IJSRD - International Journal for Scientific Research & Development| Vol. 2, Issue 07, 2014 | ISSN (online): 2321-0613 All rights reserved by www.ijsrd.com 433 A Proposed Model for Mobile Cloud Computing in Agriculture Kuldeep Sambrekar 1 V. S. Rajpurohit 2 1,2 Department of Computer Science & Engineering 1,2 G.I.T., Belgaum, Affiliated to V.T.U., Belgaum Abstract— This paper presents the recent development and application of mobile phones and cloud computing in agriculture. Basic concepts and technologies associated with mobile phones and cloud computing is highlighted. For better communication, sharing of information and profitability in agriculture, there is need for collaboration of cloud computing and mobile technology. This paper presents a framework in which a farmer can utilize mobile cloud computing on their handsets using various applications, to assist them for relatively better cultivation and marketing. The main application of this proposed framework is focused on to eliminate the problem of data storage, computational processing and sharing of information Key words: cloud computing, ICT, ICAR I. INTRODUCTION Computer vision, machine learning, mobile and cloud computing are the immerging techniques and are used in almost all fields of research as well as in our day-to-day activities such as medical imaging and agriculture. India being an agriculture based developing country has more than 70% of its population depending on agriculture and farming [1, 2]. The growth in the agriculture production directly increases the Indian Economy and vice-versa is also true. An expert system in the field of agriculture can be the best option to expand countries agriculture production. But the life style of Indian farmers and farming is varying rapidly due to increase in non-agricultural opportunities. The technological innovations in agriculture are not reaching to the farmer’s, either because most of them are illiterates or due to unawareness. Hence, most of the farmers are failing to acquire the possible production rate. The loss growing more than 40% in worldwide which includes more than 19.1% of loss due to diseases caused, bacteria, virus and fungi, 10.2% due to insects attack and 12.2% due to weeds [3]. Information Communication Technology (ICT) plays a vital role to overcome such short comings. In spite of the numerous ICT projects in India, the country is still facing several challenges:  Poor knowledge about the weather forecast, pests and diseases.  Deficient production information  Not enough sales and distribution information  Inadequate information about consumption trends  Poor ICT infrastructure and ICT illiteracy  Non availability of timely and relevant content, non-integration of services, poor advisory services and lack of localization, and in particular non availability of agricultural information kiosks/ knowledge centers at the grass root level.  Lack of awareness among farmers about the benefits of ICT in agriculture. This opens a new dimension in the field of agriculture and irrigation with the help of new technologies, such as image processing, visualization and mobile cloud computing which really contributes in national economy and leads the developing countries to developed ones. Farming is becoming a more time-critical and information-intense business. A push towards higher productivity will require an information-based decision- making agricultural system. Farmers must be get information at the right time and place. Research in Srilanka recently found that the cost of information from planting decision to selling at the wholesale market can make up to 11% of total production costs. The study also found that information asymmetry is an important contributor to overall transaction costs (De Silva and Ratnadiwakara, 2008). II. ROLE OF MOBILE PHONES IN AGRICULTURE ICT, and in particular mobile technologies, are often seen as a game changer in smallholder agriculture. The list of potential benefits (McNamara, 2009) covers numerous aspects of extension and agriculture development: Increasing smallholder productivity and incomes, Making agricultural markets more efficient and transparent ,Linking poor farmers to urban, regional and global markets , Improving services and governance for the rural poor, Helping poor farmers participate in higher-value agriculture. It is clear from ICT in Agriculture Sourcebook [4] that mobile phones have a positive impact on agricultural incomes. Although the mobile phone’s main purpose among the public is for social interaction, it is proving to be a powerful marketing tool. Around 60–70 percent of calls are made to family and friends; business calls typically constitute 5–10 percent of calls. Learning to exploit the economic benefits of the mobile phone is a skill that takes some time to develop. Younger users are typically better able to exploit the mobile phone’s business advantages. A building body of knowledge, summarized in [4], indicates that phones, especially mobile phones, have a positive impact on agricultural incomes. The evidence suggests that farmers use mobile phones to tap into a wider range of knowledge and information than they could access previously. Farmers build up a network of contacts and draw on this wider experience and expertise to obtain critical information more rapidly. Essentially the mobile phone, its special applications, and the Internet (although to a lesser extent currently) are becoming management tools for farmers, specifically in relation to marketing. Research data are emerging on just how much farmers are starting to use mobile phones to assist in marketing their production. For example, work in Bangladesh, China, India, and Vietnam showed that now about 80 percent of farmers own mobile phones (Minten, Reardon, and Chen n.d.). They use them to speak to multiple traders to establish prices and market demand. More than