Supporting Chinese Farmers with ICT-based Information Services

An Analysis of Service Models

Yun Zhang

, Yanqing Duan

and Yanan Hu

Foreign Economic Cooperation Centre, Ministry of Agriculture, Beijing, China

Business and Information Systems Research Centre, University of Bedfordshire, Luton, U.K.

Keywords: ICT-based Information Service Model, China, Agriculture, Farmers, Decision Support, Informatization.

Abstract: Over the last three decades, China’s agriculture sector has been transformed from the traditional to modern

agriculture practice through the effective deployment of Information and Communication Technologies

(ICT). Information processing and dissemination have played a critical role in this transformation process.

However, there are very limited publications regarding the China’s success and lessons learned in utilising

ICTs to support Agriculture development and transformation. This paper aims to contribute to a better

understanding on how different ICT-based information service models are designed and adopted in China;

and to share the knowledge and experience in applying emerging ICTs in disseminating agriculture

information to farmers to improve productivity and economic, social and environmental sustainability. The

paper reviews and analyses the China’s agricultural information service systems and models. Seven ICT-

based information dissemination models are identified and discussed. Successful cases are presented to

demonstrate the impacts of different service models. The findings provide a useful direction for researchers

and practitioners in developing future ICT based information processing and dissemination systems. It is

hoped that this paper will also help other developing countries to learn from China’s experience and best

practice in their endeavor of applying emerging ICTs in agriculture information dissemination and sharing.

1 INTRODUCTION

With the rapid development of Information and

Communication Technologies (ICTs), data and

information can be effectively generated, stored,

analysed, disseminated and used to support farmers

and farming communities to improve agricultural

productivity and sustainability. Informatization, the

transformation of an economy and society through

the effective deployment of information and

communication technologies in business, social, and

public functions, has been a significant phenomenon

in China (Qiang et al. 2009) and is regarded as one

of the driving forces behind the Chinese

government's new socialist countryside (Liu, 2012).

The term of Agricultural Informatization has been

widely used in China, but has no official definition

yet. Based on Li et al (2009), it can be defined as the

degree and process of transforming Agriculture

sector through the effective use of ICTs in

agricultural production, operation, and management.

Similarly, Zhan, Zhang, and Yang (2004) define the

agricultural informatization as a process in which

modern information technologies and information

resources are widely implemented in all fields of

agriculture and the rural economy to create an

advanced agricultural information industry and to

promote the development of agriculture, the rural

economy and society. Liu (202) provides a sound

review about Informatization and argues that similar

to the industrialization, that transformed society

from the agricultural age to the industrial age,

informatization is expected to lead society into the

information age.

With the introduction of agricultural

informatization, the traditional agriculture has been

reformed by advanced ICT technologies, eventually

contributing to the significant improvements in

agricultural productivity and sustainability.

Agricultural informatization is a long-term stimulus

for agricultural development and also an important

indicator of agricultural modernization. The

agricultural information service is one of the critical

missions in implementing agricultural

informatization. China is seeing a rapid growth in its

economy, and farmers are achieving a dominating

136

Zhang Y., Duan Y. and Hu Y..

Supporting Chinese Farmers with ICT-based Information Services - An Analysis of Service Models.

DOI: 10.5220/0005511501360143

In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on e-Business (ICE-B-2015), pages 136-143

ISBN: 978-989-758-113-7

 2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

role in the economic development. They have an

ever increasing demand for using information in

solving farming problems, and making effective

decisions. In particular, since China became a

member of WTO, its agricultural industry has been

strongly affected by markets, resources, and

environments. Facing the fierce competition both in

the domestic and international markets, Chinese

farmers and agri-business managers must be fully

aware of emerging technologies as well as markets

and sales information to maximize the economic

benefits.

Therefore, over the last three decades, Chinese

government has invested substantial amount of

efforts and money to develop and deploy ICT-based

agriculture information service systems nationwide.

As a result, many innovative and effective

information dissemination models have been

emerged and widely adopted (Li, 2010). Farmers

have gained enormous benefits from the ICT-based

information services. However, existing research on

China's agricultural informatization is fragmented

and mostly reported in Chinese media (Liu, 2012)

which limits the knowledge sharing among wider

research communities at the international level. This

paper aims to review and identify the ICT based

information dissemination models in China and to

share the China’s experience and best practice in

applying emerging ICTs in disseminating agriculture

information to farmers and farm communities to

improve productivity and economic, social and

environmental sustainability.

