Project Title: Commercialization of a Real time Agricultural Mobile-based Information System (“Govi-Nena”)
Digital agriculture can play a major role in food security by reducing wastage, predicting demand, providing real-time information, feedback and much more. Govi-Nena mobile application is such a game-changing technological application specially designing and developing for Sri Lankan farmers.
People in agriculture domain need agricultural information and relevant knowledge to make informed decisions. From time to time farmers need information on accurate market prices, current supply and demand, seasonal weather, best varieties (or cultivars) and seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, pest and diseases and their control methods, harvesting and post-harvesting methods, farming machinery and practices, and technical and regulatory information to make informed decisions at various stages of the farming life cycle. One of the concerns is the lack of necessary information at the right time, the right place, and in an appropriate format.
The main objective of the project is to develop and commercialize the mobile-based information system to enhance the growth and long-term sustainability of the Sri Lankan agriculture Sectors.
The contributions throughout this project can be summarized as follows:
Extend the Agricultural Knowledgebase used by the mobile information system to include more vegetables and paddy related information.
Develop a closed loop model to achieve the optimum price equilibrium.
Incorporate the crop related information and farmer relevant parts of the model to the mobile information system, prototype and test.
Develop further the mobile-based information system and host the backend on the cloud.
Set up a team to investigate an ongoing management structure, governance mechanism and associated reporting responsibilities for the developed system.
Grant No: AHEAD/RA3/RIC/RUH/SCI/GOVINENA/
Entity: Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science, University of Ruhuna
Funding Agency: Accelerating Higher Education Expansion and Development (AHEAD) - Research, Innovation, and Commercialization Grant (RIC-Grant)
Total amount of funding: 35 million (LKR)
Period: 2019.01.01 to 2021.12.31
Collaboration: Faculty of Agriculture and Faculty of Technology, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka; University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC), Sri Lanka and the Western Sydney University, Australia
Industry Partners: HAYLEYS Agriculture and the AgStar PLC
"Govi-Nena - Commercial Farmer” mobile application provides the contextual information for commercial farmers that will be useful to make quality decisions for successful farming. Further, this app collects large amount of information and then for each crop type, collected information will be aggregated based on the province, district, etc. Based on the aggregated information the relevant Authority can decide different incentives to be offered to different crops. The color code system is used to visualize the relevant information for farmers during the crop selection stage as follows.
All approaches that have been implemented so far to achieve a better balance between supply and demand can be classified as open loop systems. As shown earlier, rapid growth of mobile phones among people has made it possible to develop a mobile information system to provide essential information to farmers at various stages of the farming life cycle and also to capture production information in real time to make intelligent decisions. Thus, we can now implement the conceptual solution which is a closed loop system to achieve better balance between supply and demand
During this critical time period due to COVID-19, we have decided to do something for our nation through our project. Then, we decided to make a sub-project as Govi-Nena - Home Gardening”. This Home Gardening App has many functionalities related to home gardening such as it guides the farmers step by step how to cultivate the crops correctly until get harvest; provide the helpful information for organic farming in structured manner; give an activity calendar that support farmers to organize their farming activities and many more features. Further, this application is in three languages (English, Sinhala and Tamil).
You may download this App via Google Play Store and use it to manage your home garden (Android version)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.govinena.app
Now available for iOS download - https://apps.apple.com/app/id1527128861
• Gunawardana D.A.Y.K., Walisadeera A.I. and Madushika M.K.S., User-friendly Mobile-based Application for Agricultural Activities in Sri Lanka, In: Proceedings of 7th Ruhuna International Science and Technology Conference - 2020 (RISTCON 2020), Sri Lanka: February 2019.
• M.S. Akeel Mohamed, D.L. Wathugala, W.A. Indika, M.K.S. Madushika, M.K.D.K. Piyaratne and G.C. Samaraweera, Package of Practices for a Mobile Application to Improve the Yield and Long-term Sustainability of Potato Production in Sri Lanka, In: Proceedings of International Symposium on Agriculture and Environment 2020 (ISAE 2020), Sri Lanka: February 2020, pp 166.
• D.A.Y.K. Gunawardana, W.A. Indika, M.K.S. Madushika, M.K.D.K. Piyaratne, D.L. Wathugala and G.C. Samaraweera, “Ruhuna Govi-Nena” Web-based Dashboard to Manage the Agricultural Activities in Sri Lanka, In: Proceedings of International Symposium on Agriculture and Environment 2020 (ISAE 2020), Sri Lanka: February 2020, pp 167.
• T.B. Mallikaarachchi, G.C. Samarweera, W.A. Indika, M.K.S. Madushika, M.K.D.K. Piyaratne and D.L. Wathugala, Developing Conceptual Close-loop Demand and Supply Models under Govi Nana Mobile Platform Development: Identification of Challenges in Implementation, In: Proceedings of International Symposium on Agriculture and Environment 2020 (ISAE 2020), Sri Lanka: February 2020, pp 168.
• D.A.Y.K. Gunawardana, W.A. Indika, M.K.S. Madushika, D.L. Wathugala, M.K.D.K. Piyaratne and G.C. Samaraweera, User-friendly Applications for Sri Lankan Farmers: “Govi Nena”, In: Proceedings of 4th International Research Conference of Uva Wellassa University - 2020 (IRCUWU 2020), Sri Lanka: July 2020.
• M.S. Akeel Mohamed, D.L. Wathugala, W.A. Indika, M.K.S. Madushika, M.K.D.K. Piyaratne and G.C. Samaraweera, Constraints Faced by Potato Farmers in Major Potato Growing Areas in Sri Lanka: An ICT based Intervention, In: Proceedings of 4th International Research Conference of Uva Wellassa University - 2020 (IRCUWU 2020), Sri Lanka: July 2020.
• M.S. Akeel Mohamed, D.L. Wathugala, W.A. Indika, M.K.S. Madushika, M.K.D.K. Piyaratne and G.C. Samaraweera, A Model for a Mobile Application to Support Agro-ecological Regions, In: Proceedings of 4th International Research Conference of Uva Wellassa University - 2020 (IRCUWU 2020), Sri Lanka: July 2020.
• A.T. Shanadi, G.C Samaraweera, D.L Wathugala, W.A Indika, M.K.S. Madushika and M.K.D.K Piyaratne, Present Situation of Intercropping in Potato Cultivation in Nuwara Eliya and Badulla Areas, In: Proceedings of 4th International Research Conference of Uva Wellassa University - 2020 (IRCUWU 2020), Sri Lanka: July 2020.
More Details –
Web: http://www.govinena.lk/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/govinenaruhuna YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTHe_U2g1rYRDkuMagz-oxw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/govinena-university-of-ruhuna Android Version for download: https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Govi-Nena iOS Version for download: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1527128861Acknowledgment:
Our deepest gratitude goes to Horticultural Crop Research and Development Institute (HORDI), Department of Agriculture, Sri Lanka as most of the information about crop technologies were taken from digital and printed sources of the institutes and we would like to mention Late Prof. Gihan Wickramanayake who gave the courage to initiate the work.
