Many smallholder farmers in many part of Africa produce fruits and vegetables alongside their stable food – such as cereals, tubers and roots. Yet farmers are losing more than 50% of their crops due to lack of cold storage. The Food and Agriculture Organization the United Nations estimates that one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption (approx. 1.3 billion tonnes) gets lost or wasted. Therefore, there is a need for post-harvest handling facilities for both horticultural produces and also for cereals. For ten years, Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu has been producing radio shows for...
In this article, you will Learn about the possibility of using ICTs to combat illegal logging Review some Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) that have been used elsewhere Appreciate some few cases from LAOs, Cameroon and Greece where ICTs have been used to combat illegal logging. In the beginning of the year, l wrote a piece focusing on ICTs and Forestry management in general. Additionally, for more information on how ICTs can be used to improve forestry governance, see Module 14 of the ICT in Agriculture e-Sourcebook . However, in this present piece l would like to focus on...
According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has projected that the number of mobile subscription stands at 7.74 billion now exceeds the global population. Similarly, the number of apps were reported to be on the increase , for example, as of March 2017 the number of apps available for download on Android stood at 2.8 million apps while Apple’s Apps store recorded 2.2 million apps. While the figures for apps related to agriculture is not readily known, the verity is that equally numbers are on the rise. This has led many to predict that mobile technologies are poised to...
Most farmers in developing countries face the challenge of marketing their produce and most often meet the unpredictable market prices. How can technology help these farmers? We came across the innovative The Maano- Virtual Farmers’ Market (VFM) which is an app-based e-commerce platform designed with farmers needs in mind. This app is the product of World Food Programme’s Innovation Accelerator, an initiative to support potential innovative solutions to solve hunger. In this case, the VFM seeks to provide a transparent, open and trustworthy space for smallholder farmers and buyers to...
Africa’s economy is based largely agriculture and most of them being smallholder farmers. One of the challenges these family farmers face is access to weather information and forecasting services. Lack of access to relevant weather information is due to lack of access of weather source information, dilapidated weather stations that fail to accurately provide reliable weather data, amongst many other reasons. Kukua is an initiative whose vision is to close Africa’s weather information gap by providing new weather station technology and improved weather forecast accuracy. Kukua seeks to...
In this blog post, Ajit Maru describes all the requirements an ICT product has to have to be usable for the farmer: the hardware, the software, connectivity, skills, content, security and safety in use, privacy and a profitable and productive environment. But, he points out, some problems can rise up: for example, in many countries women are frowned upon or even prohibited to have a smartphone. Another problem is the cost: for a smallholder farmer in India earning about INR 60.000 per year, a smartphone costs no less than INR 5.000, and connectivity costs around INR 100 per month. According...
mFarmer is an app developed by EcoHub that aims to provide free information such as access to market information, training and education to improve their productivity and yields and mobile money in order to enable farmers to be part of the formal financial system. mFarmer provides farmers with information such as weather data, optimal uses of fertilizers and inputs, sustainability best practices, and other content improves their profitability and their livelihoods. Watch the mFarmer pilot video: Credits: mFarmer The great majority of the world’s farmers have limited access to broadband data...
Digital Green is a non-profit development organization that disseminates agricultural information to rural communities using digital video. The platform partners with local actors (public and private sector as well as civil society organizations) to share knowledge on agricultural practices, livelihoods, health and nutrition, using locally produced videos. Digital Green uses local social networks to connect farmers and experts, the thrill of appearing on screen motivates farmers, and homophily is exploited to minimize the distance between teacher and learner. Digital Green is currently...
CGIAR launched the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture, a new initiative that aims to convene researchers to use big data in order to help improve food security, resilience in the face climate change as well as encouraging rural development. Big data are immense stocks of information collected in computers worldwide, and it can be a potential resource for planning and decision-making. Applied to agriculture and rural development it can help give robust responses to some of the most important challenges of our time: climate change, food insecurity and environmental degradation. For this...
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recently held on the 27th of June a seminar entitled, " Towards Inclusive Rural Communication Services: Contributing to Poverty Reduction and the SDGs ". This seminar is timely in that FAO recently aligned its strategic objectives with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There is an interest in reaching out to the rural communities, and in particular smallholder and family farmers face social, economic and environmental challenges and access to information can make a huge difference in allevieting poverty. In 2014, FAO...
