From your understanding and experiences, what is the role of ICTs in sustainable intensification of horticulture crop based s

Notre expérience des jardins potagers dans les parcelles residentielles en milieu urbain. Nous partageons des informations et expériences sur les téléphones mobiles. Les quartiers Kindele et Kimbondo dans la commune de Mont Ngafula fait fugure du modèle en RDC.

Dépuis octobre 2016, 30 Ménages de Kindele ou des quartiers voisins ( femmes et hommes), chaque ménage y cultive sa parcelle en fonction de ses moyens , et ce , une meilleure façon de promouvoir la consommation journalière de ( 400 à 600) de légumes frais de qualité , selon les normes de la FAO-OMS, ils utilisent de bons vieux arrosoirs.

Les fertilisants ( compost, fientes de volailles) sont fabriqués à partir du recyclage des déchets ménagers biodégradables.

Environs 60 % de la production sert à l'autoconsommation, le reste est vendu et permet de se procurer d'autes produits. Nous voulons que les parcelles deviennent entièrement biologique et écoresponsable. Sur base des messages et appels directs en ligne, les femmes peuvent poser des questions et obtenir des reponses en ligne sur leurs préocupations sur les itinéraires techniques de production ( choix de semence, écartement, mode de semis et plantation), mais surtaout sur l'application du compost et fiente des poules par exemple.  Surtout les SMS sont utilisés pour entre en contact avec les mentors locaux.

Notre est d'atteindre un grand nombre des ménages, dans la mesure où, la plupart des sites maraîchers de la commune de mont ngafula sont entièrrement spoliés avec les constructions, tandisque les parcelles d'habitation ont l'avantage d'ouvrir déjà une sécurité foncier pour les exploitants dans les parcelles et la qualité du legume reste bonne pour la santé.
 

In our experience, intensification of production is often linked to access to finance. The financing of agriculture in many developing countries, particularly smallholder farming, faces significant challenges. One of the key difficulties is the lack of confidence in the other parties in the value chain. Lenders don’t have confidence in farmers. Farmers don’t have confidence in lenders. Suppliers of inputs don’t have confidence in either lenders or farmers. Off-takers / buyers don’t have confidence in farmers and vice-versa, and so on.

This lack of confidence typically manifests itself in the form of unrealistic collateral requirements and/or unsustainable interest rates that severely limit the opportunity for farmers to; either access finance at all, or do so at an affordable interest rate, that would allow them to grow (intensify production) or, at the bottom of the pyramid, climb out of the poverty-cycle of a subsistence existence.

We have developed an ICT-based solution that establishes, or re-establishes, trust within the value chain while incentivising loyalty. Through the use of technology to link each stakeholder in the value chains, managed by our aGrnomiX system, visibility is increased over participant/stakeholder activities and accountability naturally improves as a result. The information and data captured also allows us to develop scoring models (using alternative data and sources) that establish financial identities, which insentivises participants and empowers them through improved access to finance.

Look out for the Makoni Paprika Scheme case study from Zimbabwe that will be presented over the coming weeks...

Because intensification is ultimately going to be implemented by farmers, the starting point ought to be understanding their view of it. Farmers want to progress in their work, and are often very willing to adopt new practices and aims once they appreciate the benefits thereof.

That said, a significant role for ICTs going forward will be communicating to the (African smallholder) farmer

(a) the importance (global), (b) the value (for individual farmer) and (c) the actual practices to adopt/ steps to take, working with what they have.

My view is that the majority of our smallholders need very little incentive to adopt good agricultural practices- they just need to see the benefits with their own eyes. This causes me to believe in video as an ICT tool in particular;

1. Videos of success stories delivered directly to the farmer or farmer group.  Videos of farmers in other places realizing real benefits from adopting sustainable intensification would not only inform, but also stimulate aspiration. 

2. Video tutorials of how to "do" sustainable intensification.

Zimbabwe for instance, has a saturated mobile penetration, with an estimated 98% of its population having mobile broadband.

Video has proven to have very low adoption issues across Africa, and in my view, would be worth the translation and deployment (particularly from a cost of data perspective).

