Question 1 for discussion Monday 17 Nov.

[u][color][color]Attention: My views are specific to Northeast India only[/color][/color][/u] I am not aware of any systemic research to asess characteristics and success factors in use of mobile telephony in rural areas, particularly in Northeast India. However, some visible impact can be observed in other developed agriculture belts within India where systemic exchange of information in regards of agriulture commudities are done to the benefit of rural agricultural farmers. I am also not aware of any specific process of use of mobile telephony in exchange of information related rural agriculture apart from the process that is used by the conventional mobile telephone service providers. People usually do exchange informations conventionally which includes information related to agriculture marketing, queries related to management problems etc which is not of much general impact specific to rural agriculural communities. Community Information Centres in most part of the region could not make much impact to the benefit of the rural farmers. This is largely attributed to lack awareness amongst the rural farmers, effective management of data / information source, information management at the centres, systemic dissemination of the information etc. Factors that would have been much of benefit to the rural farming communties includes general awareness on the information that the rural farmers can access through mobile telephony and benefit thereof, educating on the use and access of information, development of need based systems in different places, data / information back up system etc which requires active participation of the state as well as other stakeholder also. Factors that needs to be avoid is information overloading, passing off of mis-information and prevent the vulnerable rural communities from exploitation from service providers. In my opinion, mobile telephony is the best tool to bridge the rural digital divide in this part of the world which will help in globalization process too.

There are three important factors which need to be taken in to consideration for defining an appropriate strategy for m-agriextension in rural areas.The factors are the project should address to the small and marginal farmers,it should be demand driven not supply driven and it should respect the soverignty of agri knowledge of the local region.A farmer will use this services provided it has the ability to mitigate the risk which they are facing in agriculture.Just information will not help and escorting the farmer to use that information to their advantage is the critical factor for the success.We are piloting some innovative sustainable model under eKutir banner in India using the ICT platform which is bringing some success .

Hello! Everybody! I am Dr P S Janaki Krishna, working as an Associate Professor (Biotechnology) in Institute of Public Enterprise, Hyderabad, India. With regard to 'Mobile Telephony in Rural Areas', in India, it's slowly picking up. When the mobile was introduced in India in the beginning it was considered as a gadget for elite. However, that was proved wrong as it offers advantages even to a common man. As the common man is the real judge it has revolutionized the entire communication sector. With telecom operators strengthening rural focus, low cost handsets will play a major role. "Emerging Rural Mobile Market in India" shows that mobile industry players are eyeing rural India as their new area of opportunity. The companies are encouraged by the fact that mobile users are expected to cross 230 million by 2007 end and 500 million by 2010. Rural areas are expected to drive the next wave of telecom growth in the country, and they have a potential of adding at least 150 million new subscribers, says the report (PR Log). In India, there have been efforts by institutions such as Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, the World Bank, private organizations and individuals, to start up IT networks, which can help buyers and sellers (in retail businesses and elsewhere) to trade online, agri-goods and commodities. Such efforts also help in accessing information related to product quality, the place where it is grown and other useful information. While introducing mobile network in rural areas we should address the issues of accessibility, affordability, connectivity, feasibility, security and relaibility. The multipurpose mobile, locally made in local languages that are cost effective with preloaded agriinformation in local languages with day to day market information updation will improve agriculture in rural areas. Regards, janaki

We are a seed company in India, we are using for monitoring the crop performance and for suggesting/ delivering instant solutions to the farmer through Mobile telephony. Thanks Jayaveer rao sankinani

Hi Jimmy, you are using mobile telephony in highly productive manner. Mobile Telephony application in capturing a real time situation and delivering to the expert for advise is great. Keep it up. Regards, Jayaveer Rao Sankinani

There could be four main areas of focus for mobile telaphony like mobile entertainment, mobile commerce, wireless business solutions and rural applications. The first set of rural applications may include mobile pay phones, mobile reporter for data collection, wholesale rate updates to obviate the role of middlemen in rural commerce, SMS printers as an alternative to telegrams and public information display boards. The other potential areas include real time weather information, agriconsulting, and real time crop prices.

Dear all, I am very curious about figures, metrics, numbers, parameters otherwise the discussion appears to be very generic. When we speak of village what do we intend? How many inhabitants? 20, 100, 1000, 10.000? I also suggest to avoid moralistic considerations like "business people exploit farmers" we all know that economic mechanism are cruel. If we go moral, then everybody who sells anything is in the loop and is culpable. If all the farmers were able to skip intermediaries, the latter should find another job. Also farmers are concurrent between each other.... one remark, I buy hay from my neighbourgh, to find out the market price (to charge) he goes to the closest village and talks to other peasant that hang around the bar in the main square of the village making htere their business. I am located 25 km from Torino (the hometown of Fiat cars, a high tech pole in northern Italy).

Regarding risks, I have some local experience here in Italy, Here farmers have insurances so if the season is not good they do not deploy much efforts to save crops and prefer to cash in insurance money. They are not very much concerned about weather forecasts because of this. So the concept of what is a risk should be evaluated in the wider frame.

hi Charles Do you have any metrics about tradenet: number of users statistic of use (number of call sms a day) etc? which kind of rural area covers? is it exploited also for personal non trade related communication??

trading online looks appealing to sell products but it could be not sustainable in rural areas unless they have cheap regular mail service. OCCAM explored the possibilities of helping local rural population to sell online their artisanal products in an ict VILLAGE in Madagascar (with sateliite wideband connection and community telcentre) but it was not sustainable as a business model because of lack of shipping service and because of costs (inlcuding reaching the nearest post office