Farmer response towards the initial agriculture information dissemination mobile prototype

  • Authors:

  • Lasanthi N. C. De Silva;Jeevani S. Goonetillake;Gihan N. Wikramanayake;Athula Ginige

  • Affiliations:

  • School of Computing, The University of Colombo, Sri Lanka;School of Computing, The University of Colombo, Sri Lanka;School of Computing, The University of Colombo, Sri Lanka;The University of Western Sydney, Australia

  • Venue:
  • ICCSA'13 Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Computational Science and Its Applications - Volume 1
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

Timely and relevant agriculture information is essential for farmers to make effective decisions. Finding the right approach to provide this information to empower farmers is vital due to the high failure rate in current agricultural information systems. As most farmers now have mobile phones we developed a mobile based information system. We used participatory action research methodology to enable high farmer participation to ensure sustainability of the solution. The initial version of the application based on the preliminary studies focused on the crop choosing stage of the farming life cycle. This initial prototype was evaluated with a sample of farmers to check their willingness in adapting such technology, usefulness of provided information and usability of the application in order to support their day to day decision making process. The sample group strongly endorsed the various aspects of the prototype application and provided valuable insights for improvement.