Development of guided SMS solution in local languages for demand-driven access of agricultural information

Information technology (IT) has emerged as a boon to expedite the process of agricultural extension. The growth in mobile has surpassed Internet due to cost effectiveness. Mobile as a tool holds promise for facilitating access of agricultural information by majority of the farmers. Its promotion has already been started by a few organizations, but mostly in supply mode. Hence, it was decided to develop the SMS based solution that works in demand mode. The solution consists of server stub and client stub. The server stub is a group of applications that receive surrogated query from client component in asynchronous mode and deliver desired information in flawless, efficient and uninterrupted manner. The server stub consists of message process, query process, database and analytical process. Client stub is a single application that is installed in user's mobile. The major functionalities of the client stub are: presentation and navigation, data management and message processing. In the implemented solution, total number of decision points and lists are 495 and 130 respectively. In list total number of elements varies from 2 to 15. The user selects information node from the list as per requirement. After selection of terminal node, message processing layer generates surrogated query which on confirmation is forwarded to Application Service Provider (ASP) end for processing. The solution has been developed for agriculture domain with crop, fertilizer, water management, crop protection, weather and agricultural implements as primary information area.