E-Farmer Information System and Short Message Service (SMS)

Implementation Gateway for Agribusiness of Palm and Rubber

Plantations in Pulang Pisau Regency

Vincentius Abdi Gunawan

, Licantik

and Leonardus Sandy Ade Putra

Department of Informatics Engineering, Palangka Raya University, Palangka Raya, Indonesia

Department of Informatics Engineering, STMIK Palangka Raya, Palangka Raya, Indonesia

Keywords: E – Farmer, SMS Gateway, Website, Palm Oil, Rubber.

Abstract: Indonesia is an agrarian nation in which the majority of people work as farmers, especially on palm oil and

rubber farming industry. Pulang Pisau is a district in Middle Borneo which produces palm oil and rubber

commodities and a place where some parts of the plantation still have not received an access to the internet.

The only available accesses are phone calls and Short Message System (SMS). This causes quite a problem

for local farmers on knowing the latest price for palm oil and rubber commodities which will be sold on the

market. This condition is often used by the merchants to mess with the price and seek bigger profit by buying

the palm oil and rubber commodities in a cheap price and then sell them on the market with higher price. This

problem disadvantages the local farmers.

1 INTRODUCTION

Indonesia is a country which the majority of people

work in the fields of agriculture and plantation.

According to Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS), 31.74% of

Indonesia’s labor force works on the plantation sector

(Julianto, 2017). Many agricultural and plantation

products are produced by the society and two of them

are palm oil and rubber. The results of the production

from the local farmers are 78.97%, 10.08% from the

large state-owned plantations, and 10.95% from

private plantations (Damanik, 2012).

In some countries in Indonesia, farmers receive

informations of commodity prices from the internet

or from the related official that gives information

about the commodity prices. Even so, there are still

many farmers who could not get enough access to

know the produced commodities’ price, this can be

caused by the absence of internet network or because

they live far from the needed source of information.

This problem usually impacts on the many plantation

products which are not well distributed and also

causes the merchants to mess with the price (Olivya,

2017).

The Pulang Pisau Forestry and Plantation

Departement’s role on helping the farmers gain

knowledge and information in the agricultural and

plantation sector, distributing seed and fertilizer, and

also controlling the price of the agricultural and

plantation commodity, especially on the Pulang Pisau

district, is important. Information system about the

price of the commodity on agricultural and plantation

sector is rarely found, and has yet to cover the whole

community. Which is why a system that can cover the

whole community, especially farmers, by using a

method which is more simple yet still gives the

information about the needs of farmers in terms of

agriculture and about commodity prices is needed.

This research was done to help solve the problem

above by making a web-based system by

implementating the SMS Gateway technology which

is a gate for information spreading by using Short

Message Service (SMS) as one of the solution to

reach each individuals on the society, especially the

farmers who has yet to achieve internet network. The

Pulang Pisau Forestry and Plantation Departement

cooperates with the researcher in the means of

disseminating information about the price of

agricultural products through a website, so that the

information can always be accessed by farmers using

SMS or website.

Gunawan, V., putra, L. and licantik, .

E-Farmer Information System and Short Message Service (SMS) Implementation Gateway for Agribusiness of Palm and Rubber Plantations in Pulang Pisau Regency.

DOI: 10.5220/0009010903410345

In Proceedings of the 7th Engineering International Conference on Education, Concept and Application on Green Technology (EIC 2018), pages 341-345

ISBN: 978-989-758-411-4

341

2 RELATED WORKS

The previous information about commodity price has

become popular and grows rapidly to be able to make

a system which is more practical and has a wide

range.

The first research is the design of agricultural

product marketing information system (Olivya,

2017). By mentioning the merchant problem as a

reason to create an android-based system.

Second, the design of an information system and

an auction for agricultural products as a case study for

the Departement of Agriculture. The system will be

programming language (Gantini & Nurnajah, 2015).

Third, the system which was designed as e -

farmer and act as a web-based information system.

The website was designed by using OWL language

(Web Ontology Language) and is divided into various

classes and sub-classes (Pani & Mishra, 2016).

From the designed system application using an

android or website application, some errors which are

in need of perfecting can still be found. The system

which was designed by the researcher has helped

farmers on getting information more easily, but it still

creates problems to some farmers who live on a

region with no internet network. The writer thinks

that a system that can help farmers give informations

about plantation by using a more practical way and

can cover all regions, especially to the ones who does

not have any internet network, is needed.

3 METHODS

Figure 1: E – Farmer architecture.

Based on some references, this research was

designed to make a use out of the technology of

website and SMS Gateway to give information

regarding the price of commodities and the

availability of goods. The full architecture on the

created system can be seen on Figure 1.

3.1 Website

Website is a page that serves information in the form

of writing, picture, sound, or video that is put inside a

server or a hosting which can only be accessed by

using the internet.

