A large consideration in Africa for building systems to deliver data and information is the delivery mechanism itself. Unlike the highly connected, relatively cheap bandwidth environments of the United States and Europe, most of Africa is not connected. This is especially true for rural farmers, the people who we are eventually trying to serve. 
The rise in use of mobile phones in Africa has been well documented. Applications for mobile devices are currently under development by a variety of private sector groups such as Nokia and Safaricom and by large international organizations such as CARE international, catholic relief services (CRS) and the World Food Program (WFP). Platforms such as FrontlineSMS and RapidSMS are free, widely deployed and rapidly being developed.
Mobile phones are great for delivering small amounts of information, but far more people in Africa are connected through local radio and in many cases print media. In most cases a hard copy map can take the place of a dynamic mapping web site. So its critical not to forget low tech means of communications to delivery highly relevant, location based information to rural communities. AGCommons is not about creating complex systems or developing high tech information systems for end users. These things may exist as part of an overall architecture, but the goal should be to use these technologies to deliver relevant, location based information using the most appropriate means available which in most cases is a simple radio.
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