In the sidelines of the 6th EU-Africa Business Forum , held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) panel led by CTA Director Michael Hailu affirmed that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are key to attracting African youth to agriculture. CTA held a business forum whose theme was, “ Creating Jobs for Africa’s Youth ” which saw policymakers and civil society leaders from across Africa and Europe attending. The CTA Director highlighted the importance of access to finance to agriculture and that lack of it still remains an...
WSIS has announced the opening of the WSIS Prizes 2018 and they are encouraging all the stakeholders to SUBMIT their project descriptions to the WSIS Prizes contest from 11 September 2017 – 2 January 2018. The e-Agriculture team encourages eligible projects in agriculture to submit their projects for this prestigious award. WSIS Prizes are a major highlight of the WSIS Forum every year and they recognize outstanding initiatives by governments, private sector, and civil society that leverage the contributions of ICT for the benefit our society. Projects related to ICTs in Agriculture fall...
Rwanda and Estonia are reported to have started to create a professional network between ICT entrepreneurs that could benefit these countries bi-laterally. This follows a working visit by the President of Estonia Her Excellency Kersti Kaljulaid who expressed interest in ICT oriented partnerships in Estonia and Rwanda. She held talks with Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry and visited K-Lab (a center that provides an open space for IT entrepreneurs to collaborate and innovate). More information about the visit here ICTs in agriculture : The Rwanda situation This visit of the Estonian...
Digital Technologies for Resilience was the theme of a workshop organized by FHI 360 in Bangkok with funding and support from Rockefeller Foundation and USAID . The workshop intended to create a space and exchange mat for professionals who are using digital technologies to enhance resilience. The other objective was to help participants to scale up the digital technology for resilience efforts. “The workshop enabled actual collaboration… several actual project collaborations took place –with exchanging of MoUs and project proposals” noted one participant. The programme in retrospect The two...
The Digitalisation in Agriculture session will discuss how to successfully integrate innovative digital technologies into agriculture and agribusiness. In this session, young ICT4Ag innovators, service providers, representatives of farmer organizations and policy makers will share their...
Technology has been applied in various fields and new concepts are emerging in some areas to accommodate this infusion. The concept of digital agriculture is a fairly new one; what does this mean? According to the Project Breakthrough , Digital Agriculture is defined as “the use of new and advanced technologies, integrated into one system, to enable farmers and other stakeholders within the agriculture value chain to improve food production” In their discussion of this concept, they noted that with a digital agriculture system is one that gathers data periodically and accurately which is...
The European Union avails 100 million euros funding for digital research and innovation that is made available under The Horizon 2020 work programme 2018-2020 which ( inter alia ) seeks to advance the development and uptake of digital technologies in agriculture and rural areas. Digital technologies in agriculture pitch very high on the European Union’s agenda, for example the European policy makers recently at the Digitising agriculture and food value chains conference outlined policy developments in agricultural research and innovation and stated how digital technologies can bring forward...
What has ICTs to do with climate change? Malcolm Johnson the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Deputy Secretary General, answers this question in the published news items coinciding with the COP23 that was discussing The Paris Agreement . He positions ICTs as a solution to the current world climate challenges. These include the (i) reported increase in the concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, (ii) extreme weather induced events happening with increasing frequency. These disasters are estimated to have cost the global economy $520 billion a year and have pushed more...
The historical developmental path runs from the agricultural to the industrial revolution. When it comes to Africa, the question raised is Run or walk first? In essence, will technology leap frog Africa’s development? The Economist Special Report delves into this debate in-depth. Technology and innovation are a bedrock of development in richer countries and the GDP per person between countries is influenced by productivity. Asian countries – with Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China embraced the world’s largest technologies to build stronger manufacturing economies. However, African countries...
The latest edition of SPORE magazine focuses on COP23 , however it has an article focusing on precision agriculture entitled, ‘Precision agriculture: A smart farming approach to agriculture’. The ability to use smart technologies could make today’s farmers manage their farming practices remotely. For this to happen these technology need access to data usually collected by satellites and drones. The ability of implementing sensors in the field, on animals and in the soil which transmit real time data allows for cost-effective and accurate means to predict and protect the growth of agricultural...
The Digitalisation in Agriculture session will discuss how to successfully integrate innovative digital technologies into agriculture and agribusiness. In this session, young ICT4Ag innovators, service providers, representatives of farmer organizations and policy makers will share their...