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MOBILE PHONES FOR AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION:WORLDWIDE MAGRI INNOVATIONS AND PROMISE FOR FUTURE

R. Saravanan
  • Country of Origin:

  • Imprint:

    NIPA

  • eISBN:

    9789389571110

  • Binding:

    EBook

  • Number Of Pages:

    340

  • Language:

    English

Individual Price: 3,250.00 INR 2,925.00 INR + Tax

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Mobile phones are revolutionised the communication process and becoming all-in-one magical device for anytime and anywhere communication. The last decade has seen a flourish in the number of mobile based agro-advisory service initiatives in the developing countries and more are added regularly in some part of the world. Services that started with farmers help-lines accessed through landlines and messages (SMS) have evolved slowly to multimodal and multimedia based delivery of advisory and to m-agriculture applications for smartphones. In this rapidly changing m-Agriculture scenario, this book is an attempt to document the evolution of mobile phone based agro-advisory services around the world. The content of the book comprises of country s on mobile phone applications for agricultural extension from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe along with s on global review on m-agriculture initiatives, content generation process and socio-economic impact of mobile phone based agro-advisory services. This book delves into the development of mobile phone based agro-advisory and their content, delivery mode, business model and utility and provides an insight into the evolution of mobile phones as an extension tool in different countries across the globe. The book will provide valuable insights on m-agriculture initiatives for agricultural extension around the world to agricultural students, extension professionals, researchers and policy makers across the globe both for understanding them and working on them. The lessons from the m-agriculture initiatives can guide the mode of implementation and evolution of mobile based advisory services in agriculture.

0 Start Pages

Preface   Mobile phones have revolutionised the communication process and have become all-in-one magical devices to create, store, access and sharing of information for anytime and anywhere. Irrespective of age or gender, rural or urban, everyone uses a mobile phone today. Depending on ICT infrastructure, social structure and literacy, the frequency of use or the type of mobile phone may vary, but it has become a necessity and is no longer a luxury. It has become an integral part of everyday lives that its present estimated 6.8 billion subscriptions are almost equivalent to the world’s population. All spheres of life have been touched by the device, including agriculture – the livelihood of millions across the world. A study by Leonard Waverman of the London Business School found that adding ten extra mobile phones per hundred people in a typical developing country boosts growth in GDP per person by 0.6 percentage points. The experts also believe that data services like mobile-based agricultural advice, health care and money transfer can provide enormous economic and developmental benefits in poor countries. The last decade has seen a flourish in the number of mobile-based agricultural advisory services in the developing world particularly and more are added nearly every month in some parts of the world. These services have given timely information to the farmers, but more importantly, has given them improved bargaining position in developing countries which they rarely had earlier. And the reality that they are helping the farmers is not far removed from the hype surrounding them. If we ever look at the way the use of mobile phones has changedthe face of agriculture, it’s fascinating. Services that started with farmers’ help-lines accessed through landlines and occasional messages (SMS) have evolved slowly to multimodal and multimedia delivery of advisory and to m-agriculture applications for smart phones. This change has been characteristic in every country and continent-unique in their own-way with one common objective of empowering the farmers by sharing the information. Mobile phone applications for agriculture are evolving rapidly and are ever changing -newer applications and m-agriculture initiatives are added frequently to facilitate information access and sharing among the farmers and other stakeholders of agriculture. In this rapidly changing m-Agriculture scenario, this book is an attempt to document the evolution of mobile phone based agro-advisory services around the world. The content of the book comprises of country chapters on mobile phone applications for agricultural extension from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe along with chapters on global review on m-agriculture initiatives, content generation process and socio-economic impact of mobile phone based agro-advisory services. This book delves into the development of mobile phone based agro-advisory and their content, delivery mode, business model and utility and provides an insight into the evolution of mobile phones as an extension tool in different countries across the globe. The book will provide valuable insights on m-agriculture initiatives for agricultural extension around the world to agricultural students, researchers, extension professionals and policy makers across the globe both for understanding them and working on them. The lessons from the m-agriculture initiatives can guide the mode of implementation and evolution of mobile-based advisory services in agriculture to go beyond the pilot phase.

