There is a growing consensus on the important role that family farmers and small farmers in reducing rural poverty and ensure food security for all. Now, more than ever, communication, community media and ICT are promoters of social change in rural areas, providing access to timely information to improve agricultural production and encouraging the participation of farmers in the rural development process.
Here in Nicaragua we have not much experience of ICT in rural areas, even in these moments you are restoring rights to the less blessed people and through these projects are going to improve their living standards both economic, social and cultural
hi friends of the world , is nice to be part of this initiative of this forum, all the topics and experience of all is really precious, we got less experience in Nicaragua about ICT and rural development , but we are in the beginning, is so important ICT for the ensure food to the farmer and his family, is important the e-learning, for the e-agriculture, for the e-medicine, e-education and to protect the enviroment.
if we focus just in agriculture is good, people have to eat but dont forget of the Agroforestry is more complete, we have to prodcue water, O2, catch CO2, natural medicine, protect soil for the agriculture, the policy in each contry have to change no just produce food.
in Nicaragua we trying to do comunitary forestry, the forest give an other products to survive .
the big explotion of telecomunication dont have to be just for fun the humankind need to change the paradigma of life, more friendly with the enviroment, remember behind the ICT is a trace of pollution from weird (heavies) metal, that the reason why ICT have to be used for humanking and eviromental development
Nicaragua have some experience in indigenous communities
in terms of community forestry, there have been projects in the north Atlantic coast of the country, community leaders are trained for community management of forests, on issues such as conformation of small forest enterprises, administrative training, use of computers, emails, appropriate use of ICT to market their products, capcitacion in forest management and use,
from the state and government has established a system of traceability in remote forest communities using satellite links (VSAT) at checkpoints to verify the origin of the timber, all this is handled entirely by database of forest management plans and community.
equally ICT has helped in the training of community families about home gardens to ensure food security for families
actualemte in Nicaragua a proposed expansion of telecommunications infrastructure in desendientes indigenous and African rural areas, where they are holding workshops ICT sensitization to be powerful tools for the sustainable development of communities tools, runs participatory rural diagnoses arise for the main needs of communities and based on the description of the problematic community poses an ICT strategy to enhance their self-management capcidades.
“Creating social change through media is not about the tools you use, the technologies, the perceived quality of the media produced. It’s about a real and deep understanding of needs: knowing what will work for your community.” Professor Clemencia Rodiguez.
The first part, for me, is knowing the families you will be working with – their education level, their cultural obligations and customs, their income and the consistency of it, their skills and experience, their aspirations and the parts of their family – in Samoa it is common to have three generations on the same land. You have to know the infrastructure – electricity and telecommunications – so you can provide tech tools that can be supported easily. You also have to know the root problem of what you are trying to solve.
With specific reference to Women in Business Development Inc family farmers, we had a number of problems that we thought ICTs could solve. We were wasting time and fuel going to visit farmers who weren’t there, and locating a farm when you hadn’t been there before was difficult with no Google maps and no street signs. We also had no access to farmer files once we left the office. We were also blind to what the farmers were doing. We could not see when crops were being planted or harvested. We had just started a Farm to Table supply programme to hotels and restaurants and we needed to be in contact with farmers and our own field workers more.
The first thing we did is equip our staff with mobile phones and calling credit. The funding for this was via PACMAS (Australian Aid). The next thing we did was start designing a suite of mobile apps – the first one as a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) that could be updated from the field. Our initial tests looked fine but as we travelled to more remote areas, we saw that we needed the app to be offline and then synced when connected to the internet for it to work in Samoa. We are still at phase one and have yet to build the apps for the farmers and also the hotels but we are learning lessons along the way. The first is to keep it simple and focussed on the problem you are trying to solve. Otherwise, you end up with a flash product that has many features but still does not address the main problem. The other lesson is that although you may have to work with technical people, you need to keep in the driver’s seat. You know your family farmers and understand the cultural, economic and social landscape they are operating in – this is key to a successful ICT programme.
