The following is the article by Dilip Chinnakonda, published in the ILEIA newsletter Vol. 13 No. 3 (October 1997), p. 9. with some modifications. FARMS: monitoring farm performance
The Agriculture Man and Ecology (AME) Programme in Bangalore, India, conducts agro-economic research in Tamil Nadu, India, comparing conventional and ecological farms over a five year period. Once every two months, data on various aspects of animal husbandry, crop production and forestry is collected from fourteen farms. Processing this data manually proved cumbersome and it was impossible to conduct immediate quality checks or make quick analysis. The FARMS software programme was developed to allow periodic data entry and simplify the process of analyses. Introducing FARMS FARMS is based on the database management programme FoxPro and was developed by Aavishkar Software Consultancies in Madras, working in close collaboration with AME. The package allows quick data entry, cross- checks and has the potential to rapidly analyse the various aspects of farm management including the results of financial performance, agricultural production, labour requirements, nutrient, energy and groundwater balances and also to provide sustainability indicators at plot, crop, crop group, enterprise and farm level. Masters databases Using menus in a DOS environment, FARMS provides a user-friendly interface. Most data entries can be taken from 'picklists' that the user can create to describe the farming system being studied. Enterprises (crops, animals, processing etc.), inputs, units of measurement used,farming systems practices (cropping systems, animal husbandry, sericulture, etc.) have to be described and quantified before calculations can be carried out. The database relationships and reports which contain the output data needed in calculations are described in Figure 1.
Data are arranged in such a way that all entries or values that are
common to all farms or that do not change from one farm to another such
as data on crops, trees, livestock, for example, have been put in data
files. This is known as the Master database and can be defined by the user
beforehand. Data that is fairly constant over a period of time are entered
into a set of data files called the Seasonal Master database. The user
can also define this data which covers information on plots cultivated,
the value of these plots and the crops grow.
After a farm has been visted, data on quantities and the price of resources
used are entered into a set of files called the Visits database. These
are then combined with data from the earlier defined Masterl and Seasonal
Master files in the Calculation Module. Calculations can then be carried
out and made visible by using the Report functions. At the moment there
are 21 Report functions. The example given below shows how a nutrient balance
can be calculated. All other balances are calculated in the same way making
use of the same type of data. This means that data only has to be entered
once.
AGRICULTURE MAN ECOLOGY, PO Box 7836, J.P Nagar, Bangalore 560 078, India. Phone: +91-80-6582835 / 6582303; Fax: +91-80-6583471. E-Mail: amebang@giasbg01.vsnl.net.in. ETC India Consultants Pvt. Ltd., No. 9, 1st Main, 1st Cross, J.P. Nagar 4th Phase, Bangalore 560 078, India. Phone: +91-80-6583169 / 6581578. E-Mail: etcind@bgl.vsnl.net.in AAVISHKAR Software Consultancies, No.3, Second Floor, Aarti Apartments, 4, Haddows Road First Street, Nungambkkam, Madras 600 006. Tel/fax: +91-44-4661675. E-Mail: schandraram@eth.net |
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