Question 1 for discussion Monday 17 Nov.

Hi Mark, I have a general remark about the use of mobile phones. The use of mobile phones for personal use should be highly promoted and subsidised because this allows to build connections and mantain closer relationships. This is part (at least for me) of what is called "social capital" and is important for develpment as much as technical fiocused exchange of information. It has been estimated that in big companies 50% fo the relevant information is exchanged through channel that are not formal, e.g. conversation at the coffe machine in the corridor.

Hi Grace, I am an MD and I breeed sheeps. What you say it the same that happens here 25 km form Torino (italy) It must be pointed out that here farmres avoid as much as possible to call the vet unless a cattle isd delivering. when they have a sick animal they sell it for meat. the price of the vet is too high in comparison to risks and benefits. The vet here works alot with the cell phone to follow also the therapy from distance so to give appropriate instructions also wthout visiting, some kind of home made tele-vetmedicine

Héléne, Could you provide a link to some examples of the colour training comics you provide? We have produced training posters to accompany solar powering equipment and Macbook laptops we have provided in 2 rural communities in Kenya. We are interested in comics and are using them in other projects. Josh Underwood VeSeL Project - http://www.veselproject.net

Dear All, I love Paulo's story about his neighbour in Italy who gets his "market information" by talking to other farmers in the local bar. I have been told several times in Africa "Ah, but in my country we love to talk" - but maybe this is not only in Africa!. Shahid made the point that mobiles are mostly used for personal communication, and this certainly confirms our experience from a number of countries. But he also observed that people are beginning to use mobiles for contacting experts. I guess this is like the example given by Grace of contacting the vet, which is just making a normal voice call. A number of participants have stated the view that mobile applications in agriculture haven't really been very successful yet, and I wonder why this might be. Sylvester said that some people in Uganda use internet enabled phones to get information, while farmers unable to read and write use mobiles to make a call. So does this mean that SMS services are likely to be too complicated for the majority of rural farmers? Or is it simply not possible to get enough information on an SMS message to be of any practical use? Or do people just like to talk?

Success Factors of Mobile Telephony in Rural Areas (a) Affordability (Demand-Side): The many pricing models offer affordability and choice, even for very low-income customers (cheap handsets, micro prepayments, top-up cards). Innovative ways of mobile phone access, which allow sharing of phones through SIM cards and payments for air time through micro-prepayment, promote even more rapid adoption by the poor; (b) Affordability (Supply-Side): Establishing mobile masts is a relatively inexpensive way of serving large & remote rural areas, compared to last mile cable for fixed line telephony. (c) Flexibility: It is not pricing models that are flexible: usages are also. Mobiles can be used for text and voice and are two-way communications (i.e., more flexible than radio/TV). (d) Low Barriers to Entry: The mobile has become the most easily accessible and ubiquitous communications device in rural areas. Easy availability of low priced new handsets with basic features and emergence of secondary markets for used devices, whose prices are even lower, make them within reach for even the poorest of the poor Studies by the International Telecommunications Union indicate that of the world's mobile subscribers only 33% were in the developed world with the remaining 67% in the developing world at the end of 2006. Recent statistics has shown that Africa has now surpassed North America in terms of the number of mobile subscribers and similar growth trend is being observed across developing world. China is adding about 6-7 million new subscribers per month, India about 8-9 million (CITA) . It is projected that Africa's mobile penetration rate is expected to increase to 31% by 2011 from 15.37% in 2005. One contributing factor to this phenomenal growth has been the involvement of a competitive private sector which has invested $210billion in telecommunication infrastructure in the developing world from 1995-2002. Some examples of the uses of Mobile Telephony in rural areas of the developing world The use of mobile phones has reduced to a large extend information asymmetries, enabling users to access arbitrage, market or trade opportunities that they otherwise would have missed out on. Jensen (2007) in a recent study of fishermen in the Kerala state in India has shown that the use of mobile phones by fishermen in Kerala to arbitrage over price information from potential buyers and coordinate sales has helped them to increase incomes and reduce wastage. This study concluded that the use of mobile phones: (a) increased consumer surplus (by an average of 6%); (b) increased the fishermen's profits (by an average of 8%); (c) reduced price dispersion (by a decline of 4%) and reduced waste (which was averaging 5-8% of daily catch, before the use of mobile phones). Another study carried out by Jonas Myhr on "livelihood changes enabled by mobile phone' in Tanzania demonstrated that increased access to information through the use of mobile phones by fishermen in Tanzania resulted in empowering them through increased bargaining power, knowledge about market opportunities. There were little or no negative effects (Myhr 2006). The use of mobile phones has helped correct other market inefficiencies. An example is the Palliathya help line in Bangladesh which uses mobile phones to both increase access to information for both men and women living in Bangladesh's rural areas. The helpline services included; (a) preventing the exploitation by middlemen; (b) provide employment opportunities (particularly for rural women); (c) reduce information gaps; (d) save cost and time; (e) strengthen access of service providers to rural people. This initiative uses face-to-face contact, together with ICT, to empower women economically, as well as to share community-relevant information on: education, emergency situations, markets, weather, etc The use of mobiles has helped reduced the cost of transportation. Improvements in the information flows between buyers and sellers allow for the efficient trading of information without the traveling. Traders are able to ensure demand exists for their products, before setting out on a journey and also in some circumstances, mobile phones can allow the "middle man' to be cut out The mobile phone as a tool is used in: (a) aiding disaster relief; (b) enabling the dissemination of locally-generated and locally-relevant educational and health information; and (c) promoting social capital and social cohesion Please download the report from [url=http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTINFORMATIONANDCOMMUNICATIONANDTECH...

