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Philippine Rice Farmers: Texting for Expert Advice

by ryanborja | July 17, 2008 at 05:09 pm | 158 views | add comment

Farmers can text the Farmers' Call Centre for news and advice. They also can post questions ranging from pesticides to modern farming technologies and practices. Answers to common questions can be immediately retrieved from archives, while more technical queries are forwarded to the agency's scientists and experts. Farmers who have multimedia or camera phones can also take photos of sick plants to speed up the diagnosis process.

The Philippines is the SMS text messaging capital of the world in terms of density and intensity of usage. Some people here are getting very creative with using text messaging. Charisma Love Gado of the Philippine Rice Research Insititute (PhilRice) gave an interesting presentation on how farmers use mobile phone technology -- especially SMS -- to access information and tap experts.