Mobile Phones for Agricultural Extension

Mobile phones are revolutionised the communication process and becoming all-in-one magical device for anytime and anywhere communication. The last decade has seen a flourish in the number of mobile based agro-advisory service initiatives in the developing countries and more are added regularly in some part of the world. Services that started with farmers help-lines accessed through landlines and messages (SMS) have evolved slowly to multimodal and multimedia based delivery of advisory and to m-agriculture applications for smartphones. In this rapidly changing m-Agriculture scenario, this book is an attempt to document the evolution of mobile phone based agro-advisory services around the world. The content of the book comprises of country chapters on mobile phone applications for agricultural extension from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe along with chapters on global review on m-agriculture initiatives, content generation process and socio-economic impact of mobile phone based agro-advisory services. This book delves into the development of mobile phone based agro-advisory and their content, delivery mode, business model and utility and provides an insight into the evolution of mobile phones as an extension tool in different countries across the globe. The book will provide valuable insights on m-agriculture initiatives for agricultural extension around the world to agricultural students, extension professionals, researchers and policy makers across the globe both for understanding them and working on them. The lessons from the m-agriculture initiatives can guide the mode of implementation and evolution of mobile based advisory services in agriculture.