Depending on the kind of Projects and the context, I think ICT can be used differently.
In resilience development projects, ICT can be useful to speed actions of implementations in the field, making economies of functionning, it can help to gather data for efficient decision making.
According to strenghtening marketing resilience, ICTS can be integrated as a tool in Marketing Information Systems. Efficients MIS helps in creating the gaps usually existing between the demand and the supply sides. In addition, ICT can help in providing agricultural advisory services, help the development of marketing relations and increase targeted population revenue.
In research action/ development projects, ICT can be used to test the robustness of resilience mechanism either as preventive noor after shocks in models.
La agricultura siempre ha sido de incertidumbre y hoy en día le debemos agregar otro factor adicional de incertidumbre, el cambio climático. Es preocupante ver las pérdidas y/o bajos rendimientos en los cultivos porque el calendario tradicional de las lluvias se ha corrido. Los cultivos de leguminosas que tradicionalmente se siembran en septiembre para aprovechar las últimas lluvias han sufrido con las fuertes y abundantes precipitaciones que aún no paran.
A mi concepto se hace necesario que el agricultor cuente con herramientas de predicción climática que faciliten adaptarse al calendario de cultivos. Muchos productores aún hacen cálculos de siembra basándose en la temporada tradicional de lluvias.
Incorporar las TIC a la agricultura regional es limitada principalmente por el costo de sistemas, equipos y su alta obsolescencia. Adicionalmente la infraestructura para conectividad a internet es deficiente. Superando estas barreras se crea una resiliencia fuerte para enfrentar las adversidades del agro.
Agriculture has always been uncertain and today we must add another additional factor of uncertainty, climate change. It is worrying to see losses and / or low crop yields because the traditional rainfall calendar is no longer useful. The legume crops traditionally planted in September to take advantage of the last rains have suffered from strong and abundant precipitations that don't seem to stop.
In my opinion, it is necessary for the farmer to have climate prediction tools that make it easier to adapt to the crop calendar. Many farmers still make planting calculations based on the traditional rainy season.
Incorporating ICT into regional agriculture is limited mainly by the cost of systems, equipment and high obsolescence. Additionally the infrastructure for internet connectivity is poor. Overcoming these barriers creates a strong resilience to face the adversities of agriculture.
Boris KarpuninRUSSIAN FEDERAL CENTER OF AGRICULTURAL CONSULTING AND RETRAINING OF THE AGRO-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEXRussian Federation
Probably because I know how to apply ICT in the projects, believe that it is in the projects the greatest effect achievable.
I believe that the project is more concrete concept and to achieve results in obtaining of products and the economy using ICT applications easier. Just in development programmes needs to be completely different tools and software.
These comments assume that use of ICT in agriculture are not inappropriate due to lack of not only the infra-structure it needs, but also other essential things like transport, extension services, irrigation, storage facilities, basic education and health care etc.
If we are to practise a holistic approach to nutrition, which after all is the fundamental purpose of agriculture, we must seriously think about the end-users, i.e., those who consume the food produced.
Perhaps, one may establish farmer cooperatives and set up mailing lists so that its subscribers could be informed of fresh produce for sale. This might enable both producers and consumers to engage in a mutually beneficial exchange without intermediaries so that farmers will get a fair reward while the customers could secure quality fresh food at a reasonable cost.
Of course, this is not possible everywhere, but when possible it could provide an inexpensive and simple way of using ICT to promote farmers' interests as well as those of the customers.
Even now, long term weather prediction remains a chancy business. Even if it is otherwise, previous knowledge of bad weather could spare the farmer the cost of wasted agro-chemicals and seed but not much more. True, this might be a fair saving, but it does not mitigate the problem to a significant degree.
At both ends, ICT has its greatest potential as an educational tool, particularly in helping people to understand the importance of fresh food and a balanced diet with reference to their food culture. The farmers likewise could learn about better methods, but I am sceptical about the suitability of high-yield variants, especially now, when the bio-diversity in agriculture and animal husbandry is dangerously low. Moreover, genetically modified crops can have disastrous consequences to our environment as it was shown in the nineties that the pollen of such a Maize grown in the US was lethal to the local pollinators.
I wish I could sound more enthusiastic, but we have been too quick to use the novel things in agriculture in the past, so I would urge you to err on the side of prudence, especially as we have a long way to go in many areas of world before we can recommend them to make extended use of ICT.
