Module 7.
Expected Income
7.1 Farmers' income
7.2 Benefit for society
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7.1 Farmers' income
Some survey on farmers’ income
Price between producer and consumer
Potential plant factory system
Response to Information-added produce
A basic idea: the farmers’ income depends on the difference between their
shipping price and the prime cost. The prime cost decreases with productivity
increases. The shipping price depends on the in-shop price which is influenced
by supply-demand relationship. One avenue is prime cost management and
another is food chain management for the increases in the income.
Values expected
Cost Productivity Timely, Price Supply Demand
Quantity, Quality
Traceable, Functional
Product, Shipping Transport Consumption market
Prime cost Shipping price wholesale In-shop price
Materials Value-added to be divided
Labors
Farmers’ Income
Expenses
Profits for Wholesalers, Supermarkets
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Some survey on farmers’ income
There are many reports and articles describing the merits of smart
farming or precision faming. Here we have a few articles.
Jess Norris and Jessica Bland reported in the article ” Precision
agriculture: almost 20% increase in income possible from smart farming”
that the rough calculation to a potential 17.9% annual increase in profit
for a mixed use (wheat with grazing livestock) average size farm in
England (81 hectares). But estimates easily vary between 7.1% and 76.3%,
just taking into account that average farm business incomes vary hugely
each year and adding the highly speculative fertilizer savings.
Dayanidhi Chaubey et al. reported in the article ” Doubling of farmers’
income through integrated farming system approaches in Bihar- a
review ” that doubling income strategies might be massive investments in
agricultural research and development, adoption of Good Agricultural
Practices (GAP), conservation agriculture technology, implementation of
farmers friendly policies, judicious use of available resources and inputs,
along with improved market and transportation facility, minimum support
price (MSP) reform, supported by adequate and timely availability of
bank credits.
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Price between producer and consumer
In 2002, Toyohashi PF-Net society conducted to investigate the vegetable price
on the food chain as shown below. Price ratios of producer to consumer were 2 to
7, it varied with varieties. Direct sales gave some how low ratios. This trend was
changeable. Collaboration among food chain stake holders are important.
Grower Shipping Wholesale Wholesale(2) In-shop In-shop/Shipping
Hakusai* 95 172 333 654 1,200 7.33
In-market Cabbage 87 234 459 560 1,054 4.50
(/10kg) Broccoli 1,298 2,021 2,700 3,313 4,371 2.16
Tomato 2,705 2,819 3,772 4,296 5,625 2.00
Cabbage 722 847 1,075 1.27
In-direct
Spinach 4,377 4,709 5,145 1.09
(/10kg)
Cucumber 3,903 4,135 4,919 1.19
Investigation Report on Community-based Precision Agriculture by the four-city committee
of Toyohashi, Tahara, Akabana, and Atsumi, 2002.
*HAKUSAI is Chinese Cabbage
In-market is a normal food chain from growers to in-shop, growers supply to farmers
cooperative, wholesale price is at the central wholesale market, in-shop price is at
supermarket.
In-direct is the direct contract of farmers cooperatives and local supermarkets.
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Potential plant factory system
APO Workshop on Smart Farming at Bangkok conducted to visit Wangree
Health Factory Company in Nakonnayok Province, Thailand, on November 6,
2019. The attendants discussed what was the strength of Wangree Plant
Factory and its issues. Here we have a summary of the discussion.
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Potential plant factory system
From AOP Workshop at Bangkok, 2019.
The idea for Wangree Health Factory Company Strengths
Economy Social Environment
▪ Strong Own Marketing ▪ Operated with the ▪ Less pollution
Strategy principle of agro- ▪ Good water resources
▪ Following the GAP and tourism ▪ Utilization of less
GMP ▪ Suitable for the natural resources like
▪ Use of high technology educated water and land
and IoT ▪ Positive social impact ▪ Safe products -no use
▪ Production scheduling for aging and disable of pesticide and water
can be achieved people SMART –
through pre-order ▪ Accessibility (road environmentally
▪ High demand of the network and other friendly
green leaves as infrastructure) ▪ Plenty of CO2 and well
Bangkok is touristic ▪ Isolated from the control CO2 level
place and mega city other cropping area ▪ Geographical location
▪ Good work for urban and it ensures the in Wangree Resort
and peri-urban high production
agriculture business ▪ Compliance by GMP &
model- GAP 6
Potential plant factory system
Wangree Health Factory Company: Main Challenges
• Huge initial investment
• Chemical intensive production techniques
• Change the mind setting of the farmers from traditional pesticide
uses into non-pesticide application.
• Limited Scope for employment creation
• Suitable for urban area, not for rural area, but its sustainability.
• No mass production
• No seed production, imported from Japan
• No extension services
• Fully dependent on availability of water and electricity
• Only applicable for leafy vegetable
• High dependency on seeds and other inputs (LED)
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Response to Information-added produce
As mentioned before, Honjo Precision Farming Society invented the information-
added agricultural products with a small ID ticket with a code attaching to each
vegetable and trade name of “Honjo Tokimeki vegetable”. The farmers made
their homepage putting the information on farm works with images such kinds of
crops, planting and harvest, chemicals applied, fertilizing etc. The ID ticket
promised customers to make access with their homepage..
