On Tuesday, May 2nd, 2017 the board of the brazilian National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) approved the text that regulates the operation of drones for commercial purposes throughout the Brazilian territory. The regulation brings standards and procedures that guarantee legal and operational safety and will have a great impact on the market’s sustainable growth. According to ANAC, the objective of the new regulations is to make viable Drones operations in Brazil, preserving the safety of people. The regulations were elaborated taking into account the level of complexity and risk involved in...
The GSMA mAgri Programme forges partnerships between mobile operators, technology providers and agricultural organisations. Although it has enourmous potential, Mexico seems to have been left out by ICT for agriculture initiatives. This article presents seven reasons for which Mexican agriculture should invest in ICT related projects to lift farmers out of poverty and into the 21st century. 1. The needs of Mexican farmers are huge 3.9 million farmers out of 5.3 million in Mexico earn of less than USD 1,000 per year. 61 per cent of Mexican farmers live in poverty. The reasons for this...
By 2050, there will be 9.6 billion people in the planet. Feeding the whole worldwide population will be a central challenge for the next generations. Farmers will have to think of ways to reduce the inputs, for example water and pesticides, while maintaining the outputs. Drones can be of great help to farmers in reducing the inputs while trying to provide the same production, or even increase it. This article presents six ways in which drones can be central in agricultural productivity and sustainability. 1. Soil and field analysis: Drones produce precise 3-D maps for early soil analysis for...
The proliferation of mobile phones across the world has enabled financial institutions to take advantage and introduce services accessible through mobile handsets. A scoping study has explored the challenges of implementing mobile-finance in low-income communities and also evaluated secondary data from online discussion and webinars. The study was done by two researchers at the University of Machester and raises very interesting questions into the application of mobile finance for low income countries. The following questions are answered in the paper:- What are the potential benefits of m-...
This announcement is reproduced as published on AIMS Dear Users AIMS team pleased to invite you to attend an upcoming webinar as part of the [email protected] series: HOW MUCH DATA IS ENOUGH IN PRECISION AGRICULTURE? DATE: Wednesday May 10th, 2017 TIME: at 15.00 CET / 16.00 CEST TARGET AUDIENCE: The webinar is open to all We welcome questions and suggestions at: [email protected] To PARTICIPATE: SEND YOUR REQUEST at: [email protected] containing: Subject: [email protected]_BDI Your Name: Your e-mail: Affiliation: LINK TO THE WEBINAR ROOM http://fao.adobeconnect.com/bde-pilot/ Once registered, you will receive...
Yara ImageIT is a smartphone app designed to measure nitrogen uptake in a crop and generate a nitrogen recommendation based on photographs of the crop. ImageIT calculates nitrogen uptake based on leaf cover, leaf green color and estimated fraction of brown leaves. The app also generates an intelligent recommendation for adjusting the fertilization program based on measurements. ImageIT is user-friendly and flexible in terms of technical requirements: it works with low resolution images with a file size as small as 50 – 200 KB. If internet coverage is poor, ImageIT can save the photos on the...
ICTs are pivotal for the future of agriculture. As they are finding an ever important space in most sectors of everyday life, agriculture should't be an exeption. ICTs can help in many ways producers and particularly smallholders in their livelihoods and development. In particular, ICTs can be an essential tool for young people aspiring to create their own agricultural business. As most of them have grown with these tools, they are more eager to use them in their worklife as well. This handbook published by the CTA is a guide designed for aspiring ICT entrepreneurs to instruct them with the...
Preliminary results of a study shows that using drone technology could cut labour and costs spent in collecting data for maize breeding by at least 10% . The SciDevNEt reported that The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center ( CIMMYT ) in Southern Africa has adopted the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) also known as drones to collect data as a critical part of a breeding programme. The article quotes Mainassara Abdou Zaman-Allah, a maize physiologist at CIMMYT who noted that UAVs facilitated the collection of instant data gathering and that drones are able to collect data from...
The Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) is set to launch a new book entitled, ICT Agripreneurship Guide – A Path to Success for Young ACP Entrepreneurs. This books relays CTA's experience of working with young people in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector The book is set to be launched at the African Agripreneurs Youth Forum (AYA Forum) in Ibadan, Nigeria. The AYA Forum is organised by the African Development Bank (AfDB), in collaboration with CTA, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the African Agribusiness Incubation...
Nigeria has one of the largest inventories of uncultivated farmland on earth, but they are losing crops in volumes because of labor shortages and lack of mechanization.” according to Jehiel Oliver, CEO of Hello Tractor. Many smallholder farmers cannot afford to pay someone else for high-season help. Owning a tractor would solve many of those problems. The first part of the business is the small, 15 horsepower tractor itself that Hello Tractor sells at $4,000, 10 times cheaper than the average tractor found in Africa. Each tractor comes with a GPS tracking device, so that its position can be...
