The University of Plymouth, with Muhammad Nawaz Sharif University of Agriculture (MNSUA), Multan, Pakistan and SAWIE (Sustainable Agriculture, Water & Intelligent Ecosystem) has been awarded the Texonomy challenge prize fund.
Climate change has had a severe effect on Pakistan’s cotton production, which has lost two thirds of its production in recent years. The major issues are water shortage, pests and diseases, as well as increasing costs. There are about 1.6 million farmers dominated by smallholders who own less than 1 acre. Women's workforce also plays an important role in the sector. The textile sector is the largest industrial sector in Pakistan and accounts for about 40% of the industrial labour force and employs 10 million people.
The Texonomy project, funded by the British Council and led by Northumbria University, seeks to support sustainable cotton production – a raw material in Pakistan’s textile industry by applying techniques from AI. Standing for ‘textile circular economy’ it aims to eliminate all types of waste in the textile sector of Pakistan, and provide a sustainable social and economic improvement of the lives of people in the textile industry, its supply chain and impacted communities.
Dr Asiya Khan, Associate Professor of Multimedia Communication and Intelligent Control, has extensive research expertise in multimedia quality of service/experience monitoring, prediction and control over wireless networks. She works on modelling of multimedia quality using AI and regression modelling.
In this project, she will apply her research expertise in computer vision, and in collaboration with co-investigator, Dr Salman Qadri co-PI from MNSUA, and SAWIE, will develop a smart farm advisory platform using both mobile phone alerts and smartphone apps. This includes weather, irrigation, fertilizer and crop protection alerts as well as diagnostics of crop health and site-specific recommendations.
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