COMMONSense Net (CSN) is an ongoing research project that focuses on the design and implementation of a sensor network for agricultural management in developing countries, with a special emphasis on the resource-poor farmers of semiarid regions. Throughout the year 2004, we carried out a survey on the information needs of the population living in a cluster of villages in Southern Karnataka, India. The results highlighted the potential that environment-related information has for the improvement of farming strategies in the face of highly variable conditions, in particular for risk management strategies (choice of crop varieties, sowing and harvest periods, prevention of pests and diseases, ef�cient use of irrigation water, etc.). Accordingly, we advocate an original use of information and communication technologies (ICT). Our demand-driven approach for the design of appropriate ICT tools that are targeted at the resource-poor, we believe, is relatively new. In order to go beyond a pure technocratic approach, we adopted an iterative, participatory methodology. (c) 2007 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Abstract-We describe the on-going design and implementation of a sensor network for agricultural management targeted at resource-poor farmers in India. Our focus on semi-arid regions led us to concentrate on water-related issues. Throughout 2004, we carried out a survey on the information needs of the population living in a cluster of villages in our study area. The results highlighted the potential that environment-related information has for the improvement of farming strategies in the face of highly variable conditions, in particular for risk management strategies (choice of crop varieties, sowing and harvest periods, prevention of pests and diseases, efficient use of irrigation water etc.). This leads us to advocate an original use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). We believe our demand-driven approach for the design of appropriate ICT tools that are targeted at the resource-poor to be relatively new. In order to go beyond a pure technocratic approach, we adopted an iterative, participatory methodology.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can be a valuable decision-support tool for farmers. This motivated our deployment of a WSN system to support rain-fed agriculture in India. We defined promising use cases and resolved technical challenges throughout a two-year deployment of our COMMON-Sense Net system, which provided farmers with environment data. However, the direct use of this technology in the field did not foster the expected participation of the population. This made it difficult to develop the intended decision-support system. Based on this experience, we take the following position in this paper: currently, the deployment of WSN technology in developing regions is more likely to be effective if it targets scientists and technical personnel as users, rather than the farmers themselves. We base this claim on the lessons learned from the COMMON-Sense system deployment and the results of an extensive user experiment with agriculture scientists, which we describe in this paper.