Bio@gro - An online multilingual organic agriculture e-services platform

Although worldwide organic agriculture is constantly gaining ground compared to traditional agriculture, still a number of countries encounter problems mostly related to lack of validated information and knowledge, technical support by specialized agronomists, coordination and organization of the trading network and promoting mechanisms. The appropriate use of Web technologies and mobile computing and communications can help to the solution of the aforementioned problems. In this context, this paper presents the bio@gro e-services platform, which provides accurate, certified and multilingual content (i.e. information and services) related to organic agriculture through Internet connected devices or mobile phones using the short message service. The proposed platform takes into consideration the organic agriculture stakeholders’ needs from Greece, Germany, Romania and Cyprus. More specifically, it aims at providing to organic agriculture stakeholders electronic business, electronic learning and electronic government content in four languages, namely in Greek, German, Romanian and English in order to offer information on several aspects of the organic agriculture domain, to provide the ability to exchange views and experiences as well as to compare the means, methods, practices and cultivation techniques used in each country.