IADIS International Conference e-Society 2006

IMPLEMENTING E-GOVERNMENT SERVICES FOR AGRICULTURE: THE GREEK CASE

M. Ntaliani, S. Karetsos, C. Costopoulou
Informatics Laboratory, Agricultural University of Athens, 75 Iera Odos, 118 55 Athens, Greece

ABSTRACT In our days, one of the main goals for e-government is to be citizen centric, which leads to the study and development of specialized e-government models for different sectors. Agriculture is a significant sector of economy in several countries, comprising numerous fields of specialization and involving many parties of diverse interests. In Greece, the administration of the agricultural sector comprises of a complex net of governmental agencies, such as the Ministry of Agriculture, local Rural Development Directorates, and quasi-public organizations as well as the recipients of the government services, who have different requirements and interests according the agricultural field of activation. In this context, this paper presents the development of a Web-based information system for the provision of online information and e-government services for Greek agribusinesses. The development of such an agro-centric e-government system requires initially the user requirements, secondly the design of the system and finally its implementation and evaluation. KEYWORDS e-government, portal technology, agriculture

1. INTRODUCTION
During the last years, electronic government (e-government) has attracted the attention of governments and non governmental organizations, which have set aside significant funding for e-government initiatives. Egovernment is defined as the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in public administrations combined with organizational change and new skills in order to improve public services and democratic processes and strengthen support to public policies (Commission of the European Communities 2003). E-government operates on four different levels represented by the following relationships: government to citizens (G2C), government to employee (G2E), government to businesses (G2B), and government to government (G2G) (Ndou 2004). E-government is not only about putting government services online; it involves a fundamental change in the way public services are delivered and managed, in other words e-government contributes to the transformation of public services. In this light, the European Union, as well as many governments around the world, is devoting many resources to relevant initiatives. Recently, the Commission confirmed its commitment to e-government by adopting the strategic framework eCommission 2006-2010, in this way implementing its information society policy to its own administration. In Greece, various efforts have been made for the implementation of e-government, but more importantly the vision for and commitment to e-government seem to have been set in a more tangible basis, as the Minister of the Interior, Public Administration and Decentralization has declared that reforming the state through e-government is a key goal and priority for Greece (E-government News 2004). Today, according to a recent survey concerning Internet penetration in various sectors of the Greek society based on eEurope/i2010 indicators and conducted by the Observatory for the Society of Information, only 25% of public services are available via the Internet (Reporter 2005). This fact evinces that the way ahead for reaching fully integrated e-government is still long, and in order to succeed this journey future plans, strategies and programs have to embody validated knowledge and correspond flexibly to emerging necessities.

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Nowadays globally, one goal is the transformation of government to be truly citizen centric and most egovernment programs are following this tension (Accenture 2004). Moreover, e-government can benefit from more focused studies on particular governmental agencies (Costopoulou et al. 2003). Among the emerged demands is the study and development of specialized e-government models for different business sectors (Beynon-Davies et al. 2003). E-government models for particular business sectors take into account the needs, habits and capabilities of all the participants of the sector, including government employees. This in turn, contributes to the more efficient provision of services tailored to fit to users, efficient resources management and reduction of cost and time. Agriculture is a significant sector of economy, comprising numerous fields of specialization and involving many parties of diverse interests, including producers, agribusinesses, consumers, agricultural agencies etc. Since, in most cases producers run their own agricultural businesses, they can be identified with agribusinesses. Hence, in the rest of this paper, the term agribusiness includes either individual producers or agribusinesses (e.g. food companies). In Greece, the administration of the agricultural sector comprises of a complex net of governmental agencies, such as the Ministry of Agriculture, local Rural Development Directorates (RDDs), and quasi-public organizations as well as the recipients of the government services, who have different requirements and interests according the agricultural field of activation. For example, though a sericulturist is interested in using different services from a horticulturist, both of them have to contact with the same governmental agencies. In order to succeed the transition from traditional provision of governmental services to e-government, the thorough study of each agricultural field is considered vital. Although there are countries, which are providing e-government services for agriculture, such as the USA (http://www.egov.usda.gov/), France (http://www.agriculture.gouv.fr/), Singapore (http://www.ava.gov.sg/) and Australia (http://www.affa.gov.au/), only few specialized e-government models and systems exist, taking into account the particularities, priorities and different needs of the agricultural sector (USDA 2002, Delcambre et al. 2003). The scope of the paper is the presentation of an agro-centric e-government system based on portal technology for the provision of e-government services and online information for Greek agribusinesses. Thus, the system provides G2B services -referring to the interactions between government and agribusinesses. It particularly focuses on the fields of Sericulture, Apiculture, Horticulture and Forestry and is entitled as AgriPortal. The development of the AgriPortal system requires initially the user requirements, secondly the design of the system, and finally its implementation and evaluation. The proposed system is being developed under the research project Pythagoras: A pilot system for electronic agricultural services, which is funded by the European Union and the Greek Ministry of Education.