The MDGS goals of eradicating poverty and hunger through increasing agricultural production to meet the needs of the rapidly growing population by either increasing crop yields in areas where there is farming can be achieved by changing the crops to suit the changing climate or changing the use of the land to more suitable activities in order to solve the problem of food shortages. The largest benefits will occur in lands which are underutilized but which have the potential for crop production or which currently have low crop yields. FAO estimates show that between 1995/7 and 2030 about 75 percent of the projected growth in crop production in Sub-Saharan Africa will come from intensification in the form of yield increases (62 percent) and higher cropping intensities (13 percent), with the remaining 25 percent coming from arable land expansion. According to a study on Agricultural extension services in Kenya,Remote areas and poor
producers especially those growing low-value crops with little marketable surplus are poorly served.(Tegemeo Working paper 26/2006). This means that Arid lands(80% of Kenya) are not well covered in terms of access to information that could help optimize these areas for agricultural production or livestock rearing.ICT is the solution to getting information to the farmers in these areas. LandPKS(Land Potential Knowledge System) is a project funded by USDA-ARS which has developed an android based tool powered by a geospatial knowledge engine to enable farmers and rangeland managers to dynamically predict land potential. It is being piloted in Nothern Kenya and Namibia. LandPKS is still in the pilot phase but the android tool has proved easy to use even for the illiterate due to use of simple illustrations.
communication
Communicate to farmers on available tools and their use. Get technology to the ground.
Use of inbuilt demos on use of features and simple illustrations- cross cutting to all education levels
Ensure proper interpretation of tools and questions to ensure proper information is sent through tools to ensure correct predictiosn- GIGO(Garbage in Garbage out)
community media
Use existing community groups to test the tools and teach other farmers on their use and benefits.
ICT tools
Downloadable tools which can be used with smart phones and sms based services can provide farmers with upto date information on climate, provide a platform to share knowledge (global connectivity) with other farmers to enable sharing of working practices(Local knowledge) and connect farmers to markets with best prices(reducing oppression by middlemen)
We are a social business using technology to open the channels of communication between smallholder farmers and other supply chain actors. Based on our experience in the food industry, we firmly believe that if the end buyers of products grown by smallholders know more about farmers, a stronger bridge will develop in the value chain, a deeper understanding of risk will be developed and more targeted investment in strengthening sustainable smallholder farming will emerge.
One of the ways that communication and technology can be used to empower farmers is to begin to use it to introduce brands and retailers to the farmers who grow the crops that feed the supply chain. Perhaps the most effective way to do this is by giving the farmers a voice that can be heard by the other supply chain actors. The solution we arrived at was to use a downloadable smart phone app to conduct very short and simple surveys among farmers in various farming communities in the Global South. The survey which we are currently testing in Peru has 13 questions around key life areas, specifically finance, health, education and general well-being.
From a business perspective, knowing who your suppliers are should be considered vital information, as these are the people who 'feed' your supply chain. And, through regular monitoring of smallholders the supply chain brands and retailers can get an early indications about the changing perspectives of farmers. With this win-win, maybe we can move toward more sustainable supply chains – something that we all need.
The challenge we currently face is the cost of conducting the surveys. The primary obstacle we face is the cost of surveying. We continue to look for better technological solutions to our communications challenge, but so far we are still employing an individual to go from farm to farm. In order to grow the concept we need to find a more cost-effective way to gather data.
I am Mobile Agriculture Specialist with 5 years of work in designing, developing and deploying mAgriculture service in India. The scenario is constantly changing and the need of information is following the same pattern. Just 5 years before we were busy in deploying Agriculture Information Service by using mobile phones.
Now is the time to form an Association of exisiting Climate Agriculture knowledge providers at state level and start collating local social knowledge. These knowledge then can be intergated by using various ICT model primarily mobile as its easiest and pro-poor communication medium. The role of Climate Smart Agricultural Content Providers, local Social Knowledge and Mobile Network Operator (MNOs) or a Mobile Agriculture Value Added Service (VAS) Provider is very important for sustainability and scalability of the service.