2 MECHANISMS OF

AGRICULTURAL

INFORMATION SERVICE

SYSTEMS

There are different ways in developing and

deploying agricultural information services in China

(Xiong, 2008). The service system mechanisms can

be categorized into three types: government-led,

market driven, and community self-support. Each

type has its advantages as well as disadvantages.

2.1 Government-led

This mechanism is based on the government support

and the services are free of charge and funded by the

government budgets. The rural economic situation is

still poor in China; therefore the services financed

by the governments are currently still the main

mechanism. The government-led mechanism is

based on the government management system

structure that has a top down hierarchy. The

Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) in China has

agricultural departments in provincial cities,

agriculture bureau or agricultural promotion centres

in counties, and agricultural stations in villages. The

advantages of this hierarchical system are efficiency

in management and communications. However the

disadvantages are the government organizations are

lack of effective incentives and the services may not

always be farmers oriented. Due to the free services

offered by the government to farmers, the

government-led mechanism is more suitable in the

low economic development areas.

2.2 Market Driven

This mechanism is based on the provision of

services by organizations that make profit from their

services to individual farmers. The information

sources are from the leading agricultural enterprises

and information providing enterprises. The

beneficiary is the individual farmers who are willing

to pay for the information. From a long term

perspective, the Chinese agricultural information

service must follow the market driven mechanism to

ensure the sustainable information services. The

market driven mechanism is suitable for regions

where the farmers have high financial capability and

know their information needs.

2.3 Community Support

The community support is organized by local

communities; they finance the information provision

through their own funds. The typical communities

are farmers co-operative organization, professional

agricultural associations, industry associations, etc.

the beneficiary is the members of these associations.

The community support is becoming a more popular

and important model in rural agricultural

information dissemination because the government

has developed relevant policies to encourage the

adoption of the community support mechanism. The

community support mechanism must follow certain

policies and regulations by the governments to make

the association legitimate.

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3 AGRICULTURAL

INFORMATION

DISSEMINATION MODELS

AND CASE STUDIES

With the rapid development of ICT, the agriculture

information service model is constantly evolved and

improved (Zhang, 2012). Currently, the agricultural

information dissemination models in China can be

classified into the following seven types:

1. Web Portal – a collection of relevant web sites

to form an one stop centre for users.

2. Voice-Based Service – information

dissemination through telephone, i.e. call

centres, e.g. Liaoning 12316 Golden Farming

Hotline.

3. Text (SMS)-Based Service – jointly operated

by Agriculture sector and Telecom service

providers, e.g Hunan Agri-Telecom Platform.

4. Online Community – membership system,

members involving all stakeholders, share

experience and exchange information through

interactive service platforms, e.g. farmers

Mailbox in Zhejiang Province.

5. Interactive Video Conferencing Service – e.g

Shanghai Farmers “One Click and Go” service,

or Intelligent Farmers service.

6. Mobile Internet Based Service – information

dissemination through smart phone service.

70% 3G coverage in rural China, 60% farmers

access the Internet using mobile Internet

service, e.g. Agribusiness price information, E-

news.

7. Unified Multi-Channel Service Model –

utilising multiple methods to effectively

disseminate information through telephones,

computers, and mobile phones., e.g “3 in 1”

service in Fujian

To select the most appropriate models, the

information infrastructure, the operating costs,

farmers’ capabilities, farmers’ information

consumption behaviour and, most importantly, the

local context should be taken into consideration

(Zhang, 2012). The following sections analyze the

features of each model and demonstrate its

applications with case studies.

3.1 Model 1 - Web Portal

The Web Portal is a platform hosting a collection of

relevant websites. It is an important and fast

information dissemination channel. With the

popularization and application of web technologies

in the field of agriculture, the number of agricultural

websites created in the last decade has been very

high. The establishment of web portals promotes the

sharing and utilization of information resources,

reduce overall investment and maintenance costs,

and increase the service coverage and site visits.

