Project equips youth farmers with technological know-how.
By: Sasiwimon Boonruang
Students in farming communities are learning how to use communication networks to send crop information to farmers.
Young farmers learn how to use the communication network to send crop information to their communities.
“I never imagined that we could measure the water sustenance, nor that we could find the exact solution to how much fertilisers the plants need, but here it’s so fascinating to me,” said Jannapa Saichauy, a Matayom 3 student at Ban Klang School, Surat Thani.
At school, Jannapa and her friends have learned many new things connected to growing crops, such as how to use an electrical conductivity (EC) meter to gauge the nutrients in the water for growing hydroponic vegetables. “This project is very helpful. Our community can earn more income from hydroponic vegetables,” she said, noting that the vegetables they grow include lettuce, Chinese kale and cabbage.
Achisa Mannak, a Matayom 4 student at Chachengsao’s Benjamaracharungsrit School, said that the use of a solar cell sprayer had doubled the productivity of her community. It has also lowered costs and saved energy.
Achisa, Jannapa and other students who are taking part in school activities for youth farmers, initiated by the Agricultural Land Reform Office (ALRO), have a chance to learn and create a knowledge base themselves. Besides the traditional methods of their parents, the children have learned new ways to help them improve crop productivity, simply yet efficiently. They also have a key role in addressing innovations for their communities.
The Youth ALRO Cyber Brain project is a significant mechanism in making agricultural development more sustainable, capitalising on the fact that children are the successors of their parents and they will grow up to become a new generation farmers equipped with the knowledge and technology to implement agricultural innovations in their communities. The children thereby become the connection between the farmers and IT utilisation, as well as a conduit between the farmers and the schools.
“The idea behind this ALRO initiative is to make sustainable agriculture a success. The interaction between homes and schools is a must and thus it’s better to mold them from childhood,” said National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) deputy director, Dr Asanee Kawtrakul, who oversees the Smart Farm project, one of Nectec’s three flagships, along with Smart Health and Digitised Thailand.
As a research body, Nectec provides technology and tools for the community. However, in order to drive the Smart Farm more effectively, they have conducted two mechanisms running together – the “Youth ALRO Cyber Brain”, which empowers the community through the collaboration of homes and schools, and “Training for the Trainers” in which farmers work with government officials.
Currently, there are 11 innovative projects that the children take a major role in based on the collaboration between schools and communities, and four of them have been awarded a place in the Youth Farmers conference this year.
Students take part in a reporting course as one figures out how much fertilisers the crop requires while the other takes notes to report to the community.
Youth ALRO Cyber Brain encompasses key four functions that the students can apply in real life, as young knowledge engineers, junior reporters, young researchers and IT and knowledge service providers. “The integration of these four curriculums encourages the children to work for their communities,” said Asanee, noting that the project has applied the smart farm in real life, while Nectec has supported them with the technology and know-how. The children have a chance to apply up-to-date technology in the fields of IT, knowledge engineering, communications and sensor technology to work for their communities.
The ultimate goal is to help farmers apply technology to lower production costs while simultaneously gaining more productivity along with improved quality.
A study by Kasetsart University found that Thailand imports 80 billion baht worth of fertilisers a year. This indicates that farmers utilise large quantities of fertiliser without adequate knowledge. On the contrary, they should apply the fertilisers according to the requirements of the soil. To this end the university has designed “tailor-made fertilisers”, giving the fertilisers at the appropriate amount that the soil or the crops need. The university has run a trial of this project for two years and the results show that they can save 10 billion baht on imported fertilisers.
While Kasetsart University will train the farmers to make tailor-made fertilisers, Nectec will apply the knowledge and the experience of the university. Meanwhile, they have applied communication-network technology to link the farmers to the government agencies and schools and store the knowledge of the fertilisers on computers.
Currently, the “Tailor-made Fertilisers Community” at Ban Bua-ngam, Ubon Rachathani is one of five model communities in which farmers have worked with local academic institutes, Kasetsart University, Nectec and ALRO on the tailor-made fertilisers. They have applied the NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) meter to measure the nutrition level of the soil and have stored the information on computers to serve the farmers and report and monitor the job as well as setting up an Internet communication service overseen by the youth farmers and teachers.
They also provide information from ALRO and coordination on the Internet, together with the development of rice distribution and e-commerce activities.
The result of the project has shown that the farmers can save around 1,500 baht a year in production costs related to fertiliser usage, and increase productivity from 300 kilos to 400 kilos per rai, with total income increased by 26,600 baht.
Asanee said that in the near future the community would also provide a fertiliser mixture service and Nectec is now designing a fertiliser mixture machine.
Currently tailor-made fertilisers have been applied to two crops, rice and corn. By putting three data sets – soil nutrition, types of crop and soil series – into the computer, the system will process and suggest that how much tailor-made fertiliser should be used in each particular area. The community also offers tailor-made fertilisers via mobile phone.
The project will expand to other staple crops such as rubber, tapioca and sugarcane.
In Roi Et, there is another model community, the Rice Community Centre, which is the source of rice seed plants. The Thung Kularonghai area in Roi Et, one of the world’s best sources of jasmine rice, has utilised a portable humidity meter to gauge the moisture level and temperature of paddy fields. The community also uses a tracking system to ensure consumers are able to track the route of products, from farm to market.
The technology pilot model community and the live classroom have encompassed the best practice processes that the community members and farmers are the one who set the queries and learn how to deal with them, while Nectec acts as the technology facilitator.
So far it has undertaken research on how to measure nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium levels without using chemicals, and there is a plan to apply sensor technology to solve this issue, Asanee said.
Some communities have knowledge management system and they have developed a tailor-made information system to provide data to around 4,000 farmers. Those who grow rice will receive information concerning rice, while those who grow rubber will receive data that is relevant to growing rubber. The information will cover the weather and prices of the crops.
The deputy director said Nectec is now conducting a five-year road map of Smart Farm. This year has started with applications such as the NPK meter, and the micro climate station that Nectec has established with Kasetsart University doing the simulation of micro climate will help the farmers to grow crops that are appropriate with the soil and climate, as wellas the traceability system.
In line with the government’s creative economy policy, Smart Farm and Youth ALRO Cyber Brain will become the heart of the “creative agriculture economy”. To make agriculture sustainable, the collaboration of schools, homes, communities and the government sector, together with the academic institutes is the most crucial factor.
