Commodity-Based Database System

for Agriculture and Agribusiness Development

By :
Setyo Pertiwi
Chunliadi Sutanto
Moeljarno Djojomartono
Ade Permana

Faculty of Agricultural Technology, Bogor Agricultural University

P.O. Box 220, Bogor, Indonesia
e-mail : sedhie@indo.net.id; smmp@indo.net.id
 ABSTRACT

A commodity-based database system has been developed to support the development of

agriculture and agribusiness. The database system covers agro-ecological database, crops
characteristics, crop growth requirements, available technology for production, post harvest handling
and processing of the products, domestic and international markets, export and import procedures,
and some production statistics. A user friendly database retrieval system has been prepared to ease
the use of the database system. A computer program for determining the priority of commodities to
be developed in a certain region based on the available data, was also developed to demonstrate the
practical use of the database system.

Keywords : database, crops, prioritized commodities, production technology, post harvest handling,
processing, agribusiness.

INTRODUCTION

The vision of agricultural sector development in Indonesia is "a modern rural based
agriculture with industrial culture" (Karama, 1998). To achieve this vision, the main challenges of
agriculture and agribusiness development in Indonesia are how to improve production efficiency, to
improve quality through post harvest handling and processing, and to improve marketing in an
agribusiness system characterized by modern agriculture. Efficiency, productivity and quality
become the key words, because the success of agribusiness development depends on the
competitiveness of the products (commodities), both in domestic and international markets, wherein
efficiency, productivity and quality are the key factors for the competitiveness. The problem is, there
are still some gaps between the knowledge developed by agricultural scientific community and the
knowledge acquired by agricultural and agribusiness practitioners. Furthermore, the information
available for agricultural and agribusiness development are scattered in many sources. For these
reasons, provision of the related comprehensive information to agriculture and agribusiness
practitioners through an integrated information system is of necessity.
This paper describes the development of a commodity-based database system, and
demonstrates how it can be accessed and used for supporting the development of agriculture and
agribusiness, especially on establishing the priority of commodities to be developed in a certain
region. It is expected that with this system, information requirement on agriculture and agribusiness
development can be fulfilled and the users can determine the best agriculture and agribusiness
practices. In the long run, as an agricultural information system, the system should be able to
support the implementation of precision farming and prescriptive farming (Napitupulu, 1998).
 MATERIALS AND METHODS

The system was developed to be operated on the PC with minimum requirements of 32 MB

RAM, 4.3 GB storage medium (hard disk), SVGA monitor and mouse.
The softwares that were used to develop the system including Visual Basic 5.0, Microsoft
Access 97, dBase 5.0 for Windows, Microsoft Excel 97, MapInfo Professional, PC Arc/Info and PC
ArcView.
The system development followed the system development life cycle, including need analysis,
logical system design, physical system design, implementation and system maintenance (Szymanski
et al., 1995).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1. Database System Description

The database system developed is a commodity-based database system which covers crops
characteristics, crops growth requirements, available technologies for production, post harvest
handling and processing of the products, and general supporting information including
agro-ecological database, domestic and international markets, export and import procedures, and
some production statistics. The data are organized as attributive data or spatial data by using
various softwares, including Microsoft Access 97, dBase 5.0 for Windows, Microsoft Excel 97 or
PC Arc/Info, depend on the data element characteristics. The structure of the database is presented
in Figure 1.
The crops characteristics database contains data describing the morphological
characteristics of the crops (root, step, leaf, flower, fruit, seed), and its physical properties. The
crops growth requirements database contains data describing the environmental condition required
for crop growth, including soil type, soil structure, altitude and climate.
The production technology database contains information on the available technologies for
crops production, including suitable soil tillage, seedling, planting, fertilizing, and crops
protection. In the database of post harvest technologies, the technologies for primary post harvest
handling (harvesting, cleaning, grading, cooling, storing etc) as well as secondary post harvest
handling (processing), in terms of recipes and processing methods, are describes. For user
references, the standard of quality for agricultural product and its derivatives (processed products)
are also prepared.
At this moment, the data on characteristics and growth requirements of 55 main crops,
covering food crops, horticulture (vegetables and fruits), and industrial crops, have been collected
from many sources and stored on the database. However, data on available technologies for
production, post harvest handling and processing just cover 3 of them, i.e. banana, mango and
durian.
Agro-ecological database contains data on land uses, soil type, soil structure, topography
and climate (rainfall, temperature, humidity, radiation). They are organized in raster format of
spatial database. At this moment, the database only covers the Java island which is divided into 79
districts.
The agribusiness related database contains data and information required by practitioners
on starting and operating agribusiness. It covers legal aspects of agribusiness, various procedures
(including export and import), various available scheme for financing, and market institution
characteristics. The data on institutions related with agriculture and agribusiness (R&D Centers,
Trade Attaché, importers, exporters, etc) are organized in the institution database. The data
elements include name of the institution, major business and contact address.
The statistical database organizes historical data on production, productivity, market price
and trends of national export as well as import of various crops and products.
 Commodity-Based Database System