 
1 Mobile Phone Applications for Agricultural Extension in India
Saravanan, R.and Suchiradipta Bhattacharjee

Abstract Agriculture continues to be the most important sector of the Indian economy and agriculture is a  more or less a compulsion for livelihood of millions of farmers. Land and water resources have almost reached their limits, price of commodities are fluctuating almost every day, profits are negligible for most of the marginal and small farmers and most of all getting information is cumbersome. In present day agriculture, soft resources like knowledge and skills are as important as hard resources like inputs, and sometimes more important. But estimates indicate that 60 per cent of farmers do not access any source of information for advanced agricultural technologies resulting in huge adoption gap. The requirement of field level extension personnel is estimated to be about 1.3 -1.5 million against the present availability of about 0.1 million personnel. The mobile phone comes into the picture here.

1 - 74 (74 Pages)
INR271.00 INR244.00 + Tax
 
2 Global Review on Mobile Phone Applications for Agricultural Extension
Suchiradipta Bhattacharjee and Saravanan R.

Abstract Agriculture, which was once a livelihood for millions, is now turning into a not -so-profitable occupation. The interest has reduced especially among the youth because of its input intensive nature. Among all other  things, the most important input in profitable and sustainable agriculture is timely information. However, with the increasing value of the ratio of farmers to extension personnel, getting timely information is a challenge. Then again, rationally used, we are surrounded by communication devices and the most essential and affordable of all are mobile phones. They have made communication easier, faster, affordable and profitable. The boom in mobile based agro-advisory services in the developing countries around the world has found its own subscriber base among the bottom of the pyramid farmers in rural areas and has been developing their economic conditions. Their services range from crop information, market price alerts to holistic agricultural information which are available free of cost and under subscription.

75 - 118 (44 Pages)
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3 Mobile Phone Applications along the Agricultural Commodity Value Chain
Benjamin Kwasi Addom and Laurie Moy

Abstract The chapter examines the relationship between the agricultural value chain and mobile apps. Using email survey data from mobile app developers, supplemented with basic desk research, the chapter reviews and analyzes 55 mobile apps based on their location within the value chain, the format of content delivery, the types of device used, the stage of deployment as of  2012, the type of business model used, and the geographic focus of the app. The analysis generally reveals an even distribution of apps within the three main components of the agricultural value chain but when it comes to the sub-categories within the agricultural value chain, skewed distribution was observed. Feature phones remain the dominant device for delivering agricultural information to users, however, increasing number of smartphone-specific applications gaining market. Most of the devices use text format for content delivery with voice, image and video as supplements.

119 - 168 (50 Pages)
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4 Content Generation Process in Knowledge-Centric Mobile Phone Initiatives in Agriculture
Claire Glendenning and Paolo P. Ficarelli

Abstract In the past decade, many knowledge-centric mobile phone initiatives in Indian agriculture have emerged, either substituting or supporting extension services by providing farmers with access to agricultural information. These knowledge-centric mobile phone platforms have the potential to reach many farmers directly with timely and accessible content. But the content that these deliver has more relevance if it is localized and context specific, as this improves the value and actionability of the information, which can have important impacts on farm management. The localization of content is influenced by how the projects access, assess, apply, and deliver content.

169 - 194 (26 Pages)
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5 Socio-Economic Impact of the Mobile Phone based Agricultural Extension
Surabhi Mittal and Mamta Mehar

Abstract Knowledge and communication is an important resource for agriculture and can contribute substantially to ensure food security and sustainability by creating awareness and skill development through access to information. The initial and most prominent player of knowledge delivery is public sector extension services, which from past few years, are usually criticized for their ineffective targeting, poor reach and the huge administrative cost of delivering information. Since past few years, the drastic increase in mobile penetration even in rural areas has lead to evolution of ICT-based extension services models to disseminate agriculture related information.

