Discussion: Four years ago, China Mobile launched Nongxintong, a farming information service that delivers timely information and news directly to rural Chinese farmers via their mobile phones.  Running on a web and mobile-based platform, subscribers receive text or audio messages updating them on market prices, buyers, sellers, and job opportunities – all tailored to their needs.  Meanwhile, the social networking site Wokai connects the profiles of Chinese borrowers with lenders from 47 countries, an incredible resource for the second largest micro-credit demand in the world.  The bottom line: rural Chinese farmers save time and energy, reduce costs, increase profits, and perhaps most importantly, have less worries.

Source: BBC News

Date: December 19, 2010

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12010549

Questions for discussion:

• Discuss how mobile farming is helping to narrow the huge income gap between rural counties and bustling cities in China.
• Thus far, why are smartphones for 700 million rural Chinese more efficient and less costly than the Internet?