In the recent special report entitled ' EU Farming getting smarte r' the EURACTIV.com covers on technology and agriculture. The publication reports that European Union is exploring ways of helping its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) enter the digital era after 2020. However, there are numerous challenges that are identified such as the e-skills building, lack of broadband infrastructure and Big Data management. Below we present the abstracts of the titles covered in this report. Smart farming hinges on e-skills and rural internet access The digitisation of agriculture could help Europe...
The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ( CTA ) is informing the community that it has established a supporting centre for drone operations in Benin, DRC, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda . CTA is partnering with a French Company Airinov in this project. Drones are also called the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and are used in the management of crops, fisheries, forests and other natural resource-based activities within farming activities. This is possible as drones are equipped with high resolution cameras to facilitate advanced crop research using remote-sensed data . Airinov...
In Uganda, the spread of agronomical information is quite challenging, and the number of extension officers cannot meet the growing demand from farmers who often need immediate assistance. Thanks to innovations in information technology, mobile and web-based platforms are proving to be a huge help. m-Omulimisa provides smallholder farmers with real-time farming information and solutions written in local languages via mobile technologies. Farmers can use their phones to ask questions in languages that they understand, and receive understandable feedback from extension officers in the region...
For poultry farmers in Bangladesh, avian influenza can be a devastating problem. The avian influenza, called H5N1 HPAI, is highly pathogenic and spreads very fast. Once the flu is spread out, birds can die in 5 to 10 minutes from it and the farmer sees its poultry farm devastated. This information fact sheet sets out to show how an SMS Gateway system developed by FAO has been used to improve rural communication, support animal disease crisis management and contribute to livelihood resilience for small-scale farmers in Bangladesh. Focusing on the case study of avian influenza in Bangladesh,...
The online discussion on, “The role of Information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the Sustainable Intensification of Crop Production (SCPI)” has officially ended. This has been a very fascinating discussion!. The sharp increase in the number of people joining the e-Agriculture platform over the course of the three weeks as well as the remarkable enthusiasm, with which the topic was discussed put in evidence the significant role of ICTs in sustainable intensification of horticulture crop-based systems. Over the course of the discussion forum (06 March to 03 April 2017), 247 new...
ICTforAg2017 conference will bring together 300 thought leaders and decision-makers in agriculture and technology from the international development community and the private sector. With community-driven sessions, participants will examine how new innovations can empower smallholder farmers, and the communities that support them, through information and communication technologies (ICTs). The conference will take a particular interest in new ICT solutions that can boost the productivity of both smallholder farmers and agricultural value chains, keeping the discussion inclusive of all possible...
OpenForis is a free open-source software for environmental monitoring. It consist in a set of free and open-source software tools that facilitates flexible and efficient data collection, analysis and reporting. Open Foris includes: Collect: Easy and flexible survey design and data management Collect Mobile: Intuitive data collection and validation in the field Collect Earth: Innovative land assessment through freely available satellite imagery Calc: Efficient and collaborative data analysis and results dissemination Geospatial Toolkit: Powerful command-line utilities for processing geospatial...
The CTA ICT Update 84th issue is now online. The new issue focuses entirely on open data for agriculture and nutrition. Open data is data that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone. There is an enormous amount of data and open data but its potential and opportunities are not yet fully exploited. This issue of ICT Update will explore different ways of using open data for agricultural or nutritional purposes. Discover this issue entirely online on the ICT Update website . Here is an overview of the different topics covered in this issue. Enjoy the reading! Actions to turn the...
The World Summit Awards announced its 40 winners of 2016 selected out of 451 submissions. The different winners represent a diversity of innovating mobile applications from around the world and accross different sectors: health, education, refugees, culture and of course agriculture. Among the 40 selected submissions there are a few specific agriculture oriented applications. Click on the links to learn more about the different projects. Farmdrive : Farmdrive unlocks financial services for over 50 million smallholder farmers in Africa. Farmdrive aims at closing the information gap that keeps...
The forum discussion on The Role of ICTs in Sustainable Crop Production Intensification (SCPI) of horticulture crop based systems ( mainly on fruits, vegetables, roots and tubers) is still on-going. Below we provide the summaries for the second week, you can read the summaries for the first week here . The question for week 2 was:- Do you have any concrete examples of successful use of ICTs in sustainable intensification of horticulture crop based systems? Summary of participation As envisaged, this was yet another interesting and exciting week of learning, a number of promising and...