Santosh Ostwal set out 16 contraints in the previous discussion which perfectly confirmed and expanded on the expereinces of others in the discussion. In answer to this question "How should the use of ICTs best be integrated in resilience programmes or projects?" we can use those constraints as a great starting point.
We must acknowledge that every actor along the value chain, from farmer through to consumer and government, has a set of requirements which ICT solutions and tools MUST address for that actor. So a fully collaborative and relationship based approach is required. It is complex, but it is possible through a determined effort of the expertise available.
ICT producsts or services must be seen only as tools - not as the answer in themselves. The knowledge of farmers must be respected and built on for sustainable farming communities; food quality must be reported in near real-time to government agencies to protect consumers and public health; traders & processors must focus on waste reduction and prevention through data/information sharing and trading.
We know the contraints; we just have to work together to acknowledge and address them. Richard Heeks described a benchmarking and prioritising process, there are many of these and they must be used before any deployment.
This forum proves that as a community we are running out of excuses - so much knowledge and expertise exists to address any challenging ICT implementation. Do we have the courage to work in broad coalitions to ensure even wider success? Again, it is great to see examples already in place (NRENs etc.). We can build on these for a resiliant and sustainable farming future supported by e-Agriculture.
Our previous discussion about 'What is Resilience' was focused on agriculture, food security, nutrition, etc. Nevertheless, the discussion was also germane to health, livelihoods, social protection, education and all other aspects of the hard lives our farmers and their families live in rural areas. We might all agree that the most predominant sector in rural areas in terms of providing livelihood, income, employment, etc is agriculture. We might all also agree that the chief characteristic of ICT as a technology is that it has equal potential to positively impact multiple sectors; agriculture, health, education, utilities, etc.
Within the ICT4Ag space there is a clear trend away from individual 'apps' and towards bundling multiple ICT functionalities; digital finance, surveillance, marketing, agri extension and supply chain management onto the same platform(s). Global software as a service (SaaS) provider SAP as well as regional/local ICT4Ag platforms like Esoko, Farmerline, VotoMobile and others have very recently moved in this direction. In fact, one outcome of CTA's seminal ICT4Ag late-2013 conference in Kigali was this very need to bundle ICT4Ag functionalities to achieve economies of scale and enhance the benefits to farmers and other stakeholders. Lets call this ICT4Ag Version 2.0.
Given the rapid pace of technological and business model change, the next step will be to leverage the foundation of ICT4Ag Version 2.0 that extends all the way into the smallholder farming household .......to add onto the platform modules/functionalities specific to health (proper hygiene, child care, drug reminder messages, etc.), education, etc. Lets call this mHub Version 1.0. Therefore, to leverage agriculture as the gateway to serving all the other mHub (ICT/mobile) needs in rural areas our current ICT4Ag community must have, as Sinead points out, the "courage to work in broad coalitions" to harness the power of ICT to solve 'wicked' problems in rural areas.
This discussion question is "How should the use of ICTs best be integrated in resilience programmes or projects?". Our ICT4Ag community is nicely positioned (given the overarching importance of agriculture in rural areas) to play a leadership role in pulling in other sectors as we go forward. So.....to best integrate ICT in resilience programes we should consider casting a wider net to include other non-agriculture sectors that are also very germane to the lives of our farmers!
Thembani MalapelaFood and Agriculture Organization of the United NationsItaly
Resilience projects are like any other project with a conception, formulation and other steps in the projects life cycle. A resilience project would probably have a measure of intervention with regards to how it will help community withstands shocks.In most cases should the community have 1.information, 2.Funding, 3. Expertise, 4 Enabling Environment - they should to some measure withstand effects of different unexpected challenges. The possibility of applying technological solutions are vast in the areas above. However, for me l agree with the above sentiments of a needs based and project based approach. The project should pre-identify the needed actions and then what technology can be used to effectively and efficiently carry out that task. Usually technology is able to transcend the various limitation a manual solutions has. For example, a cash distribution activity might not be possible where proper banking infrastructure exist, under disaster areas, in inaccessible environments and also in times of crisis. Then technological solution say of mobile cash transfer become very handy.