Case study: MOA Web Portal

The web portal of the Ministry of Agriculture was

established in 1996. It was the first ministry website

to establish access to the Internet. The web portal

now has contained the websites from different

bureaus and institutions under MOA. Currently,

MOA web portal includes different types of website,

for instance, the governance sites, and the public

service sites. In addition to the Chinese native

language, English, Japanese, Korean, Russian and

other foreign language are also provided, with news,

government events, online office, public interaction,

and integrated multiple functions of public

information services. The portal has integrated

abundant resources from agriculture-related

departments, allowing the public to access

agricultural news, agricultural market information,

agricultural technologies, and rural life and culture

information.

Operational Features

1. High quality service standards.

2. Comprehensive management and maintenance

mechanism.

3. Provision of diversified contents to meet the

farmers’ information needs.

Service Outcome

The influence of the site has been significantly

increased over the years. In the 2013 annual

performance evaluation of government websites,

hosted by the Website Information Research Center

of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the

MOA portal was ranked third among the State

Council departments, won the management

innovation award, government transparency

leadership award, and the internationalization award.

The portal has 8 million daily visitors from 158

countries and regions.

3.2 Model 2 - Voice based Service

At present, China's rural telephone penetration rate

is very high. According to the National Bureau of

Statistics, as of the end of 2012, every 100 rural

households have 197.8 mobile phones, 42.2 landline

telephones. So the voice service is currently a key

approach to get connected with the farmers. The

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voice service is the use of the call center technology

to provide users with expert advice and automated

voice services. The farmers can call in to get

information and guidance on policy, technology,

marketing, business, life and other aspects. In July

2006, MOA launched the 12316 hotline to serve the

Chinese farmers. Up to now, the 12316 hotline has

covered 1/3 households nationwide, and become a

well know brand name to provide the direct

connection between farmers and experts.

Case study: Liaoning 12316 Golden Farming

Hotline

Liaoning 12316 Golden Farming Hotline was put

into operation in July 2005. It is an integrated

information service platform catering for the

agricultural industry, rural areas and farmers. The

project was jointly conducted by MOA and the

Liaoning provincial government. Ever since the

beginning, the 12316 hotline has opened 66 seats,

responding to approximately 3,000 calls every day.

At the end of 2013, the hotline had handled 3.62

million cases.

Operational Features

1. Innovative development model. Liaoning 12316

hotline is a joint effort from multiple

stakeholders.

2. Establishment of the 12316 “Cloud” platform.

Since 2012, Liaoning has upgraded the platform

architecture with cloud technology.

3. Development of a standardized service

mechanism to benefit farmers. Ite has working

staff on duty 12 hours every day, 24-hour

automated voice service, serving the farmers all

year around.

4. Professional service team. After years of

development and accumulation, it now has a

team of more than 200 agricultural experts and

60 consultants as its professional service team.

5. Provision of a wide range of advisory services.

Service Outcome

The Liaoning 12316 Golden Farming platform

successfully set up a hotline linking farmers to the

government, latest technologies, and markets by

enabling an efficient information dissemination

flow. It is estimated that this service helped farmers

to generate revenues of about 30 billion yuan (c.a.

4.5 billion pounds).

3.3 Model 3 - Text (SMS) based Service

The SMS message service model is operated jointly

by the agricultural organizations and the telecom

service providers (SP). The agricultural information

provider edits, audits, and publishes text messages

through the specified telecommunication channels.

With the increasing number of farmers who own

mobile phones, the information dissemination

through SMS has become a key service model.

Mobile phones have become an important

communication media for farmers in managing

agricultural production and daily life, and

communicating with the outside world. In 2009,

MOA launched a short messaging services using

access code "12316" at all levels of the agricultural

sector.

Case study - Hunan Agri-Telecom Platform

(HATP)

In 2006, the Hunan Provincial Department of

Agriculture and the Hunan Branch of China Mobile

signed a strategic agreement to jointly working on

agricultural information dissemination by taking

advantages of the mobile phone network platform.

Both parties made full use of their respective

resources, and helped promote the dissemination in

the forms of events, websites, posters, text messages

and mobile subscription packages. They established

the Hunan Agri-Telecom Platform (HATP).

