Developing a smartphone app for m-government in agriculture

The high penetration of smartphones and the advanced capabilities of the software that they can host, forces public agencies to rapidly transform their services in the mobile government environment for maximizing utility of services and minimizing costs. In this context, the aim of the paper is primarily to review the smartphone use and capabilities in agriculture. An overview of apps targeted to the agricultural business sector is provided. Secondly, the potential use of smartphones for mobile government is discussed and a transactional mobile government app for the Android operating system is proposed based on a case study for agriculture. The mobile government app is based on a previously developed electronic government system for farmers. Design and technical aspects for the implementation of the proposed app are presented and discussed. Such apps hope to be a promising solution for farmers enabling them to access government information and transact with public agencies at their convenience and at a location of their choice.