Masters Dissertations

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Browsing Masters Dissertations by Subject "Agriculture"

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    Design and implementation of a decision support system for crop scheduling in Tanzania: the case of Morogoro Region
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2010) Msolla, Allan Gallus
    Many farmers use assumptions and reports from weather forecasting stations to determine when is the best time to grow a certain type of crop on their farms. In many regions of Tanzania there are mainly about two types of crops grown each year depending on the "vuli" and "masika" rainy seasons. This discrete crop planting practice leads to under utilisation of the fields as farmers may grow other crops when it is not the season of the major crops they are used to. This research investigates how a decision support system for crop scheduling in Morogoro region, Tanzania can help fanners and other users to make decisions regarding crop planning for higher productivity. The system will incorporate the knowledge and experience of experts and public knowledge about each of the crops. Its outcome will be suggestions to farmers on which cross to grow at a particular time of the year. The methodology involves building of the entire knowledge base using the knowledge acquired from Agricultural experts. Structured analysis and design approaches have been used to model and design the system. The system has been implemented in PHP; a scripting language. The database has been implemented by using MySQL database management system.
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    A framework for deployment of easy to use wireless sensor networks for farm soil monitoring and control: a case study of horticulture farms in Pwani region Tanzania
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2015) Ombeni, Mathias
    Good monitoring and control of agriculture parameters such as temperature and moisture play an important role in producing quality horticulture crops. Lack of this monitoring and control has lead to Tanzanian farmers producing crops which do not meet quality standards. The purpose of this study was to design a framework for deployment of Wireless Sensors Networks (WSN) which monitors the parameters and provides agriculture information and suggesting corrective measures to famers. The study included a survey on WSN related technologies used and presented by other researchers. Specific user and horticulture crop requirements were obtained from farmers and agriculture experts at Pwani Region. The information obtained was used to design a framework which later was used as a guide to develop a WSN system. Rapid Application Development (RAD) method was used to develop the system which involved development tools like Graphical User Interface (GUI) development environment, Reusable components and Code generators. The WSN developed from the framework comprises of two smart nodes with nine sensors each, Gateway/controller and one Computer which was used as a base station. The WSN system was tested for 24 hours in horticultural crops farm whereby collected agriculture parameters were successfully sent wirelessly to the local database in the base station on every 3 hours. Data analyzed and report was generated in text and graph form. The WSN system sent information to the farmers’ mobile phones on the status of the farms and suggestion on what to be done using the familiar language “Kiswahili” allowing farmers understand well the message and therefore take required measures in time.