Question 1 (opens 12 Nov.)
Question 1: What roles does ICT play in producer organizations? Support examples with specific reference to an organization, the technology tool(s), and content delivered.
In particular consider:
- How can ICT facilitate accountability and transparency among members of an organization and between different organizations?
- How can ICT facilitate climate change adaptation among members of an organization and the rural communities where the organization is active?
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Hi Michael,
I have tried to look for cases that could exemplify ICT’s role in reducing food loss at the level of smallholder farmers and one resource I tried is the data base of case studies undertaken by the Equator Initiative (www.equatorinitiative.org) of the Equator Prize winners which presents these community groups’ best practices. Of the close to 50 such case studies under ‘Ecoagriculture and Food Security’ category, only two addressed post-harvest losses due to inefficient transport and storage and none of the solutions were ICT based. The solutions were more centered on the farmers’ groups undertaking value-added processing themselves which reduces spoilage, adds skills to the community particularly to the women members, generates income at a premium in some cases as the products come with an artisanal touch or with cultural authenticity as they are made using traditional methods.
According to the FAO’s report called Global Food Losses and Food Waste (2011), premature harvesting is another cause of food loss, particularly in developing countries and driven by cash needs or food deficiency. This results in less than optimal economic value for the harvest or in the produce getting wasted altogether if not suitable for consumption. The report suggests diversification of produce and greater access to credit from agri-finance institutions.
The report further suggests that farmers get closer to the consumers through farmers markets. This also enables them to avoid the cosmetic (weight, size, appearance) standards of supermarkets and reduce the amount of food rejects. However, for the farmers and the consumers to converge at some market location, there has got to be roads and transport facilities available so this again goes back to issues of infrastructure and the need for governments and private sector to invest in this.
Food loss is indeed a significant area where ICT solutions can be of crucial difference and value given the extent of the losses, the amount of natural resources that get squandered in the process, and the fact that one in every seven people go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 people die of hunger every day (UNEP Avoiding Future Famines, 2012).
Small farms continue to contribute significantly to agricultural production, food security, rural poverty reduction, and biodiversity conservation despite the challenges they face in the access to productive resources and service delivery. They confront new challenges on integration into high value chains, adaptation to climate change, and market volatility and other risks and vulnerability.
In developing countries, the use of ICTs by farmers to overcome hunger and food security remains in early stages. The phenomenal increase in mobile phone acquisitions when combined with other ICT platforms (like radio) has great impact on agriculture. It is very important that as ICT platforms are rolled out their content or the message that is sent out is validated to ensure authenticity of the knowledge and information to sustain the interest of users.
There are several ways in which ICT can address this problem at the local and global level. ICTs are used by many international organizations for mapping and monitoring world food supplies, early warning systems, and to respond when disasters strike. In this area, telecommunication and radio communication standards is essential.
In complementing incentives to the private sector to innovate, governments must play an active role in coordinating the delivery of inputs, technical and output marketing services to small farms. Support is also needed to enable them to adapt to climate change and market volatility.
Interesting post Lucy,
Food production and distribution systems are becoming more interdependent, integrated, and globalized. At the same time, escalating and heavily publicized outbreaks of foodborne diseases have raised awareness of the need to ensure food quality and safety. This need drives much of the technological innovation to trace food consistently and efficiently from the point of origin to the point of consumption.
Traceability is an increasingly common element of public1 and private systems for monitoring compliance with quality, environmental, and other product and/or process attributes related to food. Small-scale farmers may lack the resources to comply with increasingly strict food safety standards, particularly traceability requirements. Given the role of traceability in protecting consumers, ensuring food safety, and managing reputational risks and liability, it is vital to integrate and empower small-scale agricultural producers in the food supply chain through ICTs.
(http://www.ictinagriculture.org/ictinag/sourcebook/module-12-improving-f...)