2. THE GREEK AGRIPORTAL SYSTEM

The methodology followed for the deployment of the Greek AgriPortal system is distinguished into four stages, namely: users requirements analysis, system design, system implementation and evaluation.

2.1 Users Requirements Analysis

The determination and analysis of user requirements is of particular importance, since it contributes to the better delineation of the users profile and more profound comprehension of their beliefs and needs, as well as to the creation of a package of certain requirements, easily coherent from system designers. The gathering of user requirements has been succeeded through various ways and sources. Firstly, personal interviews in agribusinesses were conducted, using four different kinds of questionnaires, customized for each of the four agricultural fields under study, namely Sericulture, Apiculture, Horticulture and Forestry. In total, the sample is consisted of 435 agribusinesses, which are located in various districts of Greece. Each questionnaire is also available for completion and online submission through the AgriPortal. Secondly, personal visits to agricultural governmental agencies around Greece -such as the Ministry of Agriculture and its Departments related to the particular sectors, as well as various RDDs- and cooperation with the commissioned employees contributed to user requirements feedback from the governmental agencies point of view. Also, meetings and counseling with field experts from agricultural universities have taken place. In addition, significant information has been derived from the study of relevant literature and from an elaborate review of e-

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government portals for agriculture through the Internet such as the USAs, Frances, Australias and Singapores. The fact that the interviewed agribusinesses activate in different agricultural fields adds value to the analysis, since it gives a more integrated approach to the collection of the user requirements. The questions included in the questionnaires concerned the following characteristics: Age: 18-34, 34-55, 55+. Agricultural field of activity: Sericulture, Apiculture, Horticulture, Forestry. Possession of personal computers (PC) and/or mobile phone. Knowledge of the notion and use of the Internet. Reasons for using or not the Internet for finding information and services concerning agriculture. Expression of interest towards using the Internet for a set of proposed services. Use of Short Message Service (SMS) of mobile phones. Expression of interest in using SMS for acquiring information concerning agriculture. Expression of preference between services provided through a mobile phone and/or a PC. As far as the age distribution is concerned, more than half are between 34-55 years old, while almost 25% of the sample are older than 55 years. Through the traditional way, in order to retrieve information and services agribusinesses have to visit a governmental agency that plays the part of the intermediary between the producer and the Ministry of Agriculture. In most cases, this role is played by the local RDDs. Most of the interviewed people pay visits to an RDD nonscheduled-whenever it is necessary-or some times a year. The most important reason for contacting an RDD is for asking for information and advice for cultivations and secondarily asking for information concerning subsidies and indemnifications. Regarding the quality of the provided services at the RDDs, almost half of the sample considers that are at a good level but there is still room for further improvement, whereas 25% feel unsatisfied, supporting that they are not good to totally insufficient. The global objective is to allow different agricultural stakeholders to act collectively, reduce delays and costs, and eliminate the need for frequent visits to governmental offices (Mahaman et al. 2005). Passing to the part concerning ICTs, it seems that there is poor knowledge and comprehension of the concept of Internet, since more than half of the sample, namely 60%, does not understand or has a fuzzy impression of it and only 1/3 of the sample comprehends it clearly. In point of the possession of PC and/or mobile phone, only 1/4 of the sample acquires a PC, almost 65% of which have also Internet access. On the other hand, the smashing majority (90%) acquires a mobile phone and very few (3%) have Internet access. It must be noted that a great part (35%) did not answer the question concerning the possession of a PC. Based on the complete profile of the interviewed persons and their answers we have well-grounded evidence to believe that this great lack of participation is due to misunderstanding of the way of completing the answers and that a significant part of those do not acquire a PC. In total, 80% does not use the Internet. Still, some of them have visited Web sites containing information relevant to their field of activity or the Web site of a governmental agency (e.g. the Greek Ministry of Agriculture). The main reasons for not using the Internet, in order of declining significance, are lack of training, ignorance of the English language and the cost for purchasing a PC and for accessing the Internet. Also, among other reasons that play an inhibitory role for the use of Internet are the consideration that Internet is not useful for their business and they have not needed it so far, lack of time since their job is timedemanding and old age. From those using the Internet, most of them (80%) have visited the Web site of a governmental agency (e.g. the Greek Ministry of Agriculture) and a significant part (60%) has visited sites containing information relevant to their field of activity and more than 1/3 has submitted an application electronically. In any event, 40% encounters problems at finding useful information via the Internet. In the next part of the questionnaire, we inquired about the future intention to use the Internet for a set of twelve proposed services. These services are: information search from the Web site of the Ministry of Agriculture, provision of applications, notification for the approval or rejection of applications, posing questions, promotion of their business, finding buyers for direct product sales, promotion of products to new markets, purchasing products from private businesses, banking transactions, e-learning and finding information regarding marketing and distribution of products. Unfortunately, a significant portion (30%) has not answered the question, which according to our estimations is mainly due to the misunderstanding of the question mostly from those that do not use the Internet. From those who answered, the most important reasons for an impeding use of the Internet are, in order of declining significance, e-learning, purchase of products from private businesses and finding information from the Web site of the Ministry of Agriculture,

