A Rice Cultivation Management System: An Innovation for Supporting Rice Field Management and Rice Cultivation Process Monitoring

บทคัดย่อ

           Although rice is the major agricultural crop of Thailand, it has been found that information and knowledge about Thai rice varieties, cultivation methods, and cultivation precautions were disseminated through scattered sources. Additionally, depending on the rice varieties and land properties, the rice cultivation process is complex. The inappropriate fieldwork may reduce both rice yield and quality. The objectives of this research and development were 1) to develop a rice cultivation management system, a web-based application used for providing useful rice information, and supporting rice field management and rice cultivation process monitoring, and 2) to evaluate the opinions and satisfaction of the target users toward the system prototype. The target users of the proposed system are Thai native farmers or Thai people who are interested in rice cultivation and starting to cultivate. The tools used for developing a system prototype are JSP, MySQL, and Bootstrap framework. The proposed system prototype consists of 8 main functions, which are 1) User Account Management 2) Rice Varieties Management 3) Rice Varieties Searching 4) Member Registration 5) Rice Field Registration 6) Rice Field Management 7) Rice Price Checking, and 8) Rice News and Declarations. During the system design and implementation phase, the contents and operation flows of the system prototype were validated and evaluated by experienced farmers, and rice researchers from Thailand Rice Science Institute (TRSI), Rice Department, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MOAC). Moreover, at the final stage of system implementation, 10 farmers from Pathumthani province were invited to test and evaluate the system prototype through a focus group interview. The interview results indicated that the system prototype provided useful information on rice varieties and initial knowledge of Thai rice cultivation. Additionally, it facilitated the rice field monitoring and managing data related to the rice cultivation process.