Dear All, My name is Kiringai. I practice ICT4D and ICT4Ag in Kenya and Africa. I support communities to embrace ICTs and Knowledge Management in Agriculture, which is my current life, my first life was in ICT. I am sorry I came late from the field and thought the exchanges flowing across present very good discourse. When I read some of the posts, of people who think they studied a long time ago, I get the impression that I am prehistoric...that aside though, I would like to support the thinking of the posters who seek to present the need to gather the knowledge of the farmers. Much of the posts are on the 'what'...we are missing much of the 'how', which is easy to explain as most of the posters are agriculturalist. I was poached from the ICT side and brought to agricultural research and hence try to fuse both the ICT and Agriculture in what I do with communities. The challenge is to ensure that the farmers relate with the technology, it promotes or supports their social orientation, and that it is affordable. The model adopted by Digital Green in India and driven by the Microsoft Geek who got swept out of ICT from Microsoft to integrate technology to communities has been a good example of what can be done using ICTs for communities. Video capture and storage and its integration with communication to users using the now freely available Google product YouTube - Google buys everything that has potential for the future particularly in driving its focus on owning ICT for the common people including Android! I am about to leave for another field trip to work with the farmers where I try to help them create physical spaces like what is referred to as telecentres---am an enthusiast of this--- and have developed a model of interaction with the smallholders which you can see at: http://www.vacidafrica.or.ke/section-layout/3/143-avaak-implementation-model-.html. The critical challenge is making the farmers come to the point of investing in this model. My experience is that we can manage to get people not necessarily smallholder farmers alone much as they will be value chain actors in the ownership. The investment in the model is driven b y a share based organizational framework. I am still researching on the model and would like to know how many people would be keen in working on this with me so that we can try to promote ICT usage using green energy solutions for which I have global partners working with me on the implementation side. Visit also www.af-mip.net to see our mobile technology driven portal that we hope to link producers with the market using mobile money whose infrastructure we are currently finalizing. The learning curricula which is to be driven by the video perspective captured using smart phones as demonstrated by one of our trial sites at http://mobilemovement.tv/marketplace. The collection of produce from smallholders is done through a weighment technology which was the basis of my engagement with agriculture which you will see at www.octagon,co.ke, which ensures that farmers do not lose their produce to clerks who are keen to falsify weights from illiterate farmers. As you can see, we are trying to do a lot and therefore need to work with all researchers to bring the technology that works to agriculture, so if you miss me, know that I shall still read your posts even when in the budus! Kiringai Kamau
Dear All,<div></div><div>My name is Kiringai. I practice ICT4D and ICT4Ag in Kenya and Africa. I support communities to embrace ICTs and Knowledge Management in Agriculture, which is my current life, my first life was in ICT.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I am sorry I came late from the field and thought the exchanges flowing across present very good discourse. When I read some of the posts, of people who think they studied a long time ago, I get the impression that I am prehistoric...that aside though, I would like to support the thinking of the posters who seek to present the need to gather the knowledge of the farmers. Much of the posts are on the 'what'...we are missing much of the 'how', which is easy to explain as most of the posters are agriculturalist. I was poached from the ICT side and brought to agricultural research and hence try to fuse both the ICT and Agriculture in what I do with communities. The challenge is to ensure that the farmers relate with the technology, it promotes or supports their social orientation, and that it is affordable.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The model adopted by Digital Green in India <<a href="http://www.digitalgreen.org/">http://www.digitalgreen.org/</a>> and driven by the Microsoft Geek who got swept out of ICT from Microsoft to integrate technology to communities has been a good example of what can be done using ICTs for communities. Video capture and storage and its integration with communication to users using the now freely available Google product YouTube - Google buys everything that has potential for the future particularly in driving its focus on owning ICT for the common people including Android!</div>
<div><br></div><div>I am about to leave for another field trip to work with the farmers where I try to help them create physical spaces like what is referred to as telecentres---am an enthusiast of this--- and have developed a model of interaction with the smallholders which you can see at: <a href="http://www.vacidafrica.or.ke/section-layout/3/143-avaak-implementation-m.... The critical challenge is making the farmers come to the point of investing in this model. My experience is that we can manage to get people not necessarily smallholder farmers alone much as they will be value chain actors in the ownership. The investment in the model is driven b y a share based organizational framework.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I am still researching on the model and would like to know how many people would be keen in working on this with me so that we can try to promote ICT usage using green energy solutions for which I have global partners working with me on the implementation side. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Visit also <a href="http://www.af-mip.net">www.af-mip.net</a> to see our mobile technology driven portal that we hope to link producers with the market using mobile money whose infrastructure we are currently finalizing. The learning curricula which is to be driven by the video perspective captured using smart phones as demonstrated by one of our trial sites at <a href="http://mobilemovement.tv/marketplace">http://mobilemovement.tv/marketpla...