195 - 224 (30 Pages)
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6 Mobile Phone Applications for Agricultural Extension in Cyprus
George Adamides

Abstract In Cyprus the National Agricultural Research System is mainly under the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment (MANRE). One of its departments, namely the Agricultural Research Institute (ARI), is the only recognized public institution engaged exclusively in applied agricultural research, covering the wider domain of crop and animal production. Another department of the MANRE, the Department of Agriculture (DA) has as its main mission the development of the agricultural and livestock sector through the education and guidance of the farmers, the planning and the implementation of development programmes. 

225 - 244 (20 Pages)
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7 Mobile Phone Applications for Agricultural Extension in Greece
Michailidis, A.Loizou, E. Nastis, S.A.and Chatzitehodoridis F.

1. Introduction One of the most recent running questions of agricultural extension is the potential of rural areas to benefit from mobile communication. Actually, today the increase of the use of mobile phones (MP) is even more rapid in both urban and rural world.

245 - 266 (22 Pages)
INR271.00 INR244.00 + Tax
 
8 Mobile Phone Applications for Agricultural Extension in Japan
Masami Yamada and Koichi Fukuda

1. Introduction A cooperative agricultural extension service has been implemented in Japan by both national and prefectural governments to support small-scale farmers who emerged as a result of land reform after the Second World War (Yamada, 2008).  In recent years, however, the scope and level of agricultural extension advisors’ activities have become more sophisticated and diversified because of technological progress and a wider range of activities, from production and selling to promoting relevant political measures.  On the other hand, the number of agricultural extension advisors has been decreasing for several years because of a cut in government expenditure for the cooperative extension service.  For this reason, information and communication technology (ICT) is needed to promote advanced and efficient extension activities (Yamada, 2010).

267 - 290 (24 Pages)
INR271.00 INR244.00 + Tax
 
9 Mobile Phone Applications for Agricultural Extension in Nigeria
Bolarinwa, K .K., Oyeyinka, R.A.and Banmeke T.O.

Abstract   Nigeria has a very large domestic market, but consumers, farmers, processors and other agribusiness investors are often faced with challenges getting timely and relevant information. However, it has been found out that in Nigeria many people preferred receiving information over a mobile phone than a computer. The problems farmers encounter in exchanging information and that more than half of Nigeria’s population are mobile phone subscribers of which majority of them are farmers necessitate overview of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)  and agricultural development in Nigeria. Literatures were consulted, secondary data, and personal observations were tools used to compile the chapter contribution.

291 - 314 (24 Pages)
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10 Mobile Phone Applications for Agricultural Extension in Peru
Roxana Barrantes and Aileen Agüero

1. Introduction For the last years, Peru’s GDP has been continuously growing, and in 2010 the agricultural sector has played a significant role in this process. According to the National System on Agricultural Innovation, the sector has an important contribution in economic and social aspects.Regarding the former, national agrarian production represents 8% of global GDP.   Statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture of Peru show that the agricultural sector includes 31% (3 million people approximately) of the country’s Economically Active Population (EAP), and 65% of the EAP in rural areas. The latest agrarian census indicates that almost 5.5 million hectares are used for agricultural activities, which accounts for 15% of the total surface.

315 - 326 (12 Pages)
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11 Mobile Phone Applications for Agricultural Extension in Tanzania
Alfred S. Sife

Abstract The contribution of agriculture to the Tanzania’s economic growth has not been fully realized due to the sector’s’poor performance. This is attributed to a combination of constraints, which are often aggravated by lack of access to timely, relevant and reliable agricultural information. The traditional approach of delivering agricultural information through extension services has been criticized widely as there are weak information flows amongst agricultural actors.

327 - 342 (16 Pages)
INR271.00 INR244.00 + Tax
 
12 Mobile Phone Applications for Agriculture Extension in Uganda
Nabireeba James, F.Tenywa Moses and Kasule Ronald

Abstract With the evolution of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Agriculture as the major employer of Ugandans population with over 82% of the population, agricultural information is a key component in improving small-

343 - 370 (28 Pages)
INR271.00 INR244.00 + Tax
 
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