Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Farmers in the Philippines are very dependent on the manual process of cultivating
agricultural land, based from the Philippines Center for Postharvest Development Mechanization
(Bingabing, 2012). Aside from this, the Department of Agriculture added that the Philippines
lacks with credit facilities for farmers and farmland. And in 2012, Philippines has one of the
lowest rates of mechanical equipment use in Southeast Asia. As a result, there were inefficiency
of labor, the productivity was affected and the land tend to produce less compared to other
agricultural countries. With these, precision agriculture comes in the scenario. This evolving
technology will be a great key to answer the problems faced by the country.
Precision Agriculture, often called as smart farming, is a farming technique that uses
sensing devices to create more effective and efficient farms. A range of technologies are being
used which can sustain the products quality, quantity of produced goods and the profit returning
to farmers. Nowadays, huge farming firms invest in this technology. It helps them to know the
crop production information, easier soil-mapping using GPS, fertilizer usage through sensing
technologies and weather information all with the influence of soil nutrient contents. This
information will enable the farmers to know the most profitable crops in their area. The
technologies used come as machineries, small-scale devices, software applications, data analytics
solutions, communication systems such as cellular, telematics, positioning technologies and
stand-alone sensing devices (Beecham Research Ltd., 2014). Since these technologies are
recently used by large farming companies, its potential to small-scale farming are also favorable.

It promises a real time and faster means of farm land preparation, crop recommendation, planting
monitoring and harvesting of the crops yield. This further opens to possibilities of future
predictions of crop production and property value of the farm lands. With the determined
property value, crop production will be efficient and wasted or unsold goods can be avoided. The
soil or water quality being detected by the sensing technologies can be used by biotech to charge
farmers with different amount for the same products or service (Romeo, 2015). Farmers will no
longer depend on what they just used to plant but become more effective in considering the other
parameters affecting their land.
Smart farming innovations are usually aided by sensors and further control systems.
These sensors record the changes that a crop undergoes with higher efficiency, accuracy and
sensitivity (Deere, 2011).
Sensing technologies, commonly called as sensor meaning to perceive, are devices that
identify a characteristic of a certain input for a given scenario or environment and give it
corresponding output. Some usual inputs are light, motion, pressure, heat, moisture and other
environmental quantities. These inputs are processed in a system in such a way that it gives a
transformed output that can be analyzed and displayed for further documentation or another
process (Wigmore, 2012).
A wide range of sensors are used today in different industries to give higher precisions.
The efficiency of output extraction of sensors needs a complicated algorithm systems.
Sensors can be classified into different criteria. These are material technology, principle
of transduction, property and application. The first criteria being used is the transduction
principle. It is based from efficiency of material from a chosen development engineering field.

Property criterion focuses on the inputs to be measured. Some examples are temperature,
pressure, flow, proximity, moisture, level sensors etc. These inputs have their specific electronic
tool for measurement, such as: thermistor for temperature, fiber optic for pressure,
semiconductor and infrared for gas and chemical properties etc. The last criterion is the sensor
application. It is classified as industrial and non-industrial. Industrial application uses process
control systems that measure and create automation for a certain industrial use. Non-industrial
are for the specific fields such as consumer electronics, medical products and aircraft
(EngineersGarage, 2012).
Soil quality detection through the use of sensors can increase the efficiency of precision
agriculture (Pierce and Nowak, 1999). It would be beneficial to have handheld-on-the-go soil
quality detecting sensors with the optimized measurement density and this would provide lower
costs (Sonka et al., 1997). Recent available sensors used in soil sensing can measure the soils
physical attributes, mechanical characteristics and its chemical contents. The data collected in
these sensors are usually stored in a database.
Database is a group of data structured and stored so it can be updated, managed and
accessed for further use (Leake, 2006). It consists large amount of information which are being
recorded. The commonly known language for database structure is database query. Database
queries are formulated in query language with a certain defined format that can be read by the
database management system (DBMS). The accepted standard for this is Structured Query
Language (SQL) (Maxwell and Hansen, 2007).
With the existing need and availability of technologies, it would be very efficient to have
a handheld device that can provide an on-the-go soil sensing feature and can suggest the suitable
crops for the tested soil. The researchers come up with this paper aiming to provide a study in

creating a stand-alone device that can recommend crops through soil quality detection with the
use of sensing technologies. This will be aided by a database of specific general crops.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Soil testing is a way guide to check if the soil is compatible or suitable to give the known
nutrient requirement of a certain crop. However, when soil testing is neither feasible nor
available, it is difficult for farmers to predict possible crops on their land. Instead, they would
just have a trial and error to find and see if they succeed on raising the crop. Limited accessibility
and availability to a soil testing procedure is indeed a notable hindrance to farmers.
Soil testing can be a financial burden for every farmer. Several soil tests are to be
performed in order to produce sufficient crops to achieve food security and income.
Lengthy manual process for determining soil nutrient is also a problem of every farmer
but an advantage that farmers will know what nutrients their land holds for a shorter period of
time. According to the Regional Soils Laboratory (Regional Field Unit V, DA), several stages of
soil testing are required to know what crops should be planted on a tested soil sample. Soil
testing takes 10 to 20 days to analyze soil sample.
1.3 Significance of the Study
The major component that the researchers want to achieve in this study is to develop a
crop recommending device based on soil quality detection.
SOCIETY. The study on crop recommendation will be significant to farmers for it
simply gives information on what crops is going to be cultivated even without the use of manual
soil testing.
ECONOMY. The study is economical, due to faster means of soil quality detection and
possible crops being present, farmers can plant and harvest crops in the soonest possible time;
hence, more profitable for farmers.

ENVIRONMENTAL. This study will help to know the soil type potential of land. The
study also advises on nutrient management and protecting the environment from distributes
nutrient pollution. The misuse of the soil due to the chemicals from fertilizer can be prevented.
For the manual soil testing, chemicals are used to determine the nutrient parameters. With the
crop recommending device, chemicals will not be used so the hazard in the environment can be
avoided.
GLOBAL. In greater perspective, this study crop recommending device can help and
give contribution in the advancement of agriculture.
1.4 Objectives
The study aims to create and develop a stand-alone crop recommending device based on soil
parameters. It specifically aims to:

Create a means to measure soil characteristics using sensors,

Make a database of at least 25 general crops with its needed soil parameters (temperature,
PH level, etc.,)

Suggest these crops upon measurement of the soil parameters stated in this study.

Identify the difference between the manual soil testing quantities and the measurements
gathered by the device.

It also aims to:

Create this device to lessen the lengthy process of suggesting crops through costly soil
testing.

Lessen the human error in manual soil testing.

1.5 Scope and Delimitation

The scope and delimitation of this study are:

The device to be created is composed of different sensors that measures different

parameters , namely:
o pH Level
o Soil Moisture
o Soil Fertility
o Soil Temperature
The study will be conducted in a controlled environment (One certain town/city that

caters the soil types suitable for general crops).

The data will be based on an average ambient condition in the chosen place e.g.,

temperature, humidity.
The gathered data will be on the certain month of testing.
The study will use SQL Database for the storage and accessing of general crops.
The Database will have a minimum of 25 crops (different Soil Types are well
represented) with their needed soil quality characteristics. All are general crops.
(Suggested by Regional Soils Laboratory, Regional Field Unit V, DA)