The Philippines has been described as the "text messaging capitol of the world" (perhaps a little over-zealous, but you get the point.) While only 60% of the Filipino population owns a cell phone (compared to over 100% in the UK,) those who do, text about twice as often as users in the US, for example.
The country is taking advantage of the prevalence of text messaging in a new initiative to improve efficiency of rice farming. Funny, I think of farmers as such a non-technological lot.
Farmers can now text back and forth with a central farming advisory, thanks to a system instituted by the International Rice Research (IRRI) council in conjunction with the Philippine Department of Agriculture. No, they won't be playing walkey talkey all day with rice-paddy-command-central. The system is automated: rice farmers text information about their particular farm, and back comes advice on amounts, source, and timing of fertilizers for growing use. The Agriculture Department hopes this will streamline production of rice and make more efficient use of resources in different regions.
Makes sense. Many Filipinos live on just $1 a day. Text messages on a prepaid Filipino cell phone (most of the citizenry prepay) cost the equivalent of .02 euro while phone calls cost .20 euro per minute, far more expensive. So, there's good reason to text instead of call.
There's also good reason to get creative in order to boost rice production. If it's true that, "In the last few months, global rice prices have fallen by more than 25%," according to Dr. Sam Mohanty, then east Asia needs all the creative ideas it can get.
Regardless of the above spammer, I'm glad that the IRRI are doing what they can to facilitate Philippines' rice production. These days a lot of farmers in the Philippines are increasingly needing to choose money crops such as palm oil for their livelihood rather than more traditional crops in which any excess can be sold on the market. However, it for a while now it has been cheaper for the Philippines to import rice to meet the country's demands, rather than anything else.
Anything that goes towards the Philippines' goal of self-sustainability is always a plus in my mind. I hope the IRRI have made further progress in their development of resistant hybrid rice species.
Note to self: don't post comments after a couple of glasses of wine... my grammatical mistakes are now forever emblazoned on the internet!
Just found this IRRI news--Advances in hybrid rice technology
Recently visited here, and was surprised by the level of SMS penetration in the more remote farming regions. Took a day hike into Batad, which is a remote (and extremely beautiful) rice growing region which requires a 1+ hr 4x4 ride plus a long steep hike away from the nearest village with a paved road. I was surprised to see many villagers with cells used primarily for text. But then, it makes good sense. When the store or a cousin's house is an all day trip, you want to let them know you're coming and text is the cheapest, fastest, most convenient way. My brother refilled his cell phone at a shack up in the mountains near there which was also interesting. They didn't seem to have electricity at the roadside stand, but they had the Globe sign up and were able to send him a recharge from their own phone; he just handed over the cash and told them his number and a few seconds later - voila!
I don't think the impact of this technology on these remote and impoverished places can be overstated.
HOWEVER, I seriously wonder whether a central organization can be of much use on telling these people when/how to farm rice. They've been at it for thousands of years, and despite recent droughts, seem to be more in tune with the plants and weather than I can imagine a centralized organization could be.
The central organization provides these farmers with crucial information gathered from recent scientific research about when to fertilize (according to current analysis of weather patters, etc), and keeps track of where fertilizer can be bought in their region (as supplies are constantly shifting.) More exact timing and better resource management can greatly affect crop yield in a region.