Feasibility Analysis of Farmer-centered Mobile Intelligence for Sustainable Pest Management in China

作为世界上最大的农用化学品消费国，中国只在世界9%的农田上使用了全球30%以上的农药。在中国，人们经常在农作物上使用杀虫剂，以防止虫害和限制产量损失。这些申请通常是在保险的基础上进行的，而不是在规定的基础上进行的，因为虫害的数量很高。随着可持续作物保护对实现中国“净零排放”计划变得越来越重要，对能够帮助中国农民以更少的化学品投入和减少土壤侵蚀更可持续地生长的新的有害生物管理工具的需求越来越大。该项目将探索利用移动智能技术作为一种具有成本效益的以农民为中心的有害生物管理解决方案的可行性，以提高中国的经济效益和环境可持续性。我们将依靠我们现有的基于深度学习的移动小麦病虫害识别技术，该技术是由Innovate-UK项目与谢菲尔德大学和中国科学院(CAS)合作开发的。该技术提供：快速检测和有效量化小麦有害生物；将有害生物量化纳入区域相关的有害生物耐受阈值；确定是否建议使用农药。本项目将通过问卷和访谈检查中国小农户和农民合作社使用移动有害生物管理应用程序的可接受性，通过广泛的文献综述分析移动有害生物管理应用程序在中国支持农业可持续发展方面的感知影响，并预测中国使用上述技术的潜在长期经济效益。通过与中科院的现有合作，我们将与中国安徽省的4个小农户和2个农民合作社进行接触。该项目将提交一份全面的分析和评估报告，从用户可接受性、环境影响和业务回报三个方面讨论中国病虫害可持续管理的上述技术。这份报告应该包括：1)农民需求识别及其接受结果分析移动应用在中国可持续有害生物治理中的使用；2)从农学、环境和社会经济的角度分析移动有害生物管理解决方案的优势和劣势；3)潜在的开源商业模式，免费向小农和公众提供基本的移动应用。4)企业对企业的方式，向中国的中等种植者和农艺师出售专业软件许可证、服务和专业培训。

As the world's largest consumer of agricultural chemicals, China has used more than 30 percent of global pesticides on only 9 percent of the world's crop land. Pesticides are often applied to crops to provide protection against pest damage and to limit yield losses in China. These applications are often done on an insurance basis rather than a prescriptive basis because pest abundance is high. With sustainable crop protection becoming more important to achieve the "Net-zero emission" plan in China, there is increasing demand for new pest management tools that can help Chinese farmers grow more sustainably with fewer chemical inputs and reduced soil erosion.This project will explore the feasibility of utilising mobile intelligence techniques as a cost-effective farmer-centred pest management solution with improved economic benefits and environmental sustainability in China. We will rely on our existing deep learning based mobile wheat pest recognition technique developed from an Innovate-UK project, in partnership with the University of Sheffield and China Academy of Sciences (CAS). The technique offers: rapid detection and effective quantification of wheat pests; places pest quantification into context of regionally relevant pest tolerance thresholds; determines whether a pesticide application is advised to use.This project will examine the acceptability of using mobile pest management apps by Chinese smallholder farmers and farmer cooperatives via questionnaires and interviews, analysis the perceived impact of the apps in supporting sustainable agricultural development in China via comprehensive literature reviews, and predict the potential long-term economic benefits of using above technique in China. Through existing collaboration with CAS, we will engage with 4 smallholder farmers and 2 farmer cooperatives at Anhui Province in China.This project will deliver a comprehensive analysis and evaluation report discussing above technique for sustainable pest management in China in terms of user acceptability, environment impacts and business return. This report should include: 1) Farmer requirement identification and their acceptance results analysis of mobile apps usage in sustainable pest management in China; 2) Analysis the strong and weak points of the mobile pest management solution using agronomic, environmental, and social-economic criteria; 3) potential open-source business model that provides basic mobile applications to small-size growers and public for free. 4) The business-to-business approach, which sells professional software licenses, services and professional training to middle-size growers and agronomists in China.