Concept Note Title: Detection and Classification of Cereal Crops diseases

using Deep Learning Approach

Application on Female Granted Fund

1. Introduction

1.1. Background
Ethiopia is endowed with diverse agro-ecologies suitable for different crops such as cereals,
pulses, oil crops, vegetables, fruits, and root crops. The major cereals grown in Ethiopia include
tef (Eragrostis tef), maize (Zea mays L.), bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), durum wheat
(Triticum durum Desf.), barley (Hordeum vulgarae L.), sorghum (Sorghum biclor L.), rice
(Oryza sativa L.), and finger millet (Eleusine corocana L.). All of these cereals belong to the
family of grasses, Poaceae (formerly Graminae)[2].
Cereals are the principal crops in Ethiopia in terms of both the area coverage and volume of
production. Of the total arable land cultivated annually, cereals occupy the greatest proportion of
area coverage accounting for about 81.27 % of the total acreage of all grain crops (cereals,
oilseeds, and pulses) [2]. Farmers faces multiple problems in detecting and identifying the
diseases in cereal crops. Thus, identifying disease is a very important step in agriculture.
Detection of crops disease has a crucial role in better understanding the economy of the country
in terms of agricultural productivity.
Early recognition and categorization of diseases in crops are very crucial as it can adversely
affect the growth and development of species. Numerous machine learning methods like SVM
(support vector machine), random forest, KNN (k-nearest neighbor), Naïve Bayes, decision tree,
etc., have been exploited for recognition, discovery, and categorization of plant diseases;
however, the advancement of machine learning by DL (deep learning) is supposed to possess
tremendous potential in enhancing the accuracy. This research focuses on detection and
classification of disease for wheat and maize cereal crop.
1.2. Statement of the problem
It can be difficult to manually keep track of crop diseases. It requires a lot of labor, knowledge of
crop diseases, and protracted processing. Crop disease identification via visual means is a time-
consuming and inaccurate technique that is only feasible in a few locations.
Therefore, crop damage would result in a significant loss of productivity, which would
ultimately have a negative economic impact. Crop disease is currently a danger factor not simply
for farmers but also for consumers, the environment, and the global economy. Crops with
serious health problems are a result of excessive pesticide application. The majority of the time,
on-site identification of agricultural and forestry professionals is used, or farmers use their
experience to recognize illnesses and pests of fruit trees. In addition to being subjective, this
strategy is also time-consuming, tedious, and ineffective. Less experienced farmers are more
likely to make mistakes and utilize medications carelessly when making identifications.
Additionally, quality and output will contribute to environmental contamination, which will
result in avoidable financial losses.
1.3. Objective
1.3.1. General Objective

The overarching goal of this project is to develop an automatic system that can classify disease
categories and recommend appropriate treatments for diseases discovered in maize and wheat.
1.3.2. Specific objectives
 To Prepare a plants image dataset to train and test the prototype 
 To design the model and specify the architecture for the proposed automatic disease
detection and classification. 
 To Develop a prototype for the proposed models to detect and classify the disease.
 To Evaluate the performance and effectiveness of the system.
2. Materials and Methods

The state-of-the-art approach for determining a crop’s disease based on pictures is a type of deep
learning called Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The overall modeling process required
several steps for effectively preparing the data for the CNN model to get a good result. This
includes the following tasks.

1|Page
Data Collection and Preprocessing

To achieve the research image data will be collected from different regions of the country.  Then,
the collected data can be preprocessed properly, i.e., data preprocessing is a data mining
technique that involves transforming raw data into an understandable format

Feature Extraction

Feature extraction involves reducing the number of resources required to describe a large set of
data. When performing an analysis of complex data one of the major problems stems from the
number of variables involved. Analysis with a large number of variables generally requires a
large amount of memory and computation power also, it may cause a classification algorithm to
over fit to training samples and generalize poorly to new samples. Feature extraction is a general
term for methods of constructing combinations of the variables to get around these problems
while still describing the data with sufficient accuracy.

 Development Tools

Several development tools will be used to achieve the study's goal. Edraw Max is used to draw
architectural models. The suggested model is implemented using Google Colab, and some of the
Python libraries utilized are Keras, NumPy, and pandas.

Model Training and evaluating

The collected data were split into training sets and testing sets, to be used to train and validate
the model respectively and to evaluate the performance of the developed models using precision,
recall, and accuracy performed.
The architecture of the proposed system represented as the following:

2|Page
 Load
data/image Model
Data Feature Disease
data collected creation using
preprocessing extraction classification
from different CNN
sources

3. Expected outcomes and Deliverable

The outcome of this research would not be limited to the detection and classification of the
disease of different cereal crops rather the expected results. Deep learning has shown great
potential in the field of image recognition and anomaly detection.

Deep Learning for Plant disease detection 

- Reducing crop loss and

- Increasing income of farmers.
- Rapid identification of plant diseases, which stifle plant development, is a challenge
faced by farmers. 
- Important in agriculture to increase the yield.
- Possibility to address
- It also has important academic research value.

3.1. Beneficiaries
The beneficiary of this research work includes
● Farmers
● Agricultural centers and initiatives
● Governmental and non-governmental organization

3|Page
4. Budget breakdown
Table 1. Budget breakdown
Category Description of Unit Rate/Unit Function Total
activities (person*peridium*day) Price

Peridium Image data Person 724 5*724*25 90,500

collection

Image data Person 724 3*724*22 47,784

labeling

System design Person 724 4*724*45 130,320

System Testing Person 724 4*724*15 43,440

Feedback Person 363 8*363*30 87,120

collection and
modifications

Sub-total = 399,164 ETB

Material cost Hard disk Pc 2500 4*2500 10,000

flash drives Pc 350 8*350 2,800

Ram Pc 3500 3*3500 10,500

Sub-total = 23,300 ETB

Transportation Local transportation 39,000 ETB

cost

Communication Mobile card 15,500 ETB

cost

Stationary 10,000 ETB

material

Write up and 13,035 ETB

4|Page
 publications

Grand-total = 500,000 ETB

5. Work plans

Table 2. Work Plan of the project

S/N
Tasks and activities Duration (Month) 2023-24

1-3 4-5 6-7 8-9 10-11 12-1 13-1415-1617-1819-2021-22 23-24

1 Data collecting

2 Data labeling

3 System Design

4 System Testing

5 Feedback collection and

modifications

6 Reporting and submitting

the project

5|Page
Reference:
1. CSA. 2017. Central Statistical Agency. The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Central
Statistical Agency, Agricultural Sample Survey 2016/17 (2009 E.C.), Volume I, Report on Area
and Production of Major Crops (Private Peasant Holdings, Meher Season), Statistical Bulletin
532, May 2017, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
2. Abebaw Dessie, Cereal Crops Research Achievements and Challenges in Ethiopia,
International Journal of Research Studies in Agricultural Sciences (IJRSAS) Volume 4, Issue 6,
2018, PP 23-29 ISSN No. (Online) 2454–6224
3. Kiran R., Ujwalla, An Overview of the Research on Plant Leaves Disease detection using
Image Processing Techniques, IOSR Journal of Computer Engineering (IOSR-JCE) e-ISSN:
2278-0661, p- ISSN: 2278-8727Volume 16, Issue 1, Ver. V (Jan. 2016), PP 10-16
4. Pratik R., Dev. S. et al, Plants Disease Detection System, International Journal of Advanced
Research in Science, Communication and Technology (IJARSCT) Volume 2, Issue 3, April 2022
5. Monishanker H. et al, plant disease detection by image processing: a literature review, SDRP
Journal of Food Science & Technology (ISSN: 2472-6419)

6|Page