Mobile Based Solution for Harvest Selling System in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Paddy cultivating is one of the major sectors in Sri Lankan agriculture platform. Many farmers engaged in this field facing number of difficulties during phase of selling their harvest due to lack of store facilities and not meeting the expected paddy quality as required by government authorities. It is revealed that information and communication technology (ICT) based solution will be able to overcome these issues as it is practiced in agriculture sectors in developed countries. The Paddy Marketing Board of Sri Lanka has launched a website as an ICT based initiative in order to up lift the status of paddy farmers. However, the initiated ICT based action is not very popular among farmers due to lack of user-friendliness, infrastructure facilities and illiteracy of information technology. Considering the penetration of mobile phone usage in the country, we aim to address this lacking by providing a mobile phone based solution for harvest selling process in Sri Lanka. The aim of this research is to apply the mobile technology to assist the farmers in making decisions such as when to cultivate, what are best seeds and what is the best time to collect the harvest etc. The outcome of this study assists farmers to collect their harvest and sell it correct time, which increases the farmer’s profits in a positive manner.