Kato Masanobu, Takeyasu Hideko, Kasuga Masashi, Kawamukai Hajime, Ikegami Masaru
Agricultural Information Research, 30(3) 131-145, Oct 1, 2021 Peer-reviewed
‘Yamada Nishiki’ brewer’s rice is grown in a specific part of Hyogo Prefecture. In 2016, we surveyed members of three agriculture cooperatives (called JAs) in Hyogo Prefecture (JA Hyogo-Rokko, JA Minori, and JA Hyogo-Mirai) by questionnaire on their recognition of the benefit of field surveys for growth diagnosis of ‘Yamada Nishiki’ and their preference for doing those surveys. Statistical analysis distinguished two groups: independent farmers, who prefer to diagnose rice plant growth in their fields themselves (20%), and client farmers, who heavily depend on the field surveys by the three JAs (>50%). The independent farmers are willing to develop the necessary skills for such field surveys, such as with a cloud-based analytical system, which uses photos of rice plants taken by farmers on their smartphones, as a decision support system for effective harvest diagnosis and fertilizer usage.