Application note: Real-time mobile phone application to support land policy

Agricultural subsidies can only be effectively allocated if there is a suitable information system both at the level of subsidy providers - the government - and recipients - agricultural organizations. Governments have to set up complex schemes to control subsidies using techniques such as remote sensing or photogrammetry. If these techniques do not help, technical staff has to visit the plots. This paper explains the development and implementation of a mobile application to make fieldwork easier. The application uses a number of devices in a Smartphone such as a GPS or a camera to collect information and broadcast it to an office in real time. This application, called GeoFoto, computers was tested in real scenarios in the Spanish region of Andalusia. This provided information about its advantages and disadvantages, and the final results are highly encouraging.