Commodity Agro-Ecology Agribusiness Institution Statistics

Botanical Land Uses Legal Aspect R&D Centers Production

description
Financial Aspect Trade Attaché
Crop Soil Type
Characteristics Credit Scheme National
Exporters Productivity
Taxonomy Joint Venture
Soil Structure
Crop Growth GE Loan Foreign
Requirements Importers
Prosedural Aspect Market Price
Topography
Production Export
Technological
technology
Import Information
Post Harvest Climate Centers
Market Institution
Technology

Figure 1. The structure of the database

2. Data Retrieval System
The databases can be accessed by using the conventional methods. However, to ease the
use of database system, a user friendly data retrieval system has been developed. It employs a
menu system, with which the users can follow some predetermined scenarios in accessing a
comprehensive information related with a certain commodity. The output of the system has
several forms, including tables, graphics, diagrams, narrative description as well as geographical
maps. For example, from this retrieval system the users can have an output of land suitability
distribution for certain crop from the combination of data on crop growth requirement and data on
agro-ecology. In this case, under consideration that the targeted users of the system are Indonesian
agricultural and agribusiness practitioners, both data and remarks are presented in Indonesian
language. Figure 2 shows the main menu of data retrieval system while Figure 3, 4 and 5 show the
output examples of the system.

Figure 2. Main menu of data retrieval system

 Figure 3. Output showing the processing technology of banana

Figure 4. Output showing the production statistic of durian in Java island

Figure 5. Output showing the crop growth requirement and land suitability in Java island

3. Application Program

An application program to determine the priority of commodities to be developed in a

certain area based on the available data on the database is also developed to demonstrate the
practical use of the database system.

The flowchart of the procedure to determine the prioritized commodities (Djojomartono et

al., 1995) is showed in the Figure 6. As can be seen from the figure, the prioritized commodities
in a certain area are determined mainly based on local resources and potentialities combined with
market demand and trends. The procedure involves a data matching process, time series data
weighting and indexing, scoring and multi criteria decision analysis by using Analytic Hierarchy
Process (Saaty, 1987). Figure 7 shows an example of the report form of the prioritized
commodities determination in a certain area. The potential commodities are sorted based on its
priority level.
 Crop Growth Agro-ecology
Requirement

Area of land
suitability for crops

Actual planting Volume of

area of crops Local demand

Crops productivity Volume of

in the area Export/Import

10 Potential crops

Multi Criteria Decision Analysis

Price Index Production Profit Labor Industrial

trend Index Availability Usage

Prioritized
Commodities

Figure 6. Procedure for determining the prioritized commodities in a certain area.

 Figure 7. An example of the report form of the prioritized commodities determination in a certain
area.

4. System Implementation And Evaluation

At this moment, the system has not been used as it is intended. However, partially the
application program for determining the prioritized commodities is being socialized to several
local (district) governments for their reference on policy making. A continuous effort is being
made to improve the system and to establish the dissemination as well as the system maintenance
mechanism. Efforts to make the system accessible through internet is taken into consideration.

CONCLUSIONS

A commodity-based database system has been developed together with its application
program to support the development of agriculture and agribusiness in Indonesia. Use and
application of this system in formulating the development policies is considered to be valuable.
However, many steps still need to be undertaken to make the system operational.

REFERENCES

Djojomartono, M., S. Pertiwi, Sutrisno and H. Suhardiyanto (1995). Determination of Prioritized

Commodities and Research Area in West Java. Unpublished research report. Center for
Research on Engineering Application in Tropical Agriculture, Bogor Agricultural University.
Bogor.

Karama, S. (1998). Keynote Address for One Day Seminar on Information Technology in
 Agriculture (in Indonesian). Bogor, August 11, 1998.

Napitupulu, T.A. (1998). The Role of Agricultural Information System Infrastructure in

Supporting Agricultural Development (in Indonesian). Paper presented in One Day Seminar
on Information Technology in Agriculture. Bogor, August 11, 1998.

Saaty, R.W. (1987). The Analytic Hierarchy Process - what it is and how it is used. Mathematical
Modeling, Vol. 9(3-5), 161-176.

Szymanski, R.A., D.P. Szymanski, and D.M. Pulchen (1995). Computer and Information Systems.
Prentice Hall, New Jersey.