Dial 'P' for pest

A project that gives farmers in rural India tailored advice about solving crop problems has won an award. The "Kheti system", developed by academics at Sheffield Hallam University, lets farmers in the remote region of Madhya Pradesh use mobile phones to seek advice and support from agricultural experts. The university's academics worked with a farmers' co-operative to design a software package for use on phones that allows farmers to photograph particular problems and describe what they see on an audio track. The scheme was given an award by the Digital Empowerment Foundation.