Development of Decision Support Systems for Agricultural Management : An overview in Japan

Abstract

Improvement of farming decision making in both short term and long term is necessary for innovation of agriculture in Japan as well as other countries. Decision support systems for farmers, agricultural extension staffs and policy makers are needed for their better decision making. Therefore, we have developed several types of decision support systems for agricultural management such as FAPS-DB, FAPS, Noyaku-Navi and FVS. In this paper, an overview of the decision support systems will be illustrated with their applications. The role of each system and their connections will be also discussed from the viewpoint of time span of decision making. In addition, applicability of the systems for other countries is also considered. The FAPS-DB is a decision support system that is appreciable for overall estimation of the influence by the management strategy of the farming. The both technological data and financial data are stored in the database of this system. FAPS is a decision support system for farm planning under risk and uncertainty in agriculture based on stochastic programming. These systems are examples of long term DSS. Noyaku-Navi is a navigation system for appropriate use of agrochemical. The system is a warning system on inappropriate use of agrochemical and is an automatic recording system of agrochemical. FVS is a farming visualization system which records and plays all the information of farming operations by combinations of several kinds of sensors including GPS, RFID and camera. The system supports appropriate farming operation. These systems are examples of short term DSS.