An ontology-based information extraction system for organic farming

In the existing farming system, information is obtained manually, and most times, farmers act based on their discretion. Sometimes, farmers rely on information from experts and extension officers for decision making. In recent times, a lot of information systems are available with relevant information on organic farming practices; however, such information is scattered in different context, form, and media all over the internet, making their retrieval difficult. The use of ontology with the aid of a conceptual scheme makes the comprehensive and detailed formalization of any subject domain possible. This study is aimed at acquiring, storing, and providing organic farming-based information available to current and intending software developer who may wish to develop applications for farmers. It employs information extraction (IE) and ontology development techniques to develop an ontology-based information extraction (OBIE) system called ontology-based information extraction system for organic farming (OBIESOF). The knowledge base was built using protégé editor; Java was used for the implementation of the ontology knowledge base with the aid of the high-level application programming language for working web ontology language application program interface (OWL API). In contrast, HermiT was used to checking the consistencies of the ontology and for submitting queries in order to verify their validity. The queries were expressed in description logic (DL) query language. The authors tested the capability of the ontology to respond to user queries by posing instances of the competency questions from DL query interface. The answers generated by the ontology were promising and serve as positive pointers to its usefulness as a knowledge repository.