Adakah akan berlaku kemarau pada minggu-minggu mendatang? Adakah beras akan mendapat harga yang lebih tinggi bulan depan? Petani tidak lama lagi dapat memanfaatkan Big Data untuk pandangan ramalannya untuk memudahkan keputusan masa nyata dan mendorong pertumbuhan sektor pertanian di Kemboja.
By Grace Lim
Once the backbone of Cambodia’s economy, agricultural growth is slowing. It stood at 7.2% antara 2003 dan 2007 dan 4.5% antara 2008 dan 2012 but has hovered sekitar 1% beberapa tahun kebelakangan ini. Pada tahun 2019, the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors contributed just 20.7% to the country’s gross domestic product, berbanding dengan 28.8% dalam 2014. The drop in labor force to 32.2% of Cambodia’s total workforce last year from 45.9% dalam 2014 further highlighted a slowdown.
Pakar attribute the decline in production to low productivity and the detrimental effects of climate change. Pada tahun 2017 sahaja, Cambodia suffered damage to 8,646 hektar of maize-planted land from floods and droughts.
As climate change intensifies, pakar memberi amaran kepada bahawa petani mungkin terpaksa mengalami kemarau dan banjir yang lebih sengit dan berpanjangan, yang boleh membahayakan hasil panen mereka dan mempengaruhi kehidupan mereka. Ini datang sebagai beban tambahan kepada masalah lain seperti akses yang tidak mencukupi kredit dan air serta berkaitan dengan wabak penutupan sempadan.
Untuk mengatasi cabaran ini, Kerajaan telah menetapkan pandangannya memodenkan sektor pertanian oleh 2030 untuk memacu daya saing dan kelestarian. Rancangan, bertajuk Pelan Induk Sektor Pertanian 2030 (ASMP 2030), bertujuan untuk membina persaingan, inklusif, sektor pertanian moden yang berdaya tahan dan lestari di Kemboja dalam sepuluh tahun. Usaha yang bertujuan mencapai sekurang-kurangnya a 3% bangkit dalam jumlah nilai tambah sektor ini setiap tahun akan merangkumi peningkatan mesin pertanian usang dan peningkatan tahap mekanisasi keseluruhan.
Cambodian farmers have already turned to smart farming
Farmers in Cambodia have been looking for innovative solutions that can increase yields and productivity. misalnya, they have adopted drone technology for spraying pesticides. This eliminates exposure to pesticides, which in turn reduces health risks. They are increasingly automating irrigation, giving farmers remote control over their irrigation systems via their mobile phones. This saves them valuable time and water resources.
Researchers Pasan Maduranga and Ruvan Abeysekera from the IIC University of Technology in Phnom Penh see the potential in harnessing the internet of things (IoT) and machine learning in transforming farm management, especially in areas such as disease detection, irrigation planning, yield prediction, water management, livestock management and weather forecasting.
“IoT based data-driven farm management techniques can help increase agricultural yields by planning input costs, reducing losses, and using resources more efficiently,” they wrote. An analysis of farm data, combined with climate data, can create the best possible circumstances for crop growth and increase agricultural yield.
misalnya, machine learning can help identify areas of diseased crops, which can trigger the regular application of pesticides. If farmers know in advance that heavy rainfall is coming, they can quickly construct makeshift huts or shelters, or mobilize workforce and machinery for an early harvest.
Several agritech start-ups are launching and scaling up in Southeast Asia to transform the 71 million small farms di rantau ini. Phnom Penh-based agriculture technology (agritech) start-up Smart Farm Assistance, misalnya, is building a platform that collects crop, soil and weather data to facilitate better farming decisions. By breathing new life into all aspects of agriculture, farming across Cambodia could be a lot smarter, more data-driven and less labor-reliant.
Big data has a vital role to play in the agricultural sector
Besides fact-based decision-making through smart farming, Cambodia sees enormous potential in leveraging Big Data. As this involves collecting and analyzing huge amounts of data obtained from various stages, a vital first step is to digitalize the agricultural value chain.
Cambodia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) will complete the launch of the CamAgriMarket mobile application Mac 2021, which will connect producers, brokers and consumers on a single platform to facilitate transactions. The app will also offer instant access to average selling prices as well as demand. MAFF is currently establishing the country’s Agricultural Big Data Platform (ABDP) and studying the possibility of an agricultural product monitoring and traceability system.
The private sector has also been active on this front. Oxfam is piloting BlocRice, a platform leveraging blockchain technology that digitally tracks orders and contracts between farmers, exporters and buyers. Besides cutting out the middleman, the increased transparency in market prices and contractual terms further empowers farmers and ensures that they receive fairer payments.
As more and more sellers are linked to buyers, and data on yields, practices and ground-level challenges are gathered, there is the potential to build predictive models that forecast price fluctuations, weather conditions and future yields. From crop recommendations to consumer buying habits, Big Data can take the guesswork out of farming and better the livelihoods of farmers.
Is Big Data for all?
Despite the promising potential of Big Data and IoT, the road to large-scale adoption of digital agriculture is waylaid with hurdles.
Grow Asia, an organization established by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the ASEAN Secretariat, noted that just 2.5% daripada 71 million smallholders in Southeast Asia use 60 of the world’s leading digital solutions for agriculture. di Kemboja, where the majoriti of farmers are rural smallholders, hanya 10 ke 20% of the farming community has access to a smartphone. tetap, more than 80% of farmers use mobile phones and high-speed internet is available at affordable rates.
Beyond the wider promotion of agritech, closer collaboration between smallholder farmers, agricultural corporations, research institutes, communities and the government can further augment results. di Thailand, national body National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (NECTEC) is building smart farms to raise productivity and the quality of life for rural farmers. At the same time, the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), a higher education institute, works to demonstrate the capabilities of IoT.
Farmers with medium and small-sized holdings in Cambodia are urged to become part of a bigger franchise to share data, technology and expertise while farming cooperatives can step up to empower smallholder farmers with new ancillary services with aggregated farm data.
The future of agricultural success will be highly dependent on agro-advisory systems and data-driven insights. Walau bagaimanapun, only by working together to harness it to its full potential can countries such as Cambodia continue to feed the world.
.jpg){kind=link}