Operational Features

HATP is a joint effort from both government sectors

and private companies. The principle of the

management and maintenance of this platform can

be summarized by a few key words: Led by

government, Joined by enterprises, Adapted to the

market, Benefiting the farmers. The expert team and

the market information reporter team are the most

important teams for this service model. 335 experts

were employed in the first round with 60 of them

being the core experts responsible for information

collection and consultation. The 30 market

information reporters collect market, pricing, and

supply/demand information from various types of

sources. The platform highlights a single access to

multiple varieties of agricultural information with

the lowest cost and highest efficiency.

Service Outcome

From 2007, the Hunan agricultural information

service platform has brought enormous benefits with

regard to guiding agricultural production, improving

agricultural productivity and efficiency. It provides

timely and effective technical guidance in dealing

with crop drought and frost, pests, etc. and has been

highly appraised by the users. Up to now, the

platform has more than 10,000 items of information

released, 3 million phone consultations completed,

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and 3 million subscribers, resulting in better social

and economic benefits.

3.4 Model 4 - Mobile Internet-based

Service

This model is developed by taking the advantages of

mobile Internet technologies. Users can be

connected via handheld devices anywhere at any

time. Agricultural information is disseminated to

formers on the move or located in any agriculture

production sites. The mobile information service is

ubiquitous, portable, and geographical identifiable.

It has no temporal and spatial restrictions. This

service model is expected to dominate the future

information dissemination models (Mao, 2012).

According to "China Internet Development Statistics

Report" in 2012, 3G network coverage in rural areas

has reached 70%, the number of smart phones

increased by more than 30% per year in the rural

market, and rural Internet users increased to 146

million, of which 60.4 percent of the rural Internet

users use the mobile Internet.

Case study- E-Price App

The price fluctuation in agriculture products has

increased over the years. This has brought negative

impact on producers’ economic stability and income.

The E-Price App is developed to help farmers and

agri-business managers to deal with the price

volatility. It utilizes the Internet, cloud computing,

and smart phone devices. The App releases

agricultural products prices provided by a

collaborated source from government agencies,

agricultural producers, agri-businesses, consumers,

etc. The App has functions like price push, price

comparison, real time inquiry, agricultural news,

location identification, tailor made price reporting,

and bidding and match making. The App service

provides the price information service in different

trading processes such as: production, logistics,

retail, agricultural materials, price analysis, etc.

Operational Features

The E-Price App provides real-time prices

information for users. The price information comes

from different sources, including government

agencies, communities, enterprises, business units,

and individual consumers. Features of the platform

include:

1. High user participation. The App allows price

reporting by users. Users can act as both a price

reporter as well as a price information user.

2. Accurate, reliable, timely updated service. The

price information comes from different sources

to ensure the accuracy and reliability.

3. Personalized information service. The App

allows user customization. Users can subscribe

to receive the price information based on their

specific interest. The App also has search

functions to identify the users’ current position

and provide location based price and products

information.

Service Outcome

The E-Price App is mainly operated by the

enterprise in collaboration with relevant agricultural

departments. It has been deployed in a number of

provinces and cities and will expand its use with

comprehensive contents, unified standards, and

nationwide coverage. The App has effectively

helped the government to monitor and respond to the

price fluctuation.

3.5 Model 5 - Online Community

In the online community support service model,

people form a community to help each other. They

authenticated personal information. In this online

community service model, members of the

communities include government officers, agri-

technical professionals, industry associations, agri-

enterprises, and farmers. They chat online using

their computers and mobile phones. In the Eastern

regions of China, the computer penetration rate is

high in rural areas. Farmers in these regions use the

Internet to obtain information. Thus the self-support

service model suits those areas very well. Farmers

carry out regular online communications with each

other, helping each other. This model is remarkably

successful in Zhejiang province of China.

Case study - Farmers’Mailbox in Zhejiang

Farmers’ Mailbox is a public service platform

customized to serve local farmers community in

Zhejiang. Farmers register themselves with

authenticated personal information. The platform

provides services in e-commerce, e-government,

agricultural services, and information integration.

Farmers have an easy access to the platform with

computers and mobile phones, chatting with each

other, searching information, etc. This platform was

developed mainly by the Agriculture Department of

Zhejiang Province and China Mobile in Zhejiang.

