Nano Ganesh - a mobile based remote control for water pumps and water tanks - developed by the Ossian Agro Automation , will be demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress , Barcelona, Spain, taking place from February 27th to March 2nd 2017. The electronic device will be part of the Mobile for Development in the Innovation City in the Mobile World Congress. GSMA has constructed a small grass plot irrigated by sprinklers controlled live by visitors with a mobile phone with the help of Nano Ganesh device. Nano Ganesh is a GSM Mobile based remote control system exclusively for the use with water...
Agricultural insurance is essential for smallholder farmers, as plots of land are small and the consequences of crop diseases and climate change effects can be disastrous. Yeld loss and damage monitoring and verification can be long and laborious task, causing huge delays in settlements. Although new technologies have been applied, drones, micro-satellites, digital photography can help improve the monitoring of crops and yelds for smallholders and insurance companies. Remote sensing can be a key tool for farmers to prove their crop and harvest loss to insurance companies. At the same time,...
The Food and Agriculture Policy Decision Analysis (FAPDA) promotes evidence-based decision making by collecting and disseminating information on policy information through a freely accessible web-based tool. The FAPDA tool provides an electronic repository for food and agriculture policies in over 130 countries. The repository presents itself as a map with the different countries coloured according to the coverage of their policies. A free text search is also available. The policies in the repository can be filtered by Country/region , Date , Policy decision and Policy framework . For each...
Mercy Corps, in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation, today launched AgriFin Accelerate in Zambia. The AgriFin Accelerate program is a six-year, USD 25 million program. The program seeks to address the financial inclusion gap for smallholder farmers (SHF) who lack access to affordable, accessible, demand-driven financial products and services that drive higher productivity and income for farm families. In Zambia, more than 70 percent of the population is engaged in, or derives its livelihood, from agriculture-related activities. The lack of access to financial services among farmers is...
In a recent news article, it was reported the South-Western Kansas (U.S.A) is dealing with a significant amount of drought, with 65% of the state affected. Farmers are paying a high price for this situation, but some of them have now begun to take action thanks to ICTs. To tackle the drought, farmers in Kansas have started to use soil moisture sensors, a tool to measure the volumetric water content present in the soil. With this technology, farmers can check how much water their crops get naturally and adjust their irrigation systems accordingly. The soil moisture sensors are useful in many...
KrishiSuchak is a WhatsApp-like app developed by Bangalore-based startup Nubesol Technologies to permit smallholders to message agricultural scientist to ask them for advice on their yields, thus eliminating spatial barriers between extension services. Farmers can send their queries either as text, a photo or a record of their voices to the extension officers. Farmers can now get advice via Krishi Shuchak from agronomists by sending only a picture of the damaged crop. The scientist then responds to the query by identifying the problem and then giving advice on the pests to use in order to...
THOUSANDS of smallholder farmers in the region are set to benefit from a digital platform connecting them to agents, buyers and banks in East Africa. Launched by Mastercard , 2KUZE, as the platform is known, is the latest offering in the region hailed as the cradle of African technology innovation. The agricultural technology app was developed at Mastercard's Nairobi Labs for Financial Inclusion with the support of the Gates Foundation. 2KUZE’s primary value proposition is connecting farmers, agents, and buyers on a digital platform toward greater pricing transparency and more effective...
Mobile has the most potential to improve the income of smallholder farmers in developing countries in Africa, India and the Middle East. The up take of mobile technology (and m obile penetration rate ) for agricultural and rural development in the Global South has been on the increase. Connected Agriculture , is a report by Accenture and Vodafone on the role of mobile in driving efficiency and sustainability in the food and agriculture value chain, focuses on 12 opportunities that deliver broad socio-economic and environmental benefits. The report hinges its proposal on the fact that mobile...
Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have revolutionised how farming is done over the years. In Africa, in particular, technology has improved the efficiency of data collection and monitoring and evaluation - especially through mobile technology and mobile apps. E-Agriculture has in past held global discussions in conjuction with W orldBank where experts from various fields and organisations around the world shared their experiences and discussed the ways in which they were using mobilephones, tables,application and software - to collect data in the field, and to perfom monitoring...
