MSc

The present study entitled “Content development for an agricultural expert system on organic vegetable cultivation” was taken with a purpose of exploring a methodology for an Expert system. The objectives studied were analysis of information on organic vegetable cultivation, inventorization of the selected information for the different systems in Kerala, and development of a methodology for content development for farmer- friendly interactive multimedia aid suiting the Expert system.
One hundred farmers who were having organic certification were selected through simple random sampling procedure from Kannur and Wayanad districts. One dependent variable and ten independent variables were studied and analysed with the help of different scales and techniques.
On analysis of the data it was found that most of the respondents (58%) belonged to old age group and all the respondents were literate. Fifty four percent of the respondents were having experience in farming for more than 25 years. Majority (70%) of the farmers belongs to medium category when comes to the possession of livestock. Majority of the respondents belonged to the medium category with respect to extension agency contact (72%), information seeking behaviour (73%), innovativeness (66 %) scientific orientation (73%), and market perception (73%). Seventy eight percent of the respondents were having high level of economic motivation.
Extent of knowledge was categorized into three, viz., organic crop production practices, organic crop protection practices and organic crop certification and management practices for the purpose of identifying and inventorizing need based information on organic farming in vegetables. Majority of the respondents were having medium level of knowledge about organic farming. On analysing these three categories separately, 89% of the organic farmers need information on organic production practices, 82% requires information regarding crop protection practices and 93% of the organic farmers need information on organic crop certification and management practices.
Extent of knowledge of organic farmers is having a positive and significant correlation with their extension agency contact and a negative correlation with economic motivation. The majority of the famers were having organic certification for more than ten years. The farmers were giving importance to the quality rather than the quantity of the vegetable produced.
The number of expert systems available for farmers on organic farming practices is very minimum. The user friendly interfaces available are also lacking in information which farmers are often seeking. The majority vegetable farmers practicing organic farming were also lacking scientific knowledge. Hence the present study entitled “Content development for an agricultural expert system on organic vegetable cultivation” analysed the information need on organic vegetable cultivation and inventorized those information to develop content for a farmer friendly multi-media aid.
The study also came out with a methodology for information need analysis and a procedure for content development of an expert system on organic vegetable cultivation for different farming systems in Kerala. This methodology could be adopted by different agencies involved in popularizing organic farming among the farmers in Kerala for developing an expert system on organic vegetable farming.