So in a nutshell there is a need to map at project log frame and activities and see the cost and benefit of adopting a technological solution. I would love to hear from also other panelist if there are evaluation tools that can be used to determine technology use, when and when not,just a guide. There is always a mapping process of the desired activity and the relevant technology and how it can be applied and be used.
This discussion topic addresses a fantastic premise and offers a promising perspective of thoughts that have been brewing in my mind for some time now; and a consolidated review of the responses provide quite a slew of insightful gems.
These give rise to an over-arching view of the ulitmate purpose of resilience (using ICT or not); and its sustenance to foster significant quality of life indices within rural communities. In this respect, it is important to note that resilience must inherently be an internally-developed capacity to prevent, withstand, or overcome; and so it asserts (obliquely, even if not plainly) the strategic imperative of leveraging resources in redressing capacity imbalances between rural and urban areas in the developing world.
In this sense, the sustained dissonance of expectations around availability, affordability, and accessibility to resources and amenities, between rural communities and urban ones, must necessarily be abridged.
The ideas that LeeHBabcock has crystallized as ICT4Ag Version 2.0 are completely aligned with my thoughts about an "Impact Network" that delivers a hybrid Impact-as-a-Service platform in (but also beyond) agriculture; specially designed and deployed with exigencies of rural communities in mind.
As Lee has posited, valuable enhancments of resilience in agriculture must be sustained beyond it, to enable impact in other critical spheres like healthcare, education, utilities, etc. In this way, the cumulative effect of an agriculture-anchored, but community-benefiting resilience capacity, is more likely to be sustained in everyone's strategic interests.
Following this train of thought, ICT platforms that enable the democratized delivery of a variety of Content, Services, and Applications for rual communities must be embraced. Just like a Mall developer solicits commitments from anchor tenants, to ensure financing and guarantee off-take, ICT platform developers need to view agriculture as the "anchor tenant", and then build coalitions of agriculture stakeholders to cross-subsidize the platform's deployment, ultimately as Lee puts it, "into the smallholder farming household". Once these agriculture "anchor tenants" are lined up as broad coalitions, concerted efforts are then pursued to include education, healthcare, utilities, and others, as addtional incentives to drive uptake, usage, and scale.
From my perspective, all this is possible from the ICT side of things, due to the downward trends in the costs of hardware, software, and other allied ICT components, ignited by the open-source community, commoditized pervasive hardware computing (like Raspberry Pis and others), and efficiencies of sharing economy principles. These platforms will emerge as augmentations, not replacements of legacy systems; but need to be fundamentally disruptive and decentralized in their models, methodologies, and processes, to ensure a "resilience" that is different from the "centralized" systems that currently drive urban centres.
What is needed is the crystalization of the ICT4Ag community, and other partners, to drive support for any collaborative technology platform that mirrors the principles that Lee has outlined.
In my mind, it is possible to envision impactful information and off-grid energy access, that not only supply the infrastructure to ignite localized capacity enhancement and service delivery in agriculture, healthcare, education, utilities, etc., but also enables rural communities to be supplied with renewable energy access to power basic life tasks, especially access devices with which to receive necessary information. This rural infrastructure base could also enable the various early-warning, monitoring, and alert services needed to strengthen resilience in response to the vagaries of our rural public health and physical environment, like disease epidemics or climate change dislocations. Thank you.
Very interesting to read Lee and Uche's contributions. I would add IBM Bluemix/Watson to the list of SaaS and Infrastructure as a Service providers already looking to agriculture as potential growth areas for them as ICT providers. This is a very positive step, but sometimes individual research or start-up projects in agri-tech fear partnering with larger companies; this can be inefficient and can result in waste of time, money, effort and expertise. While remaining aware of the risks of losing control to a larger corporation, it is still valuable to engage with experienced global players, to perhaps benefit from tools or services they may be able to provide.
Lee also correctly mentions working with other industries and sectors. Ths is hugely important and relevant. For example in the energy industry, there is an established business model of rewarding consumers for their usage data. In agriculture, there could be a similar business model where farmers are rewarded for supplying their usage expereinces to enable researchers build wider data sets for evidence based directives.
