Ag Communications Taken To Its Simplest Form

The farm audience has increasingly become mobile, meaning that a larger share of you retrieve email and browse the web through a mobile device, whether it's your cell phone or a notebook computer linked to the internet through a wireless card. We launched our mobile site, agfax.mobi, halfway through the last decade for that very reason, and about 7% of our web traffic now comes through some form of wireless internet connection.

This isn't a U.S. trend or even something confined to developed countries. Increasingly, ag information is flowing to farmers electronically in places where you wouldn't have thought possible. The best example of this relates to Nokia, the cell phone manufacturer, and a far-reaching initiative it launched a couple of years ago.

Maybe you've owned a Nokia phone in the past. Lately, though, it has been overshadowed in the U.S. by Research In Motion, maker of the Blackberry product line, and Apple, which cemented its place in America with the iPhone.

But in other parts of the world, Nokia is the market leader. One estimate puts its global market share of handset sales at 37.7%. Nokia is big in emerging markets, catering to low-income customers with apps that fit into local needs, and the company identified farming as a segment hungry for information.

So far, Nokia has set up projects to distribute timely information to farmers in parts of Africa and India. The idea is that these farmers will never own a computer, maybe not even a smart phone. But key information - Extension-type bulletins, weather forecasts, pest alerts and marketing tips - could be transmitted to farmers' phones as text messages or simplified web content.

Nokia calls this its "Life Tools" service, and the premium plan costs Indian farmers less than $1.50 a month. A basic plan is half that. It's ag communications taken to the simplest level.

- Owen Taylor