CROPROTECT is an
ambitious new project which plans to revolutionise knowledge exchange for crop
protection by making use of 21st century web-based technologies
which mean that practical information about crop protection can be shared and
exchanged very easily. It is developing
and providing a two-way web-based free knowledge exchange resource through
which farmers and agronomists can get specific information relevant to their
needs. In this
blog Toby Bruce from Rothamsted Research, who is the contact for
the project, explains what it aims to achieve and how it will develop.
Farmers
face a continuous battle against pests, weeds and diseases. To ensure efficient
production, pest management solutions are required for crop protection. These
challenges have been managed primarily with pesticides for the last few decades
but now alternative solutions need to be delivered. Crop protection is getting
more difficult, not only because pesticides are being restricted by legislation
but also because the remaining ones which are still available are less
effective as pests, weeds and diseases evolve resistance to them.
Farmers
are caught in a difficult situation because of dependency on pesticide. Their
crops have been bred in a pesticide treated background and without the
pesticides crop losses to pests, weeds and diseases mean that both yield and
quality can be seriously compromised. Currently pesticides are being lost at a
much faster rate than they are being replaced with alternatives. As well as
novel control solutions, farmers need better information about what can be done.
Alternative
approaches are often more complicated relying on a combination of resistant
cultivars, biocontrol, agronomic practices and rationalised, better targeted
pesticide use. Information about integrated pest, weed and disease management
is scattered in disparate places which are hard for busy farmers to track down
for every pest, weed and disease threat they face.
The
capacity to share information via the internet is tremendous and access is
increasingly via mobile devices. These have the potential to reach a wide
audience in the farming community, to provide rapid updates and to interact
more with the users. In the internet age, availability of information is not
the main constraint, there is more of an issue of accessing relevant
information. CROPROTECT hopes to provide content which is relevant to
the users by interacting with them, asking what their priorities are and
encouraging feedback. Because electronic documents are living documents and can
be adjusted unlike printed documents, there is an opportunity to continuously
refine the information provided as the system evolves. The project is funded by
the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Innovation Club (SARIC) which is a joint BBSRC and NERC initiative to support
innovative projects that will provide solutions to key challenges affecting the
efficiency, productivity and sustainability of the UK crop and livestock
sectors.
We are
very keen to develop CROPROTECT in partnership with farmers and agronomists and are working with
the Association of Independent Crop Consultants (AICC), Hutchinsons, Agrii and
the NFU to ensure the system is appropriate for them. We are also very pleased
to have AgriChatUK, a
leading online forum for agricultural discussions, supporting the project.
Indeed, part of the inspiration for the project is from the vibrant community
of farmers using twitter. When I wrote the proposal, I was thinking of reaching
the thousands of farmers and agronomists and other stakeholders who are active
on twitter as followers of @AgriChatUK or members of #clubhectare and who
interact this way. The levy boards HGCA and HDC (under the AHDB umbrella) are
collaborating with us in developing CROPROTECT.
We
started the project in November 2014 and the second version of the website is
now live. This is starting to give information about management recommendations
for pest, weed and disease targets (the first version was for user registration
only). The targets being prioritised are as specified as being of concern by
the pioneer users of the system. Registration is free and quick but we do ask
users to specify what their main pest, weed and disease targets are so that we
can unsure the system meets their requirements.
CROPROTECT accounts are free and we encourage farmers and agronomists to join
and try it out! It is designed to work on smartphone browsers and will also
open on a desktop screen. The system is evolving and it is early days in the
project so there is more to come. To make login easier users can now login via
twitter and we are planning to make the system available as a smartphone App in
the near future.
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