Information management system for distribution of farm inputs: A case of Luwero District

Abstract

The information management system for the distribution of farm inputs is a system that enables farmers to receive information in form of feedback from the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, and NAADs about farm inputs distribution. It will also enable farmers to apply and receive farm inputs from the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, and NAADs using both a portal for farmers with internet enabled devices and USSD for those without internet enabled devices. The system was developed because of the problem of inappropriate management of information related to distribution of farm inputs, this was due to lack of clear information management in relation to distribution of farm inputs. The system requirements for the developed system were collected using questionnaires and interviewing the farmers in Luwero district and officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries. Data from the interviews and questionnaires was analyzed using SPSS and excel to come up with the functional, non-functional system requirements. The requirements were later used to design the system by creating data flow diagrams and entity relationship diagrams. The designed system was implemented using different development tools which are; HTML for creating interfaces, MySQL was used to build database and PHP as server side scripting language to connect the user interfaces to the databases. Improvements and enhancements of the systems are highly possible and viable such as the current functions in order to produce better output.