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 used globally to guarantee that organic labelled producers 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, requires organic primary producers to have access to the certifying body, and involves precise data capture and transfer over a long period of time. The paper based organic certification process has some significant disadvantages such as being time-consuming, error-prone (particularly transcription errors) and complex. Any improvement of the paper based organic paper 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 due to huge distances and poor rural telecommunication coverage for the sustainable agriculture sector. Up until now there has not been a software solution supporting organic primary producers in their certification process, let alone a mobile software solution. 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. / The Mobile Organic Certification (MobiCert) project was created to overcome these disadvantages by focussing on the development of a mobile information portal which can be accessed through mobile Internet using GPRS or 3G technology, thus enabling primary producers to access organic certification related information in the field using their mobile phones. / 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 benefits and acceptance of the MobiCert solution have to be affirmed in follow-on field studies incorporating other issues such as the underlying business models. / Thesis (PhDInformationTechnology)--University of South Australia, 2007.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/267076 |
| Creators | Lu, Nhiem. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | copyright under review |
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