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Response to Information-added produce
Honjo Precision Farming Society investigated the response of in-shop
customers on information-added fruits and vegetables at a super market
in 2008. They have confirmed that the positive information was on safety
and origin of the foods followed by the price, and that the negative
information was on no information and import followed by GMO. Around
that years some imported foods had troubles on safety such as chemicals
residue and contamination of microorganisms.
They also confirmed the consumers could pay for the information-added
foods by 20 % more to the formal price, and it was proved.
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7.2 Benefit for society
Communication: Information-oriented fields and information-added produce
Community-based approach: style of farming and rural planning
Education: ESD and restoring from disasters
Foods and Health: Agro-medical foods
Wide range of social benefit is
expected by use of data and
information produced by farm
works. For example, when the
data and information are used for
profit management, the action
implies precision agriculture or
smart agriculture, when they are
used for risk management, the
action follows GAP standards. A
single action involves multi
functions.
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Communication: Information-oriented fields and information-added produce
Farm work in smart farming creates data and information continuously, and
organizing the data and information in terms of field and produce generates
information-oriented fields and information-added products.
The information-oriented
filed is composed of soil
maps, yield maps, disease
maps, and so on, which let
them know what are going on
the farm. The information is
used for communication not
only with farmers but also
inhabitants in terms social
issues.
The producer can use the
information-added products
for communication with
supermarket and consumers
including food risks.
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Communication: Information-oriented fields and information-added
produce
When the data on works by
machines are automatically
stored in a database of the
platform, it creates an
information-oriented field
and at the same time
farmers make communication
through the database.
The farmers of a learning
group can exchange their
farm work experience of
different farmers, and it
encourages the collaboration
among farmers, company
engineers, and scientists and
professionals of public
sectors.
It could be useful for
technology transfer.
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Community-based approach: style of farming and rural planning
Community-based precision agriculture can connect people related and
organize a team to solve the issues expected..
The community based
approach offers to organize
a learning group who changes
their local farming style into
smart farming.
When they share the
information on community-
based approach among
people, an agriculture-based
city plan will comes out, such
as space for farm, residence
and rehabilitation, in schema
of private, community and
social aspects.
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Community-based approach: style of farming and rural planning
The community-based approach offers to collaborate with at least five
stake holders: neighborhood farmers, farmers cooperative, city hall and
local government, industry, and the central government.
When their idea is received by people and the local government, it creates a
great activity like the farmer’s summit of Japan, which encourages farmers
and officials to introduce the concept and modern technology.
Farmers’ Summit in Japan was
organized with 2500 attendants
of best practice Farmers, Oct.
17, 2009. Local government
made well-organized support.
Farmers’ Market Farm Tourism
Farm service co. Prince encouraged.
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Education: ESD and restoring from disasters
Smart farming concept and technology is useful to promote ESD and also useful to
recover from natural disasters based on sharing the data and information among people.
The Northeast Japan catastrophe of Earthquake, Tsunami and atomic plant explosion
made tremendous damages to people and local communities, and smart farming
technology has applied to restoring its farm sites.
An ICT approach was also applied to ESD in local villages, Jawa, Indonesia, and village
people and students were well educated what was precision agriculture.
Mt. Merapi eruption on November 5 in 2010,
ruined paddy fields and villages in Magelang,
Jawa, Indonesia, where people had events on an
ESD project just before the eruption.
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Foods and Health: Agro-medical foods
In Japan population of metabolic syndrome was totalized by 140 million
including diabetic of 18.7 million, hyper-tension of 54.9 million, and
dyslipidemia of 14.1 million （2006, Japan Health & Nutrition stat), and now
it did not improved. Medical expense was 33 trillion yen in total including 10
trillion yen of metabolic syndrome of in 2005, it is still increasing now. Both
medical issue and agricultural issue could be solved at the same time.
Smart farming can
contribute to produce
“Agro-medical foods”
which are defined as
agricultural products
with a high content of
functional materials
with evidence, aiming at
the cure of metabolic
syndrome by having
agricultural products
with a high content of
functional materials.
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References
Jess Norris and Jessica Bland. Precision Agriculture: Almost 20% increase
in income possible from smart farming
[Link]
in-income-possible-from-smart-farming/
Dayanidhi Chaubey, Ved Prakash1, Tikam Chand Yadav and Garima Singh.
Doubling of Farmers’ Income though Integrated Farming System
Approaches in Bihar- A Review. [Link] (2018) 7(12):
1602-1613
S. Shibusawa. Chapter 8. A Systems Approach to Community-based
Precision Agriculture, in Precision Agriculture Technology- Past, Present,
and Future-, Ed. by Qin Zhang, CRC Press, 2015
Virgawati, S., Sumarsih, S., Choiriyati, W., Nuryadin, D., Murdiyanto, E.,
Kodong, F. R., Lukito, H. (2010) Community Learning Activity Center as the
Media for Precision Farming Technology Implementation with Decision
Support System to Optimize the Food Crop Management. Research Report
Funded by Dp2m Dikti Ministry of National Education, Republic of
Indonesia. p. 38.
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