My view especially on Zimbabwe is the need to first have a comprehensive robust modularized agricultural information database system as we currently don't have such a system as most of our knowledge is either hard copies or isolated electronic databases. Worse is our traditional knowledge which is dying with our fore parents. These modules will have horticulture module, cotton module, animal farming module etc and then agricultural Value added services which covers financing, marketing, commodity prices, weather etc. modules will cover full cycle calendar of activities expected in the type of farming addressed and VAS services are things that can be common to all farmers. The challenge is that most systems available are not trusted as they belong to individual entrepreneurs either seeking agri -insurance business or a platform to provide marketing services of crops that were probably financed by some shadowy money lenders who in most cases would not want the farmers to know the true value of their produce and therefore more inclined to sabotage other systems by talking nagatively about them. We still have one way non interactive communication and the bulk of it is mainly annoying full of marketing jargon in SMS or email. One thing l know is that farmers will invest if they see value in it. Farmers can invest in tablets and solar powered chargers if they know it can enhance their output quality, quantity and income. Developing countries depend mainly on organic fertilizers and instead of using that as an excuse there is an opportunity to e-track and e-tag organically produced horticulture products which can be sold at high prices in the developed world. Most horticulture produce is perishable and hence ICT will help the farmers to communicate just in time for picking to avoid loss. In terms of crop diseases farmers can take pictures and upload on to the crop diseases module in a similar fashion as we do on social media and they are responded to immediately by manning humans or robots for possible remedies. The module can be connected to an international database with interconnected experts - then we have connected horticulture systems. We have expertise dotted around globe and we need that connected farming intelligence. For instance we can have a pool of expertise on sub-Saharan agriculture for crops, diseases, marketing etc then we can have sustainable poverty alleviating response and avoid peace meal approach.

Dear all,

To me, role of ICTs in worldwide trade helps poor countries too much from farmer to comercial group even helpless from goverment... Vietnam, we are for example, base on social network as FB, TW, Zalo, Viber, youtube... help us in touch with high technologies, market... just a farmer withought knowledge, but vietnamese farmer can make so many machine serve for their farm and region...beside that we sale product with higher price... we are not forced by China trader....

Rubber tree is a sample, if no ICTs, 2015 we destroyed all rubber farm because price for rubber is lowest from 1994 and now price is so high...

Generally, Thanks for ICTs helping us get a right to balance with developed countries...

Thanks for E-Agriculture create this topic for us to prsent our point of view...

A farmer from Vietnam.

WORM

Dear Colleagues

Good comments and contributions so far.
The impact of ICTs and media on transferring information and increasing people knowledge is clear e.g. in terms of time, efficacy etc. However, financing is always a dynamic issue especially in developing and undeveloped countries. In addition, in order to make the use of ICTs more helpful, the level of education in target groups need to be considered when deciding upon using type of tools for communication.

Fellow Partcipants,

I'm working with the coffee and climate initiative (www.coffeeandclimate.org) - 
In terms of ICTs, we are developing two main lines.

1) Cheap field instrumentation - it's now becoming much more affordable to place temperature sensors in the field and measure the response to various adaptation trials. This link: https://public.tableau.com/profile/tobias.voigt#!/vizhome/coffeeclimate-... shows results of direct measurements of the effect of mulch treatments to lower soil temperatures, something we believe is very important to protect feeder roots. The devices used in is case are smart buttons (or i-buttons) that combine a sensor and datalogger. Thus very quick results can be obtained to see if adaptation methods are working.  A big surprise for us was how high soil temperatures were getting in some plots, well above thresholds for root damage.

There are now various devices available - the cheapest start at under EURO€50 for a temperature sensor that stores readings and transmits to a mobile phone - i.e. something that could be affordable for many farmers or their support orgs. Unfortunately we don't yet have an affordable soil moisture sensor, but are hopeful that costs of these will come down eventually. But even with just temperature it enables us to get a much better idea of how extreme conditions can be and devise ways to bring them down to more acceptable levels.

2) Spreadsheet & mobile enabled simulation for decision-making - we are developing simple heuristic software for farmers to understand risks. A fundamental problem for farmers is to figure out how to plan for the coming year, in terms of costs of inputs, prices and potential weather shocks. The basic approach is to work with groups of farmers, based on data from the previous year, to estimate cash flows and then develop this into an app, at first a very simple one to help them control costs, but eventually something more complete that would eventually count as a DSS - a decision support system.

This second approach is still in its early stages - I would be very interested to learn of anyone else using or developing something similar or who is interested in collaboration.

The really encouraging thing is that this technology will only get better and cheaper in the future, so it's time everybody started trying it out, even if only in a very limited way to start with.

Best regards,

Dr P.S. Baker Chief Science Consultant,

Initiative for Coffee and Climate www.coffeeandclimate.org

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Baker3

Director, Climate Edge Ltd www.climate-edge.co.uk