Join the HSRC Annual innovation and development lecture: Interrogating agricultural innovation systems from a small farmer perspective. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) over 1.3 billion people, or about 40% of the global work force is employed by agriculture. About 90 percent of the world’s 570 million farms are owned and operated by families. Most of these farms are small and are found in the rural areas of the developing world, where 75% of the population is employed in agriculture. But with the increase of the world's population and the advent of climate...
Vodacom is leading a three-part ICT development initiative in Kaduna State in Nigeria focused on education, health and agriculture. Kaduna State and Nigeria are only a part of wider plan of similar initiatives throughout the whole of Africa. Similar initiatives have already started in Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, and other countries will be reached during 2017. The first part of the project is centered on education and will be implemented in 4 000 schools across Kaduna State by June 2017. It is a solution that allows the State to monitor feeding programmes mobile phone and tablets...
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...
In Summary ICTs are very useful in agricultural extension and advisory services and in facilitating reaching out to family farmers Extension and Advisory services play a crucial role in promoting agricultural productivity, increasing food security, improving rural livelihoods How have ICTs been applied in extension services M ost of the family farmers in developing countries live rural areas and are in most cases divorced from technology and vital agricultural support services needed to carry out farming activities. Extension and advisory services are relevant to smallholder farmers, who...
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 e-Agriculture is a platform of choice where individuals interested in ICTs and agriculture visit regualrly. Are you have a non-commercial workshop, conference or seminar in the areas of ICTs in agriculture? Do you target farmers, practitioners, and other stakeholders in agriculture? If yes, we can list your event in e-Agriculture events section. We are building a 2017 catalog of such events and we welcome your submission. These events could be in English, French and Spanish primarily or in any of the FAO/UN languages. Events Details To be included the event should have the following...
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...
The Internet of Food & Farm 2020 (IoF2020) project investigates and fosters a large-scale implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) in the European farming and food sector. With a €30 million budget co-funded by the European Union, the project has the potential to bring a paradigm shift in this domain, by drastically improving productivity and sustainability - source . It will demonstrate the added value of smart webs of connected objects, that are context-sensitive and can be identified, sensed and controlled remotely in the agri-food sector. The project has started on January 1st 2017...
The Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition ( GODAN ), has launched a new working group on Soil Data Working Group, in cooperation with the Research Data Alliance and the Global Soil Partnership . The working group was initially conceptualized during GODAN Summit 2016.The working group will closely interact with other initiatives related to the development of open soil standards promoting the exchange of digital soil data (OGC, ISO), and support and utilize these. This Soil Data Working Group joins other existing working groups within the GODAN. The objectives of the Soil Data Working...
Rural mobile connectivity is still poor in Africa, according to the GSMA Mobile Economy Africa 2016 Report. Mobile connectivity can help smallholders get access to relevant market information and financial services, which are essential for their development. Affordability is another key issue, as the report states that in countries such as Chad and Niger, for example, "mobile broadband represents around 200% of the annual income of the bottom 20% of the population." Nevertheless, mobile financial services are hugely important in sub-saharan Africa, with the region representing 63% of active...
