Farming meets technology in new Fraunhofer app

Smart phones have become an omnipresent part of our day-to-day lives. Whether you own one yourself or not, on every corner there is a man scrolling through headlines on his and on every bus there is a girl updating her facebook status. The popularity of smart phones and the apps that have helped catapult mobile technology into the 21st century has led to a new branch of creativity. Apple alone offers 500,000 apps in its online store, and last week German research foundation Fraunhofer announced a new app that will make work easier in an unlikely setting: on the farm.

Smart phone apps are being developed to fit into every aspect of our lives. Photo (cc) flickr user Kevin H.

Operating a modern farm is no longer the stuff of Little House on the Prairie.  In the last hundred years, as farming has become more industrialized, it has become a big business, and organizing workers, plantings, and harvests has become more complex then ever before because of this increase in scale.  The Fraunhofer researchers who developed this new app hope to help ease the coordination of numerous agricultural workers and machines.

“In the future, smartphones will become more and more popular in the field, making work easier for farmers and agricultural subcontractors alike,” explains a Fraunhofer press release about the app.  “They will enter their work instructions on their computer or mobile tablet, and the harvest assistants will receive these updates on an app especially designed for the purpose on their smartphones. The benefits: The instructions can be adjusted to the situation at hand at any time. Employees can also use the app to document their work better than before, showing with just a few 'touches,' for instance, when they began working on which tasks in which fields, and indicating where and why there were any delays.”

Researchers partnered with John Deere on the project, but found the biggest challenge to be creating an app that was both effective and user-friendly.  “To do this, we involved end users in the process at an early stage—farmers, agricultural subcontractors and workers. They tested the app at various times; this helped us tailor it to their requirements,” Head of “Business Goes Mobile” Ralph Carbon explained.

The app will be presented at CeBIT 2012, being held from March 6-10 in Hanover, Germany.  The group will simultaneously present an application designed to help business travelers keep track of their working hours and expenses while on the road.