Improving Rice Productivity in Indonesia with Artificial Intelligence

Indonesia is one of the biggest agriculture countries in the world with one of its major commodities, rice. Despite its vast paddy field and tropical resources, Indonesia still has not achieved food security. This paper explores ideas about how to present artificial intelligence that may increase rice productivity in Indonesia. Current situations of rice cultivation are mentioned start from existing technologies and systems used in Indonesia. Some artificial intelligence concepts are also introduced. Artificial Intelligence use in rice farming is then analyzed which ideas may be applicable to increase efficiency further. Those that are already implemented in rice farming include diseases and pest detection, prediction and estimation, and automated intelligent systems. In the proposed idea section, ideas to increase production are explored. Using advanced technologies may not be suitable for Indonesia's rice farmers. One argument is to minimize the differences in rice yield in different areas or so what we called yield gap. Factors such as weather, water, and harvest date are those with most impacts on the yield gap. It is beneficial to have a model that can predict the optimal planting date of rice since that will maximize the factors before. Among those implemented, a planting calendar prediction on rice-based on rainfall is already developed. However, rainfall is not the only factor. El-Nino occurrences and temperature changes also have a role in deciding when best to plant rice. The author suggests adding those two new variables, making three in total to the earlier neural network model may improve the overall result.