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finding information concerning marketing and distribution of products as well as the promotion of their business via the Internet. The lowest interest has been showed for banking transactions, mainly because of lack of trust in their safe completion via the Internet. In addition, half of those acquiring a mobile phone use the SMS. A great percentage that comes up to 80% would like to be notified through the SMS for particular issues of their interest, such as weather forecasting, impeding threats-extreme phenomena and product prices. Lastly, 60% of the sample considers that they would use more often their mobile phone than a PC for being informed. In conclusion, the agribusinesses show interest in the following: access to specialized and certified information regarding their field of interest, provision of e-government services, provision of e-commerce services, and provision of information and services through mobile phones.

2.2 System Design

The system design includes the determination of the functional requirements and the system architecture. As far as the functional requirements of the system are concerned, the proposed system is based on portal technology. The deployment of the system serves three keystones, namely the provision of information and e-services and multi-channel communication via PCs and mobile phones. Figure 1 presents the AgriPortal model. It can be accessed from agribusinesses through PCs and/or mobile phones, while third parties, such as the Ministry of Agriculture, institutions, prefecture agencies as well as other organizations related to agriculture are the content providers, providing the back-office feedback.
AgriPortal
Personal Computer Web-based Portal (Joomla) Ministry of Agriculture

Prefecture Agencies

Agribusiness
Mobile Phone

Mobile Portal (PlaySMS)

Institutions

Organizations Related to Agriculture

Figure 1. The AgriPortal Model

Regarding the system architecture (Fig. 2), the AgriPortal is distinguished into three levels: users, network and portal. Furthermore, the portal has the following layers: The data layer that has been implemented with MySQL, which is an open source database management system. The application layer that was based on the Joomla software for access through PC and PlaySMS software for SMS use. Joomla is an open source portal engine and content management system. Some of the reasons for selecting Joomla are its flexible, open and easy adaptable to various needs architecture, the friendliness and ease of management, the variety of free and commercial components, modules etc, and the fact that it is a cost effective solution, since it is an open source software. The main characteristic of Joomla is the ability of authorizing access to certified persons for modifying the portal content through the Internet. PlaySMS is an open source flexible Web-based Mobile Portal System (MPS) written in PHP and using the MySQL database server. It can be used for: (1) Sending messages to single mobile phone (Web2mobile). (2) Broadcasting messages to a group of mobile phones (Web2mobiles). (3) Reception of private text messages

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to Inbox (mobile2Web). (4) Dispatching single message from mobile phone to a group of mobile phones (mobile2mobiles). (5) Auto-replying formatted incoming message. (6) Message board for forwarding received text messages to email. (7) Polling system management. The presentation layer that is currently being tested and improved in order to evaluate its performance in a wide range of mobile phones.