Uche's vision is possible from a technological point of view, and is encouraged by global policy initiatives in some areas - for example, One Health initiative promoting the links between animal and human health. I would strongly advise though, that disease and health surveillance cannot rely on an app or ICT tool alone. In my expereince and research there is NO substitute for conversations to gain the real and often tacit knowledge from farmers and vets (and people in general). This can seem like a barrier or as a difficulty, but from a rural community point of view, it should be seen as creating support jobs in agriculture, and increasing farmers' well being, mental health through stress reduction and contribute to sustainable family farms as the next generation sees farming as a respected enterprise.
The magic of ICT is to store, aggregate, make available for analysis, visualise and disseminate widley, the collected agricultural data and knowledge.
Depending on the kind of Projects and the context, I think ICT can be used differently.
In resilience development projects, ICT can be useful to speed actions of implementations in the field, making economies of functionning, it can help to gather data for efficient decision making.
According to strenghtening marketing resilience, ICTS can be integrated as a tool in Marketing Information Systems. Efficients MIS helps in creating the gaps usually existing between the demand and the supply sides. In addition, ICT can help in providing agricultural advisory services, help the development of marketing relations and increase targeted population revenue.
In research action/ development projects, ICT can be used to test the robustness of resilience mechanism either as preventive noor after shocks in models.
La agricultura siempre ha sido de incertidumbre y hoy en día le debemos agregar otro factor adicional de incertidumbre, el cambio climático. Es preocupante ver las pérdidas y/o bajos rendimientos en los cultivos porque el calendario tradicional de las lluvias se ha corrido. Los cultivos de leguminosas que tradicionalmente se siembran en septiembre para aprovechar las últimas lluvias han sufrido con las fuertes y abundantes precipitaciones que aún no paran.
A mi concepto se hace necesario que el agricultor cuente con herramientas de predicción climática que faciliten adaptarse al calendario de cultivos. Muchos productores aún hacen cálculos de siembra basándose en la temporada tradicional de lluvias.
Incorporar las TIC a la agricultura regional es limitada principalmente por el costo de sistemas, equipos y su alta obsolescencia. Adicionalmente la infraestructura para conectividad a internet es deficiente. Superando estas barreras se crea una resiliencia fuerte para enfrentar las adversidades del agro.
Probably because I know how to apply ICT in the projects, believe that it is in the projects the greatest effect achievable.
I believe that the project is more concrete concept and to achieve results in obtaining of products and the economy using ICT applications easier. Just in development programmes needs to be completely different tools and software.
These comments assume that use of ICT in agriculture are not inappropriate due to lack of not only the infra-structure it needs, but also other essential things like transport, extension services, irrigation, storage facilities, basic education and health care etc.
If we are to practise a holistic approach to nutrition, which after all is the fundamental purpose of agriculture, we must seriously think about the end-users, i.e., those who consume the food produced.
Perhaps, one may establish farmer cooperatives and set up mailing lists so that its subscribers could be informed of fresh produce for sale. This might enable both producers and consumers to engage in a mutually beneficial exchange without intermediaries so that farmers will get a fair reward while the customers could secure quality fresh food at a reasonable cost.
Of course, this is not possible everywhere, but when possible it could provide an inexpensive and simple way of using ICT to promote farmers' interests as well as those of the customers.
Even now, long term weather prediction remains a chancy business. Even if it is otherwise, previous knowledge of bad weather could spare the farmer the cost of wasted agro-chemicals and seed but not much more. True, this might be a fair saving, but it does not mitigate the problem to a significant degree.
At both ends, ICT has its greatest potential as an educational tool, particularly in helping people to understand the importance of fresh food and a balanced diet with reference to their food culture. The farmers likewise could learn about better methods, but I am sceptical about the suitability of high-yield variants, especially now, when the bio-diversity in agriculture and animal husbandry is dangerously low. Moreover, genetically modified crops can have disastrous consequences to our environment as it was shown in the nineties that the pollen of such a Maize grown in the US was lethal to the local pollinators.
I wish I could sound more enthusiastic, but we have been too quick to use the novel things in agriculture in the past, so I would urge you to err on the side of prudence, especially as we have a long way to go in many areas of world before we can recommend them to make extended use of ICT.
Dear all,
Santosh Ostwal set out 16 contraints in the previous discussion which perfectly confirmed and expanded on the expereinces of others in the discussion. In answer to this question "How should the use of ICTs best be integrated in resilience programmes or projects?" we can use those constraints as a great starting point.
