ICT may prove to be the richest fertilizer to the country’s rich agricultural resources. Useful information and know-how may be deployed to farmers providing them with crucial weather updates, crop recommendations, “doctor” query for crop diseases and other relevant information.
This is not my original idea, mind you... I’ve recently read an article on how ICT was harnessed for farmers in India which got me to thinking that, yes, perhaps ICT is valuable to our down-to-earth farmers… THE AAQUA WEB SITE (aAqua stands for "Almost All Questions Answered", cool di ba?)--- this site contains several forums in Indian languages (Marathi and Hindi, currently) and in English. These forums deal with crops, animals, officials' recommendations, market information and schemes for farmers. aAqua has been configured to work with MySQL, with Unicode support and is built with mvnForum, a FLOSS-based discussion forum application.
(Go to http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8938 for the complete article)
Personally, I think this innovation may lead to a better harvest for our Filipino farmers…. imagine having information when you need it… when is it best to plant kamote… or why do my rootcrops have spots… and so on and so forth… there is limitless possibilities to such a device…. But then again, the level of poverty in the country leaves so much to be desired and perhaps now is the right time to invest in “toys” so to speak…
in any case, what this shout-out really advocates is the need to at least take it into consideration,,, ICT development priorities for the country need to be carefully assessed. It cannot be gainsaid that, in view of the high-level recognition of the Digital Divide created by the rapid but uneven expansion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the country, perhaps setting out the road map for the next years to harness the power of ICT for development, especially in rural areas, may prove to be most fruitful...
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