<div><br></div><div>The collection of produce from smallholders is done through a weighment technology which was the basis of my engagement with agriculture which you will see at www.octagon,<a href="http://co.ke">co.ke</a>, which ensures that farmers do not lose their produce to clerks who are keen to falsify weights from illiterate farmers.</div>
<div><br></div><div>As you can see, we are trying to do a lot and therefore need to work with all researchers to bring the technology that works to agriculture, so if you miss me, know that I shall still read your posts even when in the budus!</div>
<div><br></div><div>Kiringai Kamau</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Nov 19, 2
Thank you Lucy. You may have identified an area where development organizations, in collaboration with producer organizations, should put greater emphasis on the use of ICT.
Another example of farmer organizations playing a central role in ecological conservation by adopting agroforestry and using ICT is the Camalandaan Agroforestry Farmers Association (CAFA). This farmer group helps to conserve fragments of lowland limestone forest in Negros Occidental, Philippines, offering an example of a farming community that practices ecosystem stewardhip.
Through a participatory land management plan, the group is able to equitably balance the allocation of land resources according to the various needs of the community and of a fully functioning ecosystem. CAFA helps protect the Southern Cauayan Municipal Forest and Watershed which feeds four major river systems and houses nine forest patches that host some endangered species.
In partnership with a group of biologists from Silliman University, the area was mapped using GIS, and a biodiversity data base was developed to identify the unique and threatened species in the forests. CAFA farmers were trained to conduct wildlife monitoring, evaluation and even in the data entry of field observations. The farmers also serve as forests wardens. They mark mature trees with paint to alert illegal loggers and these trees are mapped using GPS readings and also regularly monitored.
The farmers are equipped with communication equipment and as these also serve as emergency communication systems, the municipal government supported them with an erial antennae and solar panel power source.
Apart from the improved land tenure security for the farmers, CAFA has also empowered a community that has historically been isolated and marginalized in terms of access to social services. Reforestation and protection of riparian areas have helped mitigate against flash floods which help increase the resilience of the community to extreme weather conditions caused by climate change.
(Source: Equator Initiative, www.equatorinitiative.org)
Some interesting comments have been made about traceability and post harvest waste. Primarily, for post harvest, I think that that ICT can be a good tool for education for post harvest storage (reduce waste and improve safety), perhaps in the future also for alleopathic considerations in storage. Most importatntly, I see it being a good tool for getting inforamtion about getting produce to market effiently. However, the most important role I think would be at disemminating information about what are the most cost effective and market applicable post harvest chemicals for farmers to use.
Traceabilty, is an interesting issue but I am not sure how appropriate/applicable it is on a local scale. I am not familiar with tracibilty issues in developing nations. From the perspective of Japanese food saftey, for Japanese companies (espceially importing to Japan) it means completely controling the process (COMPLETE - total management systems) from the "farm stage" stage right up to domestic delivery. So althought tracibilty is becoming a more important food safety issue, I believe that more and more importanting nations will look to "more complete" food management systems that cut the local producers out (in favor of large agricultural "factiories" and seek to control more of the process. So tracilbilty fro the global market is not such a "key" issue.
Peter
Through other interactions in the e-Agriculture Community we know that traceability is increasingly important to local communities and producer groups, particularly those producing products with high value or export potential. A well known case is the shea butter producing women’s groups in Ghana that Oumy Ndiaye wrote about here http://www.e-agriculture.org/es/blog/rural-women-want-more-access-icts
Another example is Sustainable Harvest’s RITS, which is used by coffee cooperatives in Africa and Latin America http://www.e-agriculture.org/content/sustainable-harvests-relationship-information-tracking-system-rits-ict-and-ag-profile-usaid
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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body bgcolor=white lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Through other interactions in the e-Agriculture Community we know that traceability is increasingly important to local communities and producer groups, particularly those producing products with high value or export potential. A well known case is the shea butter producing women’s groups in Ghana that Oumy Ndiaye wrote about here <a href="http://www.e-agriculture.org/es/blog/rural-women-want-more-access-icts">... <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Another example is Sustainable Harvest’s RITS, which is used by coffee cooperatives in Africa and Latin America <a href="http://www.e-agriculture.org/content/sustainable-harvests-relationship-i... <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From