I certainly agree with you, integrating climate analysis can provide the deedback loop to the farmer required by ICT initiatives, can help understand sidease dissemination or the influence of luminosity and temperature in production. We are just about to start working on this in Colombia, we have access some weather databases from Meteoblue but are in an early stage and sharing experiences, methodologies and analytical frameworks will be excellent. Here is my email, very interested in getting in touch [email protected]
The Dimitra community listeners’ clubs are groups of rural women, men, young women and young boys- mixed or not- that voluntarily come together to discuss their priorities, community problems and act together to find solutions. This happens in a participatory environment where everyone (both women and men) have the opportunity to make their voices heard. In this approach, ICTs are important instruments serving the initiative. The clubs are equipped with wind-up solar-powered radios and sometimes paired with mobile phones to facilitate communication among the clubs, community radios stations and communities. ICTs are certainly essential in this approach but participation, action and ownership are crucial elements. The clubs are agents of change, not only in agricultural matters but also in other social aspects (health issues such as sanitation or HIV/AIDS, girls’ early marriage, social cohension, gender equality and women's empowerment). As someone was saying before, ownership is fundamental if small farmers – women and men- are to adopt new practices, new ways of doing, new varieties.
I share with you a publication issued in French and English (most Dimitra knowledge sharing tools are in both languages) that summarizes the incredible experience and main characteristics of the approach http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/am604e/am604e.pdf I also invite you to read our latest Newsletter 25 http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/dimitra/pdf/dim_25_e.pdf which features articles on Dimitra and its partners and this special number contains also an interesting speech of a traditional chief who speaks about the impact of the community listeners’ clubs in his communities.
Thank you Alice.
Dear colleagues, dear participants
There is a growing consensus on the important role that family farmers and small farmers in reducing rural poverty and ensure food security for all. Now, more than ever, communication, community media and ICT are promoters of social change in rural areas, providing access to timely information to improve agricultural production and encouraging the participation of farmers in the rural development process.
Here in Nicaragua we have not much experience of ICT in rural areas, even in these moments you are restoring rights to the less blessed people and through these projects are going to improve their living standards both economic, social and cultural
hi friends of the world , is nice to be part of this initiative of this forum, all the topics and experience of all is really precious, we got less experience in Nicaragua about ICT and rural development , but we are in the beginning, is so important ICT for the ensure food to the farmer and his family, is important the e-learning, for the e-agriculture, for the e-medicine, e-education and to protect the enviroment.
if we focus just in agriculture is good, people have to eat but dont forget of the Agroforestry is more complete, we have to prodcue water, O2, catch CO2, natural medicine, protect soil for the agriculture, the policy in each contry have to change no just produce food.
in Nicaragua we trying to do comunitary forestry, the forest give an other products to survive .
the big explotion of telecomunication dont have to be just for fun the humankind need to change the paradigma of life, more friendly with the enviroment, remember behind the ICT is a trace of pollution from weird (heavies) metal, that the reason why ICT have to be used for humanking and eviromental development
Hello Walther. Agroforestry is of great interest. Usually we say that "e-Agricutlure" includes ICT applications in forestry, fisheries, NRM, etc.
Do you know of any examples how ICT is being used by family foresters? This would be very intresting for our discusson.
Thank you.
Nicaragua have some experience in indigenous communities
in terms of community forestry, there have been projects in the north Atlantic coast of the country, community leaders are trained for community management of forests, on issues such as conformation of small forest enterprises, administrative training, use of computers, emails, appropriate use of ICT to market their products, capcitacion in forest management and use,
from the state and government has established a system of traceability in remote forest communities using satellite links (VSAT) at checkpoints to verify the origin of the timber, all this is handled entirely by database of forest management plans and community.
equally ICT has helped in the training of community families about home gardens to ensure food security for families
actualemte in Nicaragua a proposed expansion of telecommunications infrastructure in desendientes indigenous and African rural areas, where they are holding workshops ICT sensitization to be powerful tools for the sustainable development of communities tools, runs participatory rural diagnoses arise for the main needs of communities and based on the description of the problematic community poses an ICT strategy to enhance their self-management capcidades.
