Implementation of Thailand’s Agricultural Expert System Framework in the Philippines

Abstract

Under the auspices of Telecommunication Technology Committee (TTC) with its slogan “LET’s SHARE (Success & Happiness by Activating Regional Economy) Together”, constructions of data communication infrastructure have taken place in remote rural areas of several Asian countries and pilot application solutions to meet local needs in fields such as agriculture, education, health care and environment have been provided. Here we report on the implementation in the Philippines of an agricultural solution in Thailand. The Philippines is at present the world’s largest importer of rice and in the first half of 2008 when this project was launched the sudden steep rise in the price of rice due to shortages was causing problems for the communities. The agricultural solution in Thailand consist of recommendation of fertilizer for soil using SMS, suggestion from experts delivered by the network, knowledge database and education system for children. Visitation to the project site was conducted and discussion on the viability of introducing the framework of the Thai agricultural solution in the Philippines was made. The key exchange technology being used is the languagegrid technology. Among our findings, agricultural problems are very important but it has also been suggested that overcoming problems in the fishery business is also important for the Philippines.