the field information will be sent to a model named as “PANI” which will generate and deliver the irrigation ad-vice and schedule to the mobile application of the farmer. “PANI” model has been developed as an output of a previous project named as “STARS Project”. Before every field test, the officials of CIMMYT and BIID give training to the farmer’s on how to use the mobile application. Ac-cording to the feedback of the farmers, design and functionality of the mobile application is being revised. Farmers are eager to learn how to take ground cover photos and women and illiterate farmers are also being included in the training to make sure that they also get access to technology. Community awareness program and training sessions will be organized to ensure active engagement. Operation of a smartphone is a bit difficult for most of the farmers of Bangladesh. So the young family members of the farmers like son, daughter, younger brother or sister, are also being included in the training session so that they can help the farmers to get used to the operation of smartphone and the mobile application.