here this link that all can see info about Communitary Foretry http://www.era-mx.org/documentosinteres/silvicultura/Nicaragua.PDF
http://www.nepenthes.dk/files/resource_2/Dokumenter/Rosita/Rosita_Documento_de_Proyecto.pdf
http://www.telcor.gob.ni/Desplegar.asp?PAG_ID=15
http://www.telcor.gob.ni/Desplegar.asp?PAG_ID=112
“Creating social change through media is not about the tools you use, the technologies, the perceived quality of the media produced. It’s about a real and deep understanding of needs: knowing what will work for your community.” Professor Clemencia Rodiguez.
The first part, for me, is knowing the families you will be working with – their education level, their cultural obligations and customs, their income and the consistency of it, their skills and experience, their aspirations and the parts of their family – in Samoa it is common to have three generations on the same land. You have to know the infrastructure – electricity and telecommunications – so you can provide tech tools that can be supported easily. You also have to know the root problem of what you are trying to solve.
With specific reference to Women in Business Development Inc family farmers, we had a number of problems that we thought ICTs could solve. We were wasting time and fuel going to visit farmers who weren’t there, and locating a farm when you hadn’t been there before was difficult with no Google maps and no street signs. We also had no access to farmer files once we left the office. We were also blind to what the farmers were doing. We could not see when crops were being planted or harvested. We had just started a Farm to Table supply programme to hotels and restaurants and we needed to be in contact with farmers and our own field workers more.
The first thing we did is equip our staff with mobile phones and calling credit. The funding for this was via PACMAS (Australian Aid). The next thing we did was start designing a suite of mobile apps – the first one as a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) that could be updated from the field. Our initial tests looked fine but as we travelled to more remote areas, we saw that we needed the app to be offline and then synced when connected to the internet for it to work in Samoa. We are still at phase one and have yet to build the apps for the farmers and also the hotels but we are learning lessons along the way. The first is to keep it simple and focussed on the problem you are trying to solve. Otherwise, you end up with a flash product that has many features but still does not address the main problem. The other lesson is that although you may have to work with technical people, you need to keep in the driver’s seat. You know your family farmers and understand the cultural, economic and social landscape they are operating in – this is key to a successful ICT programme.
Hi all,
Greetings from Kenya
The MDGS goals of eradicating poverty and hunger through increasing agricultural production to meet the needs of the rapidly growing population by either increasing crop yields in areas where there is farming can be achieved by changing the crops to suit the changing climate or changing the use of the land to more suitable activities in order to solve the problem of food shortages. The largest benefits will occur in lands which are underutilized but which have the potential for crop production or which currently have low crop yields. FAO estimates show that between 1995/7 and 2030 about 75 percent of the projected growth in crop production in Sub-Saharan Africa will come from intensification in the form of yield increases (62 percent) and higher cropping intensities (13 percent), with the remaining 25 percent coming from arable land expansion. According to a study on Agricultural extension services in Kenya,Remote areas and poor
producers especially those growing low-value crops with little marketable surplus are poorly served.(Tegemeo Working paper 26/2006). This means that Arid lands(80% of Kenya) are not well covered in terms of access to information that could help optimize these areas for agricultural production or livestock rearing.ICT is the solution to getting information to the farmers in these areas. LandPKS(Land Potential Knowledge System) is a project funded by USDA-ARS which has developed an android based tool powered by a geospatial knowledge engine to enable farmers and rangeland managers to dynamically predict land potential. It is being piloted in Nothern Kenya and Namibia. LandPKS is still in the pilot phase but the android tool has proved easy to use even for the illiterate due to use of simple illustrations.
communication
Communicate to farmers on available tools and their use. Get technology to the ground.
Use of inbuilt demos on use of features and simple illustrations- cross cutting to all education levels
Ensure proper interpretation of tools and questions to ensure proper information is sent through tools to ensure correct predictiosn- GIGO(Garbage in Garbage out)
community media
Use existing community groups to test the tools and teach other farmers on their use and benefits.
