DatAgro proyecta ampliar su alcance a todo el país

Infoweek reports that DatAgro, a text-message service that gives small farmers in Region VI of Chile information they can use, has completed a seven-month trial with Cooperativa Coopeumo. Thirty members of the cooperative first had to learn to open, read and answer text messages on their phones. The article says the farmers have since received more than 11,000 messages with information.

John Zoltner, general manager of The Zoltner Consulting Group, which ran the work locally, says the trial results support extending the service to other communities. The article names DataDyne.org, a nonprofit that created the open-source mobile software, and credits Unesco, the Fundación para la Innovación Agraria and Entel PCS, which supplied the mobile phones.

After the trial, the cooperative’s members were certified as instructors so they can train others. The article also notes that DataDyne.org had recently won a Wall Street Journal Innovation Award in health information technology.