2. Farmers Agricultural Information
system (FAIS)
Supervisor:
Dr. Paul Semaluulu (PhD)
By
Group 15-29
# Names Registration Number
1 SARULO FRED 12/U/13924/PS
2 MALIKISI MARVIN 12/U/8111/PS
3 KIBONE CAROLINE 12/U/6871/PS
4 MULASIBWA GODFREY 12/U/9052/PS
3. Introduction
Farmers Agricultural information system is a web based system which
addresses the difficulty that comes with farmers of East Africa when
accessing Agricultural information. The system provides a discussion forum,
SMS functionality, weather updates, information on pests and diseases,
information on different soil types, storing farmers/members data, reporting
of the daily activities on the system to administrator. The system can be
accessed using the desktop computer and SMS on mobile device.
4. Background of the Study
• For a long period of time, farmers in East Africa were facing a
challenge of accessing reliable information on agriculture due to a
number of constraints like long distances they travel in pursuit of
information. In Uganda, despite of the good work done by the
Agricultural agencies like NAADS who have tried by reaching
farmers with farm inputs and information, still such services have
not been exhausted hence most farmers end up missing to get
them. The farmers face these challenges because of there lack of a
reliable farmer’s agricultural information system to disseminate the
needed quality agricultural information.
5. Statement of the Problem
In the East African Farming Community there existed a dearth of
farming agricultural information. This resulted into poor yields,
losses as well as poor marketing process. Such negative effects
were attributed to;
• Long time the farmers spend waiting for radio and television
agricultural programs.
• Use of traditional ways of predicting weather, diseases, pests
control measures and other ways that need time to provide such
agricultural information.
An information system that can easily be used to disseminate
agricultural information was seen as the best solution to combat
the farmers’ hitches.
6. Objectives of the Study
Main Objective
• To develop a farmers agricultural information system that enables farmers in
different parts of East Africa to interact and share different agricultural ideas on
how to plant crops, sale farm inputs, control pests and diseases, weather
prediction, soil preservation and improving of its soil fertility.
Specific Objective
• Investigate sources of farmers Agricultural information Requirements
• Design a model of farmer’s information system.
• Implement the developed system
• Test and validate the developed system
7. Significance of the Study
• Agriculture is one of the East African region’s most important
sectors, with about 80 percent of the population of the East
African Community Partner States living in rural areas and
depending on agriculture for their livelihood (Sezibera, 2014).
• The sector accounts for about 34% of the GDP in Burundi, 29%
in Kenya, 32% in Rwanda, 25% in Tanzania and 23% in Uganda,
(Sezibera, 2014) despite of its contribution to these economies,
the sector continues to decline. One of the major factors for its
decline is attributed to lack of access to reliable agricultural
information by the farmers.
8. Literature Review
We reviewed several literature, where we researched and compared several
agricultural systems functionalities.
The Agricultural Resources Information System (AgRIS
The SMS-based Application (SMS-BA)
Rural Farmers' Problems Accessing Agricultural Information in Nsukka Local
Government Area of Enugu State, Nigeria (RFPAAI)
Tradition methods of disseminating information to farmer. (TMODITF)
10. Methodology
Sampling: is the process of selecting a sample(s) from a bigger group
(the sampling population) to become the basis of estimating or
predicting a fact, a situation or outcome regarding the bigger group.”
(Kumar, 2005, pg. 148).
We sampled on a population of Uganda but specifically we got a
sample of 100 farmers of whom we used as the basis of our project
study.
The sampling procedure was as follows:
Defined the sampling population
Developed the sampling frame which were the farmers of Uganda
Determined the sample size of about 100 farmers
Used the sample method of probability/random
Finally selected our sample
11. Methodology [Cont’d]
We issued questionnaires that were filled in by selected sample
groups. Questionnaires were used because of their effectiveness
in data gathering as they incorporate privacy in information
extraction reflecting more accurate views from the sample groups
and can as well cover a wide range of the sample.
12. Systems Design
The system was designed using the following tools;
Data flow diagrams: This was used to illustrate how the system interacts with
other external entities and systems.
Process flow diagram: this showed the order followed in the process, data flow
and the various data stores the system has got.
Flow chart diagram: This was used to describe various processes and the
restrictions involved in their execution.
Entity relationship diagrams: This helped us show the relationship between the
various entities of the system.
13. Implementation
The system was implemented using scripting programming
languages such as jquery, PHP, CSS for styling, JavaScript and
HTML5 used for validation and code generation respectively,
ozeki software for SMS and MYSQL for the databases.
14. System Testing and validation
The following stages were followed in the system testing process;
• Unit testing: This was done at the module level where basic components of the
software were tested to verify its functionality.
• Integration testing: This was used to verify defects in the interfaces and
integration between integrated components.
• System testing: The complete integrated system was tested to verify whether all
components can work as a whole.
15. System validation
In system validation process, we begun by examining the systems proposal/requirements
definition and continued until the system’s retirement and retention of the documents based
on regulatory rules.
During this process, we gave out farmers the system to use and examined whether they
successfully completed the specified tasks and the time they took to complete the specified
tasks.
Additionally, we found out how satisfied the farmers were with the system and identified
the possible changes required to improve the farmer’s performance and satisfaction while
using the system
16. Limitations
The project although successful, faced some challenges during the
design process.
• Inadequate time allocated to the project because it was done amidst
lectures, preparations for tests and exams .
• Irregular internet availability,
• lack of enough money to facilitate some our project activities
• Low response by some of the interviewees, harsh weather
conditions during data collections. And with gathering of the
resources for this project has not been an easy task.
17. Conclusion
Although Uganda is technologically developing, many farmers
can’t easily have access to Agricultural information because of;
The long distances they move to the Research Centers ,
Delay of agriculture information
Most of the farmers are not well incorporated with the
Technology like smart phones, televisions. computers
Hence due to the increasing number of Farmers, there is need for
systems that can avail farmers with Agricultural information not
through manual methods but they require technological innovations
like FAIS to boost their performance or yields in Agriculture.
18. Recommendations
A better database management system like oracle on the server end is recommended
since it has more powerful security features and supports much more information.
Secondly , FAIS should be well managed for easier monitoring of users activities on
the system to enhance its performance to attain its intended objectives.
A language translator module should be integrated into the system so as to enable
the farmers understand quickly the content in their native languages
19. Future Work
For future development and expansion of this project, we suggest the
following;
• The scope of this project was limited to a web based system thus
further developments have to be made to cover other services of the
web based Farmers Agricultural Information System.
• Furthermore it’s recommendable that other researchers and developers
broaden the system functions to relate with the virtual Farmers
Agricultural information system.
