Web and mobile technologies in a prototype DSS for major field crops
Nowadays policy makers, agronomists and farmers are facing the challenge of restructuring the land use as a follow up of the newly introduced free market rules derived from recent policy revisions. In many cases, agricultural land is mainly covered by crops that are cultivated for decades and the selection of alternative cultivations seems to be a complex problem, mainly due to lack of proposals fitting market needs and farmers experience. Thus, the restructuring of the agricultural land and the formation of a well-balanced and sustainable agriculture, according to the new market demands, constitutes an important research area. The present paper proposes a Web-based Decision Support System capable to support mainly the farmers in the selection procedure of the appropriate alternative crops. The system goes further and provides the information needed and supports the farmer for the whole cultivation period. Moreover, the proposed system provides services through mobile phones since their penetration shows high rates even in population groups like farmers. The analysis, design and implementation of the proposed Decision Support System, as well as the evaluation, are presented and discussed. A selection of five crops (i.e. maize, soybean, sorghum, rapeseed, and cardoon), considered to be reasonable alternatives to traditional cultivars for Greek farmers, was made and related data included into the system.
alternative cultivations decision support system mobile services restructuring agriculture