Using Expert System for Sustainable Agriculture and Capacity Building in Degraded Soils

Abstract

In Egypt to keep pace with the increasing food requirements for the rapidly growing population, there is an imperative need to reclaim and cultivate more agricultural areas. More attention should be given to increase the productivity of the degraded salt affected soils since they are potentially productive and require less investment, effort and time for restoring their productivity in comparison with other marginal arid lands. At present salt affected areas are either of poor or of low quality mainly due to the occurrence and development of salinity and sodicity problems, which hinder realization of the beneficial results of any agricultural inputs. The management of degraded salt affected areas is a multi-disciplinary strategy and joint efforts between key persons who involved in this process. The transfer of the knowledge from consultants and scientists to landowners and farmers to support their capacity represents the bottleneck for the development of degraded soils at the national level. Therefore, there is a need for an unconventional method to collect and transfer the knowledge and expertise in the degraded problematic soils domain to the general responsible persons who involved in this process. It promises great prospects for application and great economic value to adopt Expert System (ES) as an artificial intelligence and a management tool in accordance with the research results achieved by the degraded problematic soils ameliorating experts and their successful experiences. Therefore, a user-friendly expert system computer program was developed for the management of degraded problematic soils. The developed Management Expert System (HCMEXS) can help users to make appropriate decisions on the management of degraded soils to achieve the goal of soil improvement, it also helps farmer to make correct decisions on agricultural practice.