What is the Rice Crop Manager?
Rice Crop Manager aims to sustain the productivity of rice-based cropping systems and increase the net income of farmers in Odisha, India. It achieves this by providing irrigated and rainfed rice farmers with a crop and nutrient management guidelines customized to the needs of the individual farmer. Rice Crop Manager uses a farmer’ s answers to questions on his or her rice farming practices to automatically generate a rice crop management guidelines aimed at increasing the farmer’ s net income.
Rice Crop Manager is designed for use by extension workers, crop advisors, input providers, and agricultural service providers who interview farmers using a personal computer, smartphone, or tablet. After the interview, the collected information can be stored on the computer, smartphone, or tablet until the device is connected to the Internet through a Web browser. Collected information is then transmitted via the Internet to the Rice Crop Manager `model’, which calculates and transmits a crop management guideline for the rice-based cropping system within moments back to the computer, smartphone, or tablet. Each guideline provides an actionable and unique recommendation for the crop, which matches the location-specific cropping practices and needs of the farmer. The guideline is then provided to the farmer as a one-page printout, which the extension worker, input provider, or service provider can also use to advise the farmer on how to increase net income from rice production.
The concept and framework for Rice Crop Manager was developed by IRRI. The nutrient management guideline provided by Rice Crop Manager is based on the principles of site-specific nutrient management (SSNM), as developed for rice through partnerships of IRRI with national agricultural research organizations in Asia. The Nutrient Manager for Rice developed by IRRI in 2008-2010 provides the SSNM-based, nutrient management component in Rice Crop Manager. The Rice Crop Manager developed by IRRI in 2013 for the Philippines and Bangladesh provides the framework for the crop management decision-making logic used in the Rice Crop Manager for Odisha.
Rice Crop Manager was adapted, evaluated, and verified for rice cultivation in Odisha through collaboration of IRRI with the Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) and the National Rice Research Institute (NRRI).
The development of Rice Crop Manager was made possible through support from the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development