INDIA: Soon, farmers to detect crop disease via mobile

We are relaying this article from India to make you aware of the potential use of mobile phone technology. Market Information System and Agricultural Commodity Payment System are two services that have been already implemented elsewhere.

The new application, known as “mKrishi” will be available to farmers through mobile phones network throughout the country

Published on 11/11/2010 on http://igovernment.in. photo from http://www.techgadgets.in

Chandigarh: Farmers all across the nation need not worry about pests and crop diseases as they will soon be able to get all this information on their mobile phones.
The pilot project will be implemented in a few villages of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh initially. Agricultural experts in some of the villages are already gathering information from a wireless sensor network spread across the farms, wherein based on soil, weather, rainfall and other parameters diseases in crops are being detected.
The new application, known as “mKrishi”, to detect the crop diseases has been developed by Tata Consultancy Services. “It took us more than two years to develop this mobile phone application. This sensing technology will be available to farmers through mobile phones network throughout the country,” TCS scientist Dr Bhushan Jagyasi said.
To cost Rs 100 a month, the service providers will provide application to high-end phone users; TCS will support the low-end users. Once the application is loaded on the phone, agriculture experts will send a set of questions to farmers related to symptoms of diseases in the local language.
“Farmers will respond in yes or no. Answers will help experts in detecting the crop disease, who will suggest remedial measures to farmers individually. Also, farmers can receive the images showing a disease- affected crop,” added Dr Jagyasi.
In Punjab, experts at Punjab Agricultural University will help the farmers through this application. To begin with, this season farmers will get information regarding the late Bligh disease afflicting the potato crop. This application will later be extended to detect other diseases.
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Mobile Phones Connect Farmers to Agricultural Information

Photo from: http://www.ultimategoatfansite.com

Mobile Phones Connect Farmers to Agricultural Information
Sep 21, 2010 (America.gov/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- "My goat is sick. Its neck is swollen. It can't eat," an old woman in a remote village in Uganda said. She spoke to a man passing by with a mobile phone.

"Let me see if I can help," said Laban Rutagumirwa.

He sent off a text message that read "goat bloat." The message went to an agriculture information service devised by the Grameen Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

A response came back shortly with instructions to mix a half kilo of rock salt with a liter of water and have the goat drink it. Two weeks later, Rutagumirwa was passing through the village and came across the old woman. She happily reported that her goat had recovered.

The woman was lucky that the passerby was Rutagumirwa. He is one of about 140 employees of the Community Knowledge Worker program that is bringing "relevant, actionable information" to poor, remote farmers in Uganda, according to David Edelstein, the Grameen Foundation's technology center director.

The program started in 2009 in Uganda's Bushenyi and Mbale districts. Trusted local residents, such as farmers, agriculture extension workers, shopkeepers and school teachers, were trained to disseminate and gather information about agriculture using mobile phones. The workers help the Ugandan farmers treat not only sick goats, but also blighted bananas, coffee berry bacterial infections, discolored tomatoes and other plant and livestock problems. In addition, the mobile phone-equipped workers have put farmers in touch with markets and weather forecasts.

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