ORAL - International Conference of Agricultural Engineering

FIGURE 3: The tool kit for the t children sensors. a: thermo-hydrometer, b: field notebook,c:mobile phone, d: measuring tape, e: leaf color chart, f: insect plateFIGURE 4: Child’s sensor in action.4. CaseStudy andDiscussionWe hada test bed at a villagein Vinh Long District where the most majorr crop is paddy rice.Generally speaking, the rice yield is quitee high but the grain quality is rather low in the villageresultingin low selling price. Moreover, the farmerstend to use too muchh fertilizer, chemicaland seed because they believe that highh input assures high yield. Such high input is causingenvironmental damage and aggravating their balance of payments.We conducted interviews with severall families in the village and choose 38 families,considering their illiteracy and farm conditions. Wecould conduct the project for only onecroppingseason of paddy rice and we need to wait for at least a feww cropping seasonsbefore we can evaluate the efficiency off the approach in terms of benefits of the famers aswell as the improvement on sustainabilityy of their farming.