In the last few years the demand for organic products has increased rapidly resulting in a strong growth of the organic industry worldwide. Organic certification is globally used to guarantee that 'organic' labelled produce follow the principles and standards of organic agriculture set by international and national organic certification bodies. Currently the lengthy and complex process of organic certification is entirely paper based and requires multiple access by organic primary producers to the certifying body involving precise data capture and transfer over a long period of time. The paper based organic certification has some significant disadvantages such as being time-consuming, error-prone (in particular transcription errors) and complex. Any improvement of the paper based organic certification process can lead to higher efficiency, lower costs and time savings for primary producers and certifying bodies. Australia is a major supplier of organic produce holding almost half of the organic farmland worldwide. However, Australia?s unique geography provides challenges by means of huge distances and poor rural telecommunication coverage for the sustainable agriculture sector. The disadvantages of the paper based organic certification are this kind of environment more severe. Up until now, there has not been a software solution supporting organic primary producers in their certification process, let alone a mobile software solution. In any case there are many farm management software solutions available but they do not take into account the specific issues in organic agriculture such as soil management, pest control, or fertilisation of land/animals. The Mobile Organic Certification (MobiCert) project was created to overcome these disadvantages focussing on the development of a mobile information portal which can be accessed through mobile Internet using GPRS or 3G technology enabling primary producers access and provision to organic certification related information in field using their mobile phones. The MobiCert project investigates the effectiveness of mobile devices (mobile phones/PDAs) for (some of) the stages of the computerised organic certification, in particular in terms of information access and provision. Designed as a proof-of-concept project the investigation takes place in South Australia targeting the NASAA organic certified primary producers there. The MobiCert project is a pilot project within the SAmCom (Sustainable Agriculture m-Commerce) project framework, which aims to enhance the information access and provision for primary producers through m-Commerce. It is a joint project of the University of South Australia, m.Net, NASAA, e-Cert and the Fraunhofer Institute Using a qualitative approach in a rapid appraisal case study the goals of the MobiCert project are: to create a theoretical model (RuTADIM) for the mobile technology acceptance and diffusion of innovation in remote and rural areas; and to develop and test a prototype mobile information community for organic certification which provides access to data and information related to organic certification, (online and offline) record keeping functionalities, as well as community functionalities for communication and experience exchange of primary producers. The results of the proof-of-concept MobiCert project suggest that organic primary producers can benefit from a mobile information platform to access and provide information in rural and remote areas. The high acceptance of organic primary producer to use the mobile information community indicates the willingness to embrace new technology and solutions in the existing organic certification process. The benefits and acceptance of the MobiCert solution have to bee affirmed in follow on field studies incorporating other issues such as the underlying business models. The contributions of the MobiCert project are two-fold: firstly, it provides a theoretical model (RuTADIM) which gives insights of key influence factors for the acceptance of mobile technology and the diffusion of innovation in rural and remote areas. The RuTADIM model can be foundation for future research projects involving mobile technology rural and remote areas. Secondly, the MobiCert information community displayed the potential of mobile solutions for primary producers in remote and rural areas. The MobiCert platform is a stepping stone for future mobile solution which can build upon this platform.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/269109 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Lu, Nhiem |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | EN-AUS |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Nhiem Lu 2007 |
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