Agricultural sector in provincial, municipal and

county levels share their respective responsibilities

in the management and maintenance of the

community platform.

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Operational Features

1. Rigorous management system. The platform is

managed in a hierarchical structure covering the

provincial, city, county, township, and village

administration. This hierarchical management

system guarantees the reliability of information.

2. Smooth contact system. The communication

network comprises of contact stations at the

provincial, city, county, township, and village

levels. The platform coverage of stations is

100% at the provincial, city, county, and

township level and 95% at the village level.

3. Reliable system with authenticated information.

The Farmers’ Mailbox project requires real

name registration. Members registration is

verified by the local authorities to ensure that

user information is authentic and reliable.

4. Constant improvement of service quality. More

functions are added to the platform over the

years to meet the growing requirement from the

farmers.

Service Outcome

The mailbox platform serves as a unified agricultural

information service platform in Zhejiang, covering

five administrative levels. It is estimated that

approximately 180 million yuan is saved in total. At

present, Zhejiang farmers mailbox has 2.6 million

registered members, forming a stable customer base.

3.6 Model 6 - Interactive Video

Conferencing Service

The video conferencing service model is the use of

the Internet to achieve real-time video and voice

communications. The most notable features of this

model lie in a visual and face to face interaction,

multiple service approaches including one-to-one,

one-to-many, and many to many services. For

example, farmers can ask questions and show the

pest samples to the experts through the video to help

the experts offer accurate diagnosis and effective

solutions.

Case study – One Click Farmers Service

Platform in Shanghai

The Information Center of the Agriculture

Committee in Shanghai developed the "integrated

information service platform for farmers " called

“One Click Farmers Service” and deployed

intelligent terminals to farmers. The platform

collects and disseminates relevant information

through the terminals in Shanghai. Information

provided covers the policies, agricultural technology

promotion, disaster warning, distance education,

news of village affairs, expert advice, etc. The

platform serves farmers free of charge. The platform

also can facilitate a multi-party video chatting, two-

way interactive video chatting, and mobile video

chatting. Intelligent information filtering and

automatic information receiving are also featured in

the platform.

Operational Features

The platform uses the advanced video and audio

integration technologies and has established a

multimedia call center by integrating analog voice

calls, video calls and SMS text messages. Based on

the Internet technology, the platform enables remote

consultation and communication between experts

and farmers. The multimedia platform allows

farmers to consult the experts either through 12316

hotline or video calling with a single click. Farmers

have the rights to choose the experts. The platform

also supports a 1-to-8 video conferencing system.

This system can also serve the purpose of online

training, and trainings can be recorded for future

review.

Service Outcome

The two-way interactive video service enables a real

time "face to face" communication between farmers

and experts to solve problems in agricultural

production practices. The platform has been further

enhanced and now it has connected experts from city

and county levels, and reached a seamless video

connection between farmers and experts. The

platform provides all-year-around consultation

services in a simple, direct and easy-to-understand

way.

3.7 Model 7 - Unified Multi-Channel

Service Model

As each service model has its advantages and

disadvantages and suits different application

contexts, an integrated service model has been

explored and developed to facilitate the information

dissemination using multiple communication

channels as shown in figure 1. Currently, each

province is exploring the best way to carry out

agricultural information dissemination by

coordinating the different service approaches and

models, to maximize the service effectiveness and

efficiency.

Case study – “3 in 1 Service” in Fujian

Beginning in 2009, Fujian Provincial Department of

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141

Figure 1: A unified multi-channel service model.

Agriculture attempted to unify the information

resources and services by integrating telephony

voice service, Web applications system, and mobile

Internet service into a unified “3 in 1 Service”

model. “3” represents landline telephone, personal

computers, and mobile phones. Farmers can use

these 3 main communication media to access

information anywhere and anytime.

Up to now, the voice service has been the most

popular information dissemination channel that

reached almost all the rural population in the

province. Computer terminals have been deployed in

354 villages. The 3 in 1 service platform provides

agricultural consultation, training, agriculture

information, etc.. The Apps for both Android and

iOS were developed to provide similar service

functions as those provided by the personal

computers. The service platform has 16 service

zones covering 46 service categories.