Figure 2. The AgriPortal Architecture

2.3 System Prototype

Currently, the AgriPortal system offers the following online information and services: General information about the agricultural fields in focus. Specialized information for certain cultivations and cultivation techniques. Downloading of official papers, such as forms. Information about completing a process (e.g. acquiring a certificate). Online questionnaires. Events (e.g. expositions about new technology, conferences concerning new knowledge, educational seminars for training on new methods of cultivation, etc). Frequently asked questions. Useful links. Forum. The system prototype can be found at http://meli.aua.gr/agroportal/. Figure 3 shows a screenshot from the home page of the AgriPortal system.

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.
Figure 3. The AgriPortal prototype

3. CONCLUSION
It is a fact that though governments are supporting e-government initiatives and have made fundamental efforts to remove barriers to access (Accenture 2004), low user take-up of e-services still remains a substantial problem (Traunmuller et al. 2004). This reality contributes to the reconsideration of e-government strategy. Different scenarios and alternative approaches have to be reckoned so as to fit to various sectors of implementation. Also, the successful deployment and further development of e-government services and resources has to be based on a bottom-up approach, namely adopt a user-centric focus (Bertot et al. 2006). In this direction, this paper presents the development of an agro-centric portal for supporting agribusinesses in transacting with Greek agricultural governmental agencies. It has been indicated that today, there is still a spectrum of barriers for the deployment of e-government services in the Greek agribusiness sector, including ICT illiteracy and lack of access. Also, current deployment of e-government for the particular sector has to take into account that most agribusinesses acquire a mobile phone and use only simple services. These facts reinforce the aspect of investing in parallel to mobile government for delivering governmental services and in particular providing services through ways, which are simple or agribusinesses are already familiar with, such as the SMS. Currently, we are working on the implementation of the functional and technical aspects of the system. Also, the evaluation of the system is being organized. It must be noted that the particular system is pilot and at the current phase it is not operated by an official government agency. The system implementation is based on the Internet technology, uses open source software, requires minimal investment and provides a cheap way of carrying out a set of G2B transactions. Nevertheless, in order to fully exploit the benefits of open source software for e-government, there is a number special security requirements which are dictated by the sensitive nature of the personal data transmitted during an e-government transaction. Therefore, our future work will include the thorough perusal of security issues of the system.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This paper is part of the work accomplished under the research project Pythagoras: A pilot system for electronic agricultural services, which is funded by the European Union (75%) and the Greek Ministry of Education (25%).

REFERENCES
ACCENTURE, 2004. E-government Leadership: High Performance, Maximum Value [online]. Available from: http://www.accenture.gr [Accessed 9 March 2006]. BERTOT, J., JAEGER, P., 2006. User-centered e-government: Challenges and benefits for government Web sites. Government Information Quarterly, Article in press. BEYNON-DAVIES, P., WILLIAMS, M.D., 2003. Evaluating Electronic Local Government in the UK. Journal of Information Technology, 18, 137-149. COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, 2003. The Role of E-government for Europe's Future. Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. No. 567, Brussels, Belgium. COSTOPOULOU, C., LAMBROU, M., KARETSOS, S., E-government meets Agricultural Public Services 2003, Proceedings of Electronic Democracy Conference, 25-26 September, Athens, Greece. DELCAMBRE, L., TOLLE, T., AND THE FOREST PROJECT TEAM, 2003. Harvesting Information to Sustain Forests. Communications of the ACM, 46(1), 38-39. E-GOVERNMENT NEWS, 2004. E-government a priority for Greece, says Minister of the Interior [online]. Available from: http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/3409/5640 [Accessed 5 December 2005]. MAHAMAN, B., NTALIANI, M., COSTOPOULOU, C., 2005. E-government for Agriculture: Current trends and opportunities for rural development, Proceedings of EFITA/WCCA 2005 Conference, 25-28 July, Vila Real, Portugal. NDOU, V.D., 2004. E-government for developing countries: opportunities and challenges. The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries, 18 (1), 1-24. REPORTER, 2005. Greece: Survey on Penetration of eEurope New Technologies [online]. Available from: http://www.reporter.gr [Accessed 5 December 2005]. TRAUNMULLER, R., WIMMER, M., 2004. E-government: The Challenges Ahead, EGOV2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3183, 1-6. USDA, 2002. E-government Strategic Plan FY 2002-FY 2006 [online]. United States Department of Agriculture Egovernment Program. Available from: https://www.egov.usda.gov/Requests/USDA_eGov_Strategic_Plan_Web.pdf [Accessed 17 January 2006].

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