Data mining and analysis in improving crop yield

Background
Agriculture is the leading economic sector in many developing countries despite production based
on subsistence farming that suffers from low yields and high vulnerability due to climate change.
There is a large yield gap (i.e. the difference between what is actually harvested from farmers’
fields and what could potentially be achieved) in sub-Saharan agriculture.
Ethiopia is basically an agricultural and pastoral country. Agriculture dominates the Ethiopian life
to the extent that little progress can be made unless agriculture is attacked directly. Ethiopia is a
country of peasants with primitive agriculture. Agriculture accounted for 46.3% of GDP, 83.9%
of exports, and 80% of the labor force in 2006 and 2007, compared to 44.9%, 76.9% and 80% in
2002/2003, and agriculture remains the Ethiopian economy's most important sector (1). Ethiopia
has great agricultural potential because of its vast areas of fertile land, diverse climate, generally
adequate rainfall, and large labor pool. The country has varied agro-climatic zones. The
Government extension program lists these as: areas of adequate rainfall; areas of moisture stress;
and pastoral areas. This diversity makes it a favorable region for growing a variety of crops.
Despite this potential, however, Ethiopian agriculture has remained underdeveloped. Because of
In Ethiopia,
(I) agriculture is largely influenced by rainwater which is highly unpredictable
(II) diverse soil parameters, namely Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Crop rotation, Soil
moisture, Surface temperature and also on weather aspects which include temperature,
rainfall, etc.
Ethiopian Agri-cultural practices are primitive. There is virtually nothing to speak of modern
inputs, such as fertilizers, Improved seeds, pesticides, improved tools and implements, agricultural
equipment and machineries, etc. The influence of climate change and its unpredictability, has
caused majority of the agricultural crops to be affected in terms of their production and
maintenance. Forecasting or predicting the crop yield well ahead of its harvest time would assist
the strategists and farmers for taking suitable measures for selling and storage. Accurate prediction
of crop development stages plays an important role in crop production management. Such
predictions will also support the allied industries for strategizing the logistics of their business.
Ethiopia now is rapidly progressing towards technical development. Thus, technology will prove
to be beneficial to agriculture which will increase crop productivity resulting in better yields to the
farmer. The proposed project provides a solution for Agriculture prediction by monitoring the
agricultural field which can assist the farmers in increasing productivity to a great extent using
data mining concept to predict crop yield. Crop yield forecast data obtained from EMD (Ethiopian
Metrological Department) and different data sets that are available for us , this data include
temperature and rainfall and soil parameters repository give insight into which crops are suitable
to be cultivated in a particular area.
Thus, the research studies to design a system by integrating data from various sources, data
analytics, and prediction analysis which can improve crop yield productivity and increase the profit
margins of farmer helping them over a longer run.

Term definition
Data mining
Data mining is looking for hidden, valid, and potentially useful patterns in huge data sets. Data
Mining is all about discovering unsuspected/ previously unknown relationships amongst the data.

Data mining can be performed on following types of data; Relational databases, Data warehouses,
Advanced DB and information repositories, Object-oriented and object-relational databases,
Transactional and Spatial databases, Heterogeneous and legacy databases, Multimedia and
streaming database, Text databases, Text mining and Web mining.

Data analysis
Data analysis is defined as a process of cleaning, transforming, and modeling data to discover
useful information for business decision-making. The purpose of Data Analysis is to extract
useful information from data and taking the decision based upon the data analysis.
Data mining Techniques

1.Classification:

This analysis is used to retrieve important and relevant information about data, and metadata.
This data mining method helps to classify data in different classes.

2. Clustering:

Clustering analysis is a data mining technique to identify data that are like each other. This
process helps to understand the differences and similarities between the data.

3. Regression:

Regression analysis is the data mining method of identifying and analyzing the relationship
between variables. It is used to identify the likelihood of a specific variable, given the presence
of other variables.

4. Association Rules:

This data mining technique helps to find the association between two or more Items. It discovers
a hidden pattern in the data set.

5. Outer detection:
This type of data mining technique refers to observation of data items in the dataset which do not
match an expected pattern or expected behavior. This technique can be used in a variety of
domains, such as intrusion, detection, fraud or fault detection, etc. Outer detection is also called
Outlier Analysis or Outlier mining.

6. Sequential Patterns:

This data mining technique helps to discover or identify similar patterns or trends in transaction
data for certain period.

7. Prediction:

Prediction has used a combination of the other data mining techniques like trends, sequential
patterns, clustering, classification, etc. It analyzes past events or instances in a right sequence for
predicting a future event.

Bibliography
1. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [Online] october 27, 2019.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Ethiopia.