The 1993 release of NCSA Mosaic at Illinois led on the same campus to some of the earliest uses of the Web for agricultural extension. The AIM Lab (Agricultural Media Lab) was the one of the first labs in the world that focused on web-based agricultural education and extension, creating early sites like the Cyberfarm and the Discovery System. Our last five years included a sustained collaboration with agribusiness and NGO's in India.

Archive

• Web-Based Extension - Presented at CISCE2002 in Beijing, China.
  
• Agricultural Gateway to India   
  This 1997 project created the first agricultural portal in India. The project was conceived and overseen by Dr. Sandhya Shenoy of ICAR's NAARM research center in Hyderabad. It includes a directory of all KVK & ATIC's, multi-lingual Audio Files on rice varieties, and other features.
  
• Agricultural Information Systems
  Invited presentation at the M.S. Swaminathan Foundation, Chennai, India
  
• IT Action Plan for Soybean Sector 
  Based on an extensive and ongoing collaboration with SOPA (India’s association of Soybean Processors) and outgrowth of the 2001 Indian Soy Forum. Applies lessons of StratSoy and Online Agronomy Handbook to provide online resources for soybean farmers, researchers and students. Another goal was to provide a model of IT planning for other commodity groups in India.
  
• Technical Background for Five Year Plan
  We worked with Dr. M.S. Swaminathan in his capacity as Chair of the Five Year Plan for Extension. At his request we created an Action Plan to scale up the web delivery of agricultural extension programs in India.

Campus Partners
Dr.  M. A. Pai, Electrical and Computer Engineeering
Creator of  IndUsSciTech 

Related Presentations & Sites
Interactive Agronomy Handbook
Full text chapters plus calculators for nitrogen rate, limestone, seed drop rate, replant decisions, stand counting, and yield estimation. The Nutrient Management and Soil Plan applications help farmers manage nutrients based on soil test results, soil type, crop, anticipated yield and federal rules. Large databases with climate and soil information provide inputs for some calculations. The Agriweather Toolbench estimates precipitation, temperatures, corn growth stages and pest emergence for specific locations. Wireless web and PDA access enables the use of some IAH tools in the field.  

1994 Cyberfarm
AIM Lab helped the CCnet Agriculture Committee in Champaign County, Illinois build the Cyberfarm, the first agricultural portal for farmers. An extensive system of hotlists provided farmers the chance to easily locate agricultural web sites in the county such as Illini FS and Frito-Lay. Cyberfarm also included one of the first farmer's home page on the web, the John Riefsteck farm. The project was exciting due to the close involvement of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and its founder Larry Smarr.