Harnessing mobile pervasive computing to enhance livelihood processes : farmer response to a mobile agriculture information system

Mobile technology is a remarkable milestone in the current advances in Information and Communication Technologies. It is pervasive and is evolving rapidly across nations. This mobile revolution had opened up new avenues and opportunities, to design innovative solutions to support livelihood activities of people in developing countries. Agriculture in Sri Lanka is a sector which had not been fully exploited to identify the potential of developing innovative solutions to support farming activities. Timely and relevant agriculture information is essential for farmers to make effective decisions which would in turn empower them. Providing the right information at the right time required for farming activities is a major challenge as this information is available in different places in different formats. We developed a mobile agriculture information system and deployed among thirty farmers due to the high mobile penetration reported among farmers in Sri Lanka. The deployed artefact was field tested to ensure its suitability to support their daily decision making process. The sample group strongly endorsed mobile artefact and mentioned the potential of harnessing the agriculture knowledge