We must acknowledge that every actor along the value chain, from farmer through to consumer and government, has a set of requirements which ICT solutions and tools MUST address for that actor. So a fully collaborative and relationship based approach is required. It is complex, but it is possible through a determined effort of the expertise available.
ICT producsts or services must be seen only as tools - not as the answer in themselves. The knowledge of farmers must be respected and built on for sustainable farming communities; food quality must be reported in near real-time to government agencies to protect consumers and public health; traders & processors must focus on waste reduction and prevention through data/information sharing and trading.
We know the contraints; we just have to work together to acknowledge and address them. Richard Heeks described a benchmarking and prioritising process, there are many of these and they must be used before any deployment.
This forum proves that as a community we are running out of excuses - so much knowledge and expertise exists to address any challenging ICT implementation. Do we have the courage to work in broad coalitions to ensure even wider success? Again, it is great to see examples already in place (NRENs etc.). We can build on these for a resiliant and sustainable farming future supported by e-Agriculture.
Our previous discussion about 'What is Resilience' was focused on agriculture, food security, nutrition, etc. Nevertheless, the discussion was also germane to health, livelihoods, social protection, education and all other aspects of the hard lives our farmers and their families live in rural areas. We might all agree that the most predominant sector in rural areas in terms of providing livelihood, income, employment, etc is agriculture. We might all also agree that the chief characteristic of ICT as a technology is that it has equal potential to positively impact multiple sectors; agriculture, health, education, utilities, etc.
Within the ICT4Ag space there is a clear trend away from individual 'apps' and towards bundling multiple ICT functionalities; digital finance, surveillance, marketing, agri extension and supply chain management onto the same platform(s). Global software as a service (SaaS) provider SAP as well as regional/local ICT4Ag platforms like Esoko, Farmerline, VotoMobile and others have very recently moved in this direction. In fact, one outcome of CTA's seminal ICT4Ag late-2013 conference in Kigali was this very need to bundle ICT4Ag functionalities to achieve economies of scale and enhance the benefits to farmers and other stakeholders. Lets call this ICT4Ag Version 2.0.
Given the rapid pace of technological and business model change, the next step will be to leverage the foundation of ICT4Ag Version 2.0 that extends all the way into the smallholder farming household .......to add onto the platform modules/functionalities specific to health (proper hygiene, child care, drug reminder messages, etc.), education, etc. Lets call this mHub Version 1.0. Therefore, to leverage agriculture as the gateway to serving all the other mHub (ICT/mobile) needs in rural areas our current ICT4Ag community must have, as Sinead points out, the "courage to work in broad coalitions" to harness the power of ICT to solve 'wicked' problems in rural areas.
This discussion question is "How should the use of ICTs best be integrated in resilience programmes or projects?". Our ICT4Ag community is nicely positioned (given the overarching importance of agriculture in rural areas) to play a leadership role in pulling in other sectors as we go forward. So.....to best integrate ICT in resilience programes we should consider casting a wider net to include other non-agriculture sectors that are also very germane to the lives of our farmers!
Resilience projects are like any other project with a conception, formulation and other steps in the projects life cycle. A resilience project would probably have a measure of intervention with regards to how it will help community withstands shocks.In most cases should the community have 1.information, 2.Funding, 3. Expertise, 4 Enabling Environment - they should to some measure withstand effects of different unexpected challenges. The possibility of applying technological solutions are vast in the areas above. However, for me l agree with the above sentiments of a needs based and project based approach. The project should pre-identify the needed actions and then what technology can be used to effectively and efficiently carry out that task. Usually technology is able to transcend the various limitation a manual solutions has. For example, a cash distribution activity might not be possible where proper banking infrastructure exist, under disaster areas, in inaccessible environments and also in times of crisis. Then technological solution say of mobile cash transfer become very handy.
So in a nutshell there is a need to map at project log frame and activities and see the cost and benefit of adopting a technological solution. I would love to hear from also other panelist if there are evaluation tools that can be used to determine technology use, when and when not,just a guide. There is always a mapping process of the desired activity and the relevant technology and how it can be applied and be used.
This discussion topic addresses a fantastic premise and offers a promising perspective of thoughts that have been brewing in my mind for some time now; and a consolidated review of the responses provide quite a slew of insightful gems.
