Question 1 for discussion Monday 17 Nov.

Hi Worlali, thanks for the detailed contribution. It is very useful as well as the document you linked at the end of your posting. Can you refer about examples in Ghana which are as successful as those described in India and Bangladesh?

Hi Toru, Yes indeed, this is the first instance of a mobile phone manufacturer packaging a Agriculture service. The Nokia Life Tools interface is graphicaly very rich including display in tabular formats for easy readying of price data. This service is intended to work anywhere your mobile phone works, given that most rural/remote areas there will be no GPRS/data coverage. So we use SMS as the bearer to deliver the information directly to the Nokia Life Tools service UI (not in the messaging inobox). The pilot is offering the agriculture services on a monthly subscription basis.

Hi Luca, Like most developing countries, the success factors for high usage of mobile telephone in Ghana are the same as those enumerated in the early post. The story in Ghana isn't much as compared to those of India, Philippines etc.. who have developed and implemented mobile applications for information exchange. Most of the mobile applications being developed and used in Ghana turn to serve mainly the urban dwellers. The active Mobile application which is providing Agricultural market information on mobile phone in Ghana and also some African countries is that of [url=http://www.tradenet.biz/]Tradenet[/url]. Laura of BusyLab Ltd a Subject Matter Expert on this forum can share more light on the Tradenet system. The system basically provides commodity prices and alerts for signed up members through sms. A research group, headed by the Coordinator of the Technology Assessment Project (TAP) of the University of Ghana, Legon, Dr Amos Anyimadu had a study tour of some selected Districts in the Central Region of Ghana with particular focus on fisher folks of Moree. It was established that the fisher folks use mobile phone to communicate with their agents and customers from various parts of the country to find out where the prices of fish were more competitive. The fisher folks also use the mobile device to establish the where about of their colleagues at sea. These information exchanges were largely communicated by voice. Information on weather, health etc.. are mostly provided to these fisher folks mainly by local radio stations. There are a lot of other mobile application services which are mainly for the multimedia companies (Radio, TV) and some private organization where individual text codes to special numbers provided by the mobile networks operators for promotional programmes. Ghana will be going to the polls to elect a new president and some political parties are raising funds through the use of mobile phone sms systems. Recently, Nokia introduced a new mobile internet course to a number of African universities, including Ashesi University College in Ghana. The Mobile Internet Programme (MIP), is an initiative borne out of partnership between Nokia and EPROM (Entrepreneurial Programming and Research on Mobiles), which aims to encourage University students to develop mobile phone applications for use in emerging markets such as Africa. Ghana need to act now to benefit from mobile telephony application as majority of its work force are engaged in agriculture and the need for timely and accessible information on prices, market, weather etc.. is very important to help alleviate poverty. The State and private sector will have to collaborate in this regard. The services that these mobile telephony applications will provide should be a public good.

I am excited to be able to comment on this forum. I agree with Worlali's submissions. The Busylab Esoko projects looks the only innovative project in Ghana that makes use of the mobile phones. Their platform has opened opportunities for farmers in Ghana and many other African countries to advertise their products and prices so that buyers can buy at competitive prices. Again Laura can throw more light on that. M-Pesa (a mobile money transfer through mobile phones) is likely to be introduced next year. Vodafone has bought into Ghana Telecom and would seek to introduce this service which has been a success in Kenya. There is more to come. I know of initiatives (yet to be deployed) to use mobile phones to give mocro-cerdits to rural folks. The idea is to transfer money coupons to the mobile phones of these folks to be retrieved at rural banks. These are my initial thoughts, thanks

[quote=Khalid Khan]Given that the communication is sms based, does this preclude the illiterate? [/quote] This is definitely a concern in rural Uganda. The way we get around it is by training [url=http://www.grameenfoundation.org/what_we_do/technology_programs/village_... Phone Operators[/url] to market the apps and sell the service to their clients. Part of the service then becomes making the question into a query and then reading them off to the farmer. That also provides an extra source of income for VPOs and reduces failed queries since the VPOs know the system well. [quote=Khalid Khan]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? [/quote] The tips were originally developed by [url=http://www.brosdi.or.ug/]BROSDI[/url], a local NGO (we are not agriculture experts). Every once in a while, we go through the failed queries, analyze why they did not work, get correct answers from experts and feed them back into the system. I hope this helps someone in their project! Héléne Martin [email protected]

Thanks for your interest in TradeNet. We are a private company based in Ghana and have developed software accessible via the web and by mobile phones. TradeNet (soon to be rebranded Esoko) runs off a single database where information can be shared across different countries, markets, languages, and currencies. We have specifically deployed our own service in Ghana to better understand the challenges and opportunities facing this type of business. In other markets, BusyLab has established partnerships with organizations that share the vision that better information tools lead to stronger markets, and stronger markets improve livelihoods. In Ghana, we currently have enumerators collecting data on over 20 commodities in 30 markets throughout the country. Our enumerators not only collect information on market prices, but also record offers to buy and sell and profiles of key stakeholders in those markets. This data is available for any mobile phone or Internet user anywhere in the world in real-time. To access it, the users need to have someone register their mobile phones on the platform and profile what commodities and markets they would like to receive information on. Automatic SMS alerts are sent out either as they occur (offer matches) or on specific days of the week (prices). Other market feed capabilities like weather and transport are planned for 2009. Any group, business or individual can automatically build a profile on the platform that markets their goods and services to a national, regional or global audience. Enterprises and producer associations can use our mobile service to send out SMSs to their customers, suppliers and member at a fraction of the cost to call or visit them. Messages sent out could include information disseminated on weather, disease alerts, extension services, etc. With a database full of profiles, we are also marketing our services to company that can advertise to previously inaccessible groups, reaching even the most remote smallholder farmer. To answer your question about dissemination of data, there have been 1,322 offers to buy and sell posted in Ghana alone since June 2008. There are 800 people receiving SMS alerts on a weekly basis; these are all people who replied "yes" to a user poll asking if they wanted to continue to receive these alerts. I will address more about impact and how Tradenet has affected people's livelihoods under the questions posted on Wednesday and Thursday. I will happy to answer any other questions you have about the platform and how it is being used.

Hi everyone, In Western Australia, mobile phones are used widely for general communications. however little research has been done on whether the farmers want to receive agriculture related information through mobile services. Mobile phone services are now available as 3 G services, however cost is limiting factor for most growers to use mobile internet services. My feeling is that sms services would be the best way to deliver information, most economic and easy for farmers. While farmers currently have access to internet through desktop machines, I think most woud prefer a more mobile service that they can access while they are working on their farms. There are a number of factors which will determine the sucess of delivering infomation services in WA, - need to customize the information for the farmer - target for their farming situation - a decision aid component that allow farmer to query and receive customized answers - weather and climatic conditions In term of the actors that are involved in the system. growers are heavily reliant on the government extension (development officers) for cropping information. Most farmers also use private agriculture consultants (Elders etc) which customize farm plans etc. Marketing informatoin is provided by a number of governmnent and private agencies. There are some issues related to who owns the information; that needs to be sorted out mobile services are to be provided for growers, especially in term of variety information and market prices One other factor is that the use of mobile sms to deliver information means that information needs to be tailored to a reduced text format, this factor needs to be taken into account Dr Leisa Armstrong Edith Cowan University [email protected]