ICT tools
Downloadable tools which can be used with smart phones and sms based services can provide farmers with upto date information on climate, provide a platform to share knowledge (global connectivity) with other farmers to enable sharing of working practices(Local knowledge) and connect farmers to markets with best prices(reducing oppression by middlemen)
We are a social business using technology to open the channels of communication between smallholder farmers and other supply chain actors. Based on our experience in the food industry, we firmly believe that if the end buyers of products grown by smallholders know more about farmers, a stronger bridge will develop in the value chain, a deeper understanding of risk will be developed and more targeted investment in strengthening sustainable smallholder farming will emerge.
One of the ways that communication and technology can be used to empower farmers is to begin to use it to introduce brands and retailers to the farmers who grow the crops that feed the supply chain. Perhaps the most effective way to do this is by giving the farmers a voice that can be heard by the other supply chain actors. The solution we arrived at was to use a downloadable smart phone app to conduct very short and simple surveys among farmers in various farming communities in the Global South. The survey which we are currently testing in Peru has 13 questions around key life areas, specifically finance, health, education and general well-being.
From a business perspective, knowing who your suppliers are should be considered vital information, as these are the people who 'feed' your supply chain. And, through regular monitoring of smallholders the supply chain brands and retailers can get an early indications about the changing perspectives of farmers. With this win-win, maybe we can move toward more sustainable supply chains – something that we all need.
The challenge we currently face is the cost of conducting the surveys. The primary obstacle we face is the cost of surveying. We continue to look for better technological solutions to our communications challenge, but so far we are still employing an individual to go from farm to farm. In order to grow the concept we need to find a more cost-effective way to gather data.
Dear All,
Greetings from India.
I am Mobile Agriculture Specialist with 5 years of work in designing, developing and deploying mAgriculture service in India. The scenario is constantly changing and the need of information is following the same pattern. Just 5 years before we were busy in deploying Agriculture Information Service by using mobile phones.
Now is the time to form an Association of exisiting Climate Agriculture knowledge providers at state level and start collating local social knowledge. These knowledge then can be intergated by using various ICT model primarily mobile as its easiest and pro-poor communication medium. The role of Climate Smart Agricultural Content Providers, local Social Knowledge and Mobile Network Operator (MNOs) or a Mobile Agriculture Value Added Service (VAS) Provider is very important for sustainability and scalability of the service.
Rajeev,
I certainly agree with you, integrating climate analysis can provide the deedback loop to the farmer required by ICT initiatives, can help understand sidease dissemination or the influence of luminosity and temperature in production. We are just about to start working on this in Colombia, we have access some weather databases from Meteoblue but are in an early stage and sharing experiences, methodologies and analytical frameworks will be excellent. Here is my email, very interested in getting in touch [email protected]
Thank you Alice.
The Dimitra community listeners’ clubs are groups of rural women, men, young women and young boys- mixed or not- that voluntarily come together to discuss their priorities, community problems and act together to find solutions. This happens in a participatory environment where everyone (both women and men) have the opportunity to make their voices heard. In this approach, ICTs are important instruments serving the initiative. The clubs are equipped with wind-up solar-powered radios and sometimes paired with mobile phones to facilitate communication among the clubs, community radios stations and communities. ICTs are certainly essential in this approach but participation, action and ownership are crucial elements. The clubs are agents of change, not only in agricultural matters but also in other social aspects (health issues such as sanitation or HIV/AIDS, girls’ early marriage, social cohension, gender equality and women's empowerment). As someone was saying before, ownership is fundamental if small farmers – women and men- are to adopt new practices, new ways of doing, new varieties.
I share with you a publication issued in French and English (most Dimitra knowledge sharing tools are in both languages) that summarizes the incredible experience and main characteristics of the approach http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/am604e/am604e.pdf I also invite you to read our latest Newsletter 25 http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/dimitra/pdf/dim_25_e.pdf which features articles on Dimitra and its partners and this special number contains also an interesting speech of a traditional chief who speaks about the impact of the community listeners’ clubs in his communities.