These give rise to an over-arching view of the ulitmate purpose of resilience (using ICT or not); and its sustenance to foster significant quality of life indices within rural communities. In this respect, it is important to note that resilience must inherently be an internally-developed capacity to prevent, withstand, or overcome; and so it asserts (obliquely, even if not plainly) the strategic imperative of leveraging resources in redressing capacity imbalances between rural and urban areas in the developing world.
In this sense, the sustained dissonance of expectations around availability, affordability, and accessibility to resources and amenities, between rural communities and urban ones, must necessarily be abridged.
The ideas that LeeHBabcock has crystallized as ICT4Ag Version 2.0 are completely aligned with my thoughts about an "Impact Network" that delivers a hybrid Impact-as-a-Service platform in (but also beyond) agriculture; specially designed and deployed with exigencies of rural communities in mind.
As Lee has posited, valuable enhancments of resilience in agriculture must be sustained beyond it, to enable impact in other critical spheres like healthcare, education, utilities, etc. In this way, the cumulative effect of an agriculture-anchored, but community-benefiting resilience capacity, is more likely to be sustained in everyone's strategic interests.
Following this train of thought, ICT platforms that enable the democratized delivery of a variety of Content, Services, and Applications for rual communities must be embraced. Just like a Mall developer solicits commitments from anchor tenants, to ensure financing and guarantee off-take, ICT platform developers need to view agriculture as the "anchor tenant", and then build coalitions of agriculture stakeholders to cross-subsidize the platform's deployment, ultimately as Lee puts it, "into the smallholder farming household". Once these agriculture "anchor tenants" are lined up as broad coalitions, concerted efforts are then pursued to include education, healthcare, utilities, and others, as addtional incentives to drive uptake, usage, and scale.
From my perspective, all this is possible from the ICT side of things, due to the downward trends in the costs of hardware, software, and other allied ICT components, ignited by the open-source community, commoditized pervasive hardware computing (like Raspberry Pis and others), and efficiencies of sharing economy principles. These platforms will emerge as augmentations, not replacements of legacy systems; but need to be fundamentally disruptive and decentralized in their models, methodologies, and processes, to ensure a "resilience" that is different from the "centralized" systems that currently drive urban centres.
What is needed is the crystalization of the ICT4Ag community, and other partners, to drive support for any collaborative technology platform that mirrors the principles that Lee has outlined.
In my mind, it is possible to envision impactful information and off-grid energy access, that not only supply the infrastructure to ignite localized capacity enhancement and service delivery in agriculture, healthcare, education, utilities, etc., but also enables rural communities to be supplied with renewable energy access to power basic life tasks, especially access devices with which to receive necessary information. This rural infrastructure base could also enable the various early-warning, monitoring, and alert services needed to strengthen resilience in response to the vagaries of our rural public health and physical environment, like disease epidemics or climate change dislocations. Thank you.
Very interesting to read Lee and Uche's contributions. I would add IBM Bluemix/Watson to the list of SaaS and Infrastructure as a Service providers already looking to agriculture as potential growth areas for them as ICT providers. This is a very positive step, but sometimes individual research or start-up projects in agri-tech fear partnering with larger companies; this can be inefficient and can result in waste of time, money, effort and expertise. While remaining aware of the risks of losing control to a larger corporation, it is still valuable to engage with experienced global players, to perhaps benefit from tools or services they may be able to provide.
Lee also correctly mentions working with other industries and sectors. Ths is hugely important and relevant. For example in the energy industry, there is an established business model of rewarding consumers for their usage data. In agriculture, there could be a similar business model where farmers are rewarded for supplying their usage expereinces to enable researchers build wider data sets for evidence based directives.
Uche's vision is possible from a technological point of view, and is encouraged by global policy initiatives in some areas - for example, One Health initiative promoting the links between animal and human health. I would strongly advise though, that disease and health surveillance cannot rely on an app or ICT tool alone. In my expereince and research there is NO substitute for conversations to gain the real and often tacit knowledge from farmers and vets (and people in general). This can seem like a barrier or as a difficulty, but from a rural community point of view, it should be seen as creating support jobs in agriculture, and increasing farmers' well being, mental health through stress reduction and contribute to sustainable family farms as the next generation sees farming as a respected enterprise.
The magic of ICT is to store, aggregate, make available for analysis, visualise and disseminate widley, the collected agricultural data and knowledge.