Operational Features

1. Sound system development concept. The

service system was developed based the concept

of "Government-led, demand led, top-level

design, collaborated efforts".

2. Service concept. “3 in 1 service” aims to

provide free services to the public in a

comprehensive, convenient, professional, and

personalized way.

3. Active promotion of the service. A number of

proactive approaches are in places to widely

promote the service in the province.

Service Outcome

The “3 in 1” service platform is still in its early stage

and it is expected that this unified service model will

significantly improve the coverage of the service

areas and quality of service with more

comprehensive information sources and quality

support.

4 DISCUSSION AND

CONCLUSIONS

Over the last two decades, the Chinese government

has invested a significant amount of efforts and

money in agricultural information dissemination

services and this has been reflected in the

Communist Party’s annual committee’s policy

documents (e.g. Central Committee of the Chinese

Communist Party & State Council, 2006, 2007,

2008, 2009, 2010). These investments have

contributed greatly to the agriculture sector’s social

and economic improvement (Li, 2010). With easy

access to information, knowledge and experts’

support through ICT-based information services,

farmers are able to improve their income and

economic situation through better practice, for

example, in dealing with disasters, pests, trading,

marketing, and with raised awareness of government

support and favorable policies. However, despite of

the great success in using ICTs to provide

information services to Chinese farmers, there has

been very limited publications to disseminate the

best practice of Chinese models to research

communities worldwide. Therefore, this paper aims

to address this gap. It reviewed the current literature

on China’s information service systems development

and implementations. Three mechanisms for

developing and implementing information service

systems are discussed, which are named as:

government-led, market driven and community self

support. Seven information dissemination models

are identified and demonstrated with case studies.

The key impact of agriculture information

services in China can be highlighted in the following

areas:

 Improved the efficiency of Agriculture

Services, e.g. “12316 hotline”, “Unified 3 in 1

services”, etc.

 Increased farmers’ income

 Improved agriculture productivity

 Reduced the digital gap between rural areas

and modern cities

However, there are still many barriers to the

further deployment and utilization of ICT-based

information dissemination due to the following

major constrains:

 Poor IT infrastructure and Internet coverage in

remote rural areas

 Lack of technical support staff

 Limited information and knowledge sources

 Management and monitoring system not fully

in place yet

 Lack of rigorous information governance and

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quality controls

For other developing countries that are still in the

early stage of developing and deploying ICT based

agriculture information dissemination systems,

China’s experience, lessons learned and best practice

can be considered and adapted. The most important

lessons in China can be summarized as the

following:

 Government investment and support

 Top-down approach

 Branding and raising awareness, e.g. 12316 has

been well-know name for Agriculture

Information Service.

 Motivating farmers to adopt the service, e.g.

free services, opportunities to report fraud and

illegal products, etc.

 Government and enterprise collaborations

 Effective use of village based networks and

designated information officers

Looking forward, with the popular use of 3G and

4G technologies, we can expect improved

functionality and enhanced user experience in

agricultural information dissemination. For example,

3S (GPS, Remote Sensing, and GIS) technologies

will also be widely applied in agricultural

informatization. Agricultural information in its

nature has a spatial component, so 3S technologies

which deal with spatial data would be very useful in

enhancing agricultural information service. We have

already seen many effective agricultural information

systems where 3S technologies are integrated in

China, e.g. intelligent fertilizer formulation system.

In the future, all of these emerging ICT will play a

significant role in agricultural informatization.

Having reviewed and analysed the current ICT-

based information service models in China, the

following suggestions can be provided for future

development and research:

 Consolidating and harvesting the investment

made in the last decades

 Transforming agriculture sector into the

modern digital agriculture to further improve

social and economical benefits

 Further improving the digital access by farmers

with technological advances and skills

improvement

 Adopting the Internet of Things in agriculture

sector, e.g. GPS, GIS, RFID, Remote sensing,

Smart device for precision agriculture,

sustainability, environment, food safety, etc.

 Exploring and utilizing Big Data and

Agriculture Analytics Clearly indicate

advantages, limitations and possible

applications.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is funded by Agriculture Technology

Transfer Programme (AgriTT) by the UK

Department For International Development (DFID).

REFERENCES