DiseaseMedia: An Information System for Helping Diagnosing and Treating Rice Diseases

International audienceWe present an information system supporting the diagnosis and treatment of rice diseases. The heart of the system is a software mediator allowing farmers to formulate distant queries regarding a disease and responding to farmer queries by recommending a treatment of the disease if one exists. The disease diagnosis and the recommended treatment are based on expert knowledge stored in the mediator database. The processing of farmer queries may involve direct access to the mediator by farmers, online communication between the mediator and the experts, or direct dialog between the farmer and an expert. Our information model is generic in the sense that it can be used to support the needs of farmers in a variety of similar environments, with minor changes. The system presented in this paper is currently under development as part of a Franco-Thai project and aims to assist farmers in the quick diagnosis of rice diseases and their treatment