hi rich postings, interesting questions: some comments and questions: 1. [url]www.mobileactive.org [/url] has a growing database of mobile in social change applications. The database is being enhanced to include evaluations and reports. I think this is the largest online collection atm and it would be excellent if people here, including FAO, could enter their projects there so that we have one place for research. Could we agree to do that here? 2. MobileActive08 (Johannesburg, October) included some m-agriculture sessions. Here is a short video of Francois Stepman from FARA talking about the first workshop. As here in this forum he worries about endless pilots and discusses the constraints to scaling projects. [url] http://blip.tv/file/1482724 [/url] Is it any easier to scale mobile applications than it has been for other ICT4D projects? 3. Francois also argues strongly for the importance of voice applications, citing BT Lifelines - [url] http://southasia.oneworld.net/OWSAInfo/FunctionalArea/KnowledgeServicesD... [/url] - probably the best exemplar of a voice application I know. Here is another interview from OneWorld on the FARA blog site: [url]http://farastaff.blogspot.com/2008/11/advantages-are-of-voice-qas-system... [/url] The constraint to the model is possibly the complexity of the human and technical infrastructure. 4. I am sure we need applications using both SMS (targetted, low content potentially high interactivity applications - low infrastructure needs, albeit still expensive for many) and voice (richer content, more complex infrastructure). I agree with those who argue for the value of simply being able to ask a simple question to another human, and SMS or voice can work as well. Is that interactivity the key added value of mobiles in any mix? 5. Since the UNESCO Kothmale telecentre (2001?) the case for the value of mobile/community radio interaction has been a strong one. I think the case is equally strong for alway seeking to integrate technologies in this way according to needs, capacity and access, and on the basis of existing social networks as exemplified by Grameen and BT LifeLines. 6. I agree with those who suggest TradeNet as a key application. They and MobileActive will be organising an m-agriculture conference next year sometime: dates still to be confirmed. Thanks for all the stimulation, learning and ideas Pete[/url]

Hello Héléne Martin, Some very interesting and helpful information on the Applab site. Given that the communication is sms based, does this preclude the illiterate? One of the examples given on the site is as follows: query - sent from mobile phone: "Cassava mosaic virus" RESPONSE "Dilute 1 litre of milk with 9 litres of water. Spray the solution every 10 days to prevent mosaic virus in tomatoes, tobacco, sugarcane and cassava. Spray every SMS 1 of 2 » 3 wks to control spider mites and caterpillar eggs. « SMS 2 of 2" Or is this not a serious issue in Uganda? Maybe there are initiatives to overcome the problem by involving school going children etc. Also could you please tell us what type of capacity has been developed to address the potentially diverse queries. Are there linkages to research departments or universities or is this managed in-house? Thanks

In every info system development project, it is imperative to involve the users themselves and even other key players, and to get critical inputs from them in order to come up with a system that is really useful and friendly. Of course, the developer must be cognizant too of the features as well as limitations of the available cost-effective and efficient technologies in designing the system, and perhaps integrate any available stable and relevant modules. The point is, the mobile telephony solution, or any info system for that matter, must be able to address the needs of the users, or at least provide them with the important basic information that will lead them to the final resolution or satisfaction of their needs. So if the solution that you wish to come up with is for farmers, the same must have the capability to deliver A to Z, so to speak, and not give them further problems on what to do and where to go next, or perhaps at least guide them on the next steps that are not within the capability of the extant solution/system. The needs of other interested users, like merchants, government, researchers, etc. should be considered too. Jimmy

[quote=Michael Riggs]Hi Pam, Extension and technical advice are important factors in rural livelihoods. Can you tell us more about your services? Your organization and the people who are receiving the information? How actually are they using mobile telephones, what format of information is exchanged? Thanks for sharing! Michael (FAO)[/quote] Hi Michael, I work for the Agricultural Training Institute, a government agency under the Philippine Department of Agriculture, and one of our major programs is the eExtension Program for Agriculture and Fisheries. The major components of the Program are eLearning, eTrading and eFarming. We have launched the eLearning last year and we have garnered more than a thousand interested individuals both from the government and the private sector who are into agriculture and fisheries. The eTrading (e-commerce for agriculture and fisheries) and eFarming (for farm and business advisory services) are still in the works though since we intend to integrate and harmonize the services of the Philippine Department of Agriculture as one whole organization to eliminate the redundancy in our services. You can visit us at www. e-extension. gov. ph. Since mobile telephones are already existing and it has been noted that "Philippines is the texting capital of the world", we believe that even the farmers have already their own mobile phones and they prefer to communicate through it, especially not all rural areas have the infrastructure needed for telecommunications. Now with our eExtension Program, we have initially set up a text or SMS support for the queries we got from our clientele. Through SMS, they can get quick response though. Right now, the information exchange is all about the eLearning courses -- if there's some concerns in the topics they are enrolled in, how they can avail of the courses and notices on upcoming courses. If they wish to be enrolled in a certain course, the enrollment key is likewise being sent if not through email, it's through SMS. I'd like to note that the topics you discussed in here are really a big help for our upcoming projects especially we are still working on the other components of our eExtension Program. It's nice to be involved in this forum. Thanks a lot! PAM Mappala Agricultural Training Institute Department of Agriculture Philippines

Dear Pam and Worali Senyo! Thanks for sharing rich inputs. I agree that 'e-extension' not only through internets, KiOSKs, but by all means of communication including the cheap, personalised, voice mode mobiles with radio etc. can really bring next revolution in rural areas as it cuts the costs of travel, hiring middle men etc. etc. Howevr, I still feel security, tracking and regulations have to be in place before launching any major projet as the device can be misused for many unintended purposes also. Thanks, Janaki