Wireless Farming: a mobile and Wireless Sensor Network based application to create farm field monitoring and plant protection for sustainable crop production and poverty reduction

Abstract: There is a remarkable growth in the field of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in Developing Countries (DCs). Telecommunication is one of the areas where ICT is recording an ongoing rapid change. Mobile phones are becoming pervasive in daily scenario; and among the beneficiaries of this are farmers. Farmers are using mobile phones in executing their farming business and daily life. At the same time, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are also showing a result in developed part of our world. WSNs potential in sensing various environmental condition, their affordability and applicability motivated conducting of this master thesis. Therefore, the objective of conducting this master thesis is to investigate and identify how the use of mobile phones in conjunction with WSN enable farmers in Ethiopia monitor and control their farm field. We use firsthand qualitative data we gathered during our field work in Ethiopia to design our proposed prototype. Functional requirements and system design guideless are obtained from observation we make and interviews we carry out on irrigation based farmers around town of Meki in region of Oromia. We use our prototype to demonstrate and evaluate how irrigation based farmers benefit from existence of such system.