An experience in deploying GreenEve2Peace: M-community for farming community in Malaysia

The way in which information are disseminated in the agriculture sector in Malaysia is mostly through conventional means. The authorities publish notices on the notice boards and sent patrolling car to each agriculture areas to broadcast farming scheduling information to farmers using mobile loud speaker. Besides, farmers rely on weather forecast information from local television channels, and newspapers to plan their farming activities. The inability of getting instant access to information which is crucial to farming has posed the farmers to greater vulnerability of their livelihoods. Currently, farmers are not exposed to ICT integrated application which can help them to manage their daily farming activities and provide accurate weather forecast. Therefore, GreenEve2Peace that uses a modern way of information dissemination by utilizing mobile technology is introduced for the farming community. The approach is design to provide timely information on paddy planting activities, pest and disease control, weather forecast service and allow two way communications among the farmers and the authorities via the Short Message Service (SMS) and online portal. In this paper, we relate our experience in deploying the approach for farming community in a selected area in Malaysia. The approach manage to improve farmers´ livelihood by providing them better access to information, enhance their human capital, strengthen the connectivity among farmers and the authority, and saves cost and time. The problems in this study included farmers acceptance level towards ICT integration in agriculture and to identify a sustainable business model to deliver the service without relying on governmental support.