…Grameen Foundation, the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Uganda’s National Agriculture Research Organization (NARO) designed a pilot project to test if data collection and transmission through the use of mobile phones (and GPS units) is a viable alternative to tradition[al] agriculture extension. The project team used identifying, mapping, monitoring and controlling banana disease as a case study to model this new agriculture extension system.
Interesting, no? And, it seems, quite effective. You can read about some of the results at AGCommons. Who’s going to be the first to use mobile phones to map and monitor crop (or crop wild relatives) diversity?
LATER: The BBC has a piece on software for mobiles that will support this kind of application.