3.2 PHP

PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) (Yusuf, Kusniyati, &

Yurike, 2016) is a website server-side programming

laguage which is open source and specially designed

for website. PHP is a script which integrates with

HTML and is located on a server (server side HTML

embedded scripting). On a website system

application, PHP functions as a server side scripting

language, which means as a line of codes which will

be fully executed on the server, then the result of the

execution will be sent to the client.

3.3 Short Message Service (SMS)

Short Message Service (SMS) (Nurhalim &

Gunawan, 2011) is a text component of telephone

communication service, website or cellular

communication system, using the communication

protocol standard which allows short text message

exchanges between fixed line or mobile phone

device. The term SMS is used as a synonym to all

types of short text message in many parts of the

world.

3.4 GAMMU

GAMMU (GNU All Mobile Management

Utilities) (Nurhalim & Gunawan, 2011) is an

application which can be used to manage various

functions in a cellphone, modem and other similiar

devices. The functions which can be managed by

Gammu are the Phonebook and SMS function.

Gammu is one of the many library open-sources

which was made as a gateway or connector between

a cellphone and computer device.

3.5 MySQL

MySQL is a database server which is closely related

to PHP. MySQL is a database relations management

system which is open-source. This database

management system was created by Michael

EIC 2018 - The 7th Engineering International Conference (EIC), Engineering International Conference on Education, Concept and

Application on Green Technology

342

“Monty” Widenius, David Axmark, and Allan Larson

on 1995. The reason why MySQL program was

written was to develop web application. MySQL uses

SQL language standard (Structure Query Language)

as an interactive language on managing data. MySQL

orders are usually called Query (Marsita, 2011).

4 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Price Data Reference

Information about the content of the created website

was obtained as a whole from the Plantation and

Forestry Departement of Pulang Pisau District.

Important data such as the price of palm oil and

rubber is adjusted with the price on the market.

Information about the availability of seeds and

fertilizers will be displayed on the website which can

be accessed as a whole by using SMS Gateway or by

opening the designed website.

4.2 Website Feature

Website will be managed as a whole by the Plantation

and Forestry Departement of Pulang Pisau District,

both in information delivery and price determination

that will be updated in real-time. Visitors and farmers

are able to access the website and obtain a more

complete information. Display of e - farmer website

which was built can be seen on Figure 2.

Figure 2: Main display of E – Farmer website.

Aside the many features that can be found in the

website, a main feature was made to achieve

information regarding the price and availability of

seeds. There is a feature to find out the price of the

needed commodity and it is displayed on Figure 3.

A display to find out the price of palm oil and

rubber can be seen on Figure 4, while Figure 5 shows

a display of the availability of seeds and fertilizer.

Figure 3: Display of price recap information.

Figure 4: Display of palm oil and rubber price information.

Figure 5: Display of the availability information of seeds

and fertilizer.

4.3 SMS Process

The created system uses SMS Gateway to help

farmers that live on areas with no internet network.

SMS Gateway utilizes SMS service to be able to

expand the coverage area, especially the area with no

internet access.

Gammu acts as a connector between the farmers

and e – farmer server by communicating through

SMS. SMS Gateway architecture using Gammu can

be seen on Figure 6.

E-Farmer Information System and Short Message Service (SMS) Implementation Gateway for Agribusiness of Palm and Rubber Plantations

in Pulang Pisau Regency

343

Figure 6: SMS application architecture with GAMMU

(Stone, n.d.).

SMS Gateway system has three features which

can be used by the farmers to achieve information

regarding the price and availability of seeds and

fertilizer. Table 1 displays the SMS format which is

used to obtain information.

Table 1: Information format of prices, seeds and fertilizer

information.

Keyword Format

Price of Palm Oil HARGA <SPASI>

SAWIT

Price of Rubber HARGA <SPASI>

KARET

Information of

Seeds & Fertilizer

INFORMASI <SPASI>

PERKEBUNAN

This SMS message format will be sent to the

system to obtain information. The system will receive

SMS message according to the format and will

confirm the incoming message and process the data.

The system will then send the needed information

back to the message sender. Replies from the system

regarding the price of commodity is displayed on

Figure 7 and Figure 8. Information regarding the

availability of products is shown on Figure 9.

Figure 7: SMS reply for the price information of palm oil.

Figure 8: SMS reply for the price information rubber.

Figure 9: SMS reply for information on the availability of

seeds and fertilizer.

From the test result which has been done by using

SMS Gateway, it is now known that the system can

respond to the orders which were sent. Replies from

the system give information on the latest price and

information about the availability of seeds and

fertilizer in real time.

5 CONCLUSIONS

E – Farmer system have been used by farmers, the

society, and also the Pulang Pisau Plantation and

Forestry Departement as a media to achieve and give

information regarding the price of palm oil and

rubber, availability of fertelizer and seeds, and also to

reduce price-play which is done by the merchants on

the harvesting season.

SMS application through SMS Gateway which

was designed and became one with the e - farmer

system helps expand the access range for farmers and

the society to achieve information, especially on the

areas without internet network.

EIC 2018 - The 7th Engineering International Conference (EIC), Engineering International Conference on Education, Concept and

Application on Green Technology

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