Consider the numerous ways in which mobile telephony facilitates every day endeavours in addition to offering phone calls and text messaging. The technologies and applications vary from the developed areas to the developing regions, however, people in the most remote and marginalised places of the world are also benefiting greatly from the opportunities that the technology offers to improve their social and economic conditions.

There are 179 million people using mobile phones in Latin America; 82% of those users browse the Internet, 73% send text messages, and 55% are transferring data in different ways1. As a result of the expansion of mobile infrastructure and relatively affordable prices, the use of mobile telephony increasingly takes part of the everyday life of many rural families. As an example, in countries such as Peru, only 0.01% of rural households have access to the Internet while 36.5% have a mobile phone. In Chile, the penetration of mobile telephony is 94.7%.

In reference to agricultural development, the positive impact of mobile telephony becomes evident through the generation of new or increased revenue for the producers and farmers, as a result of the increased communication with suppliers, buyers, producers, and stakeholders. There are various initiatives by civil society organisations and private companies that provide access to market information, offer guidance, notifications, and technical assistance, along with a wide depository of valuable data.

Currently, there are various organisations and projects in rural areas using SMS to disseminate information to the population, such as agriculture and crops information, weather updates, news and market prices, natural disaster information and so on. Mobile phones offer individuals in rural populations the ability to access and interact with information services and databases. For example, farmers could easily inquire or receive the updated price of a product by sending a text message to a specific number.

Despite the lack of hard evidence to demonstrate the positive impact of mobile telephony in rural development, various anecdotes imply the viability of this technology to enhance productivity, to reduce poverty, and to improve social conditions in general. For instance, mobile telephony:

• delivers prompt information that helps understand and analyse market prices, facilitating trade and informed business decisions;
• reduces transaction time, travels, and costs by shortening distances, which allows for a more effective use of time;
• strengthens communications which promote social networks and communities' progress in health, safety, employment, recreation, and other areas;
• increases levels of community participation, facilitating an informed decision making process, particularly, greater partaking from rural women.

Current challenges

Despite the increasing developments and innovations, mobile telephony for rural development continues to face certain challenges:

• Sound evidence: References of the benefits and impact of mobile telephony in rural areas are generally anecdotal. Studies and analysis are mostly empirical and these do not provide substantial data to facilitate their analysis and evaluation.
• Development of policies to expand rural coverage: In many Latin American countries, the model of telephone coverage has been based on profitability, giving access priority to the urban areas which are more densely populated and with increased economic activity. Thus, the most marginalised rural areas tend to have lower telephone density per capita. In some Latin American countries, investment in mobile telephony in rural areas has gradually begun to improve access and coverage; nevertheless, it continues to be limited, hence it is necessary to promote public policies supporting consistent access and wide coverage.
• Sustainability of mobile information service: Mobile services initiatives that are targeting agricultural information to small-scale farming should provide financial sustainability from its initial investment.
• Capacity building: The development of mobile information services for agriculture must respond and adapt to the needs of farmers and their rural communities, while also taking into account the individuals' skills to operate the technology, its services and their applications in the field.
• Payment mechanisms: It is necessary to establish a payment mechanism for the services available to farmers which would also be easier to adopt by service providers.
• Mobile phones' limitations: In some rural areas, access to conventional electricity sources can be very limited, which can limit its effective use in the field, along with the incompatibility between charging devices with mobile phones. Nonetheless, alternative energy sources to resolve this limitation exist, for instance, solar/photovoltaic energy, and rechargeable batteries using dynamos among others. In addition, small screens and certain relatively complex interfaces in some mobile phones may also be a limitation to facilitate its use and to display or collect data from the phone in the field.

Individuals from across Latin America who participated in the international virtual forum in Spanish 'Mobile Telephony in Rural Areas', hosted by e-Agriculture.org in April 2009, agreed on the need to stimulate the development of coherent public policies in order to enhance broad access and telephony coverage in the most underprivileged rural areas, and to encourage continuous investment. Participants also agreed that it is vital to continue to share similar experiences among countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as to evaluate and contrast those experiences with other regions (eg. Asia or Africa). Moreover, the discussions highlighted the need to integrate alternative approaches to gather and analyse data in reference to the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in rural areas to increase access to sound evidence. It was noticed that current official statistics in many countries do not offer a breakdown between rural and urban mobile telephony and many times the borders between rural and urban areas are diffused and difficult to gather for mobile subscribers.