Esteemed Colleagues, 

Our sincere thanks go to all of you for the active participation , informative and the open exchange of views during the first week of our Global discussion.Indeed the quintessential role of ICTs-in the sustainable intensification of horticulture crop based systems  cannot  be emphasised more.

Moving on, we are equally excited of the week ahead  and we would like to kindly remind you that from Monday the  13th to  Friday the 17th  of March , we will take this discussion to  an even  more interesting phase . Where we are kindly asking you  to share the practical examples / success stories on ICT technologies and / innovative practices  that have been used /in use for  sustainably intensifying  horticulture crop-based systems.( mainly fruits , vegetables, roots and tubers) for both small holder and commercial farmers in your respective localities. For easier readability of your cases/stories,  may  we suggest that you succinctly describe the following when sharing your  case : have the ICT technologies / innovative practices you are sharing  proved to work well and produced good results, can they be recommended as models? Are they successful experiences that has been tested and validated in the broad sense and deserves to be shared so that a greater number of people can adopt it? Alternatively, have these ICT technologies / innovative practices demonstrated a high degree of success in a single setting and guarantee the possibility of replication in the same setting. 

You may want to further  include details on what has been done, where, how, who, when and the results/ impacts of  the ICT technologies / practices.

Once again we are happy to re-introduce our first case study providers :
1.    Dr Azzam Saleh Ayasa - Head of Programme Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) │West Bank and Gaza Strip Mount of Olives .Jerusalem.
2.    Prof Manuel. R. Reyes, Ph.D. Research. AgroEcological Engineer. SIIL Coordinator, Center of Excellence on Sustainable Agricultural Intensification CE SAIN, Cambodia. Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab (SIIL).Kansas State University.USA
3.     Mr Hasib Ahsan -ICT Head of Operations -mPower Social Enterprises Ltd-ICT Head of Operations, USAID Agricultural Extension Project (ICT in Agriculture Extension).Bangladesh. 
4.    Mr Keron Bascombe, Agricultural Blogger, Creator and Editor of the blog Tech4agri.com,Trinidad and Tobago- Country representative in the Global Forum for Agricultural Research (GFAR) Steering committee.
5. Mr Erick Zvavanyange, Country representative under the Young Professionals for Agricultural Development. Zimbabwe.

We are looking forward to continue learning from  your practical examples/ success stories. 

On Behalf of the forum moderators. 

Innocent Chamisa
Rural and Urban Crop and Mechanization Systems Team
Plant Production and Protection Division.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).Rome. Italy

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

Thank you Dr Wilfried for the opening remarks and setting the tone for the discussion. 

Dear participants, we are greatly honored and pleased to welcome you all, with this the floor is open for your contributions.

Looking forward to a fruitful discussion.

Forum Moderator.

On Behalf of Mukesh Pandey et al  Research Paper -ICT System for Increasing Efficiency of Apple-Value Chain.

Abstract.

Horticultural crops being high value crops are important in raising the incomes of the farmers besides creating employment opportunities. Apple is one of the most widely grown temperate fruit crops grown in Himalayas of Northern India. Almost all the apples grown in India come from its three mountainous states i.e. Himachal Pradesh, J&K and Uttarakhand. The supply chain of apples, which is one of the main temperate fruit crops of the Himachal Pradesh, is laden with inefficiencies across the entire value chain leading to poor price realization of growers on one hand  and exorbitant prices paid by consumers on the other. A major share of this consumer rupee goes to a miniscule number of market intermediaries who exploit the farmers due to poor marketing linkages, virtually non-existent cold chain infrastructure and processing facilities. The growers still follow the age old cultivation practices and have noidea of consumer needs and preferences, market prices,various government schemes, scientific agronomical practices especially agri-inputs, sources of timely and adequate credit availability and market linkages. The apple farmers of Himachal Pradesh suffer due to inadequate infrastructure especially cold chains, absence of demandforecasting and meagre value-addition. They also lack information on scientific cultivation practices, market prices, consumer preferences and market linkages.

The purpose of this research paper, as such, is to integrate the information platform for various stakeholders and design an ICT enabled apple supply chain that will benefit millions of apple growers, processors, distributors, dealers, exporters of fresh & processed apple products and above all consumers. The study will also provide an action plan to the policy makers and private players like HPMC and Adani thus creating spin-offs which will stimulate social, economical and sustainable development of India.

Full paper available here:

Dear   Colleagues, 

Once again, we would like to thank all participants who have already shared their input to this ongoing discussion.

From today you can follow the second question of the discussion that will run until Friday the 17th of March and we would like to invite you all to contribute.

Do you have any concrete examples of successful use of ICTs in sustainable intensification of horticulture crop based systems (mainly fruits, vegetables, roots and tubers), for both smallholder and commercial farmers in your respective localities?

For easier readability of your cases/stories,  may  we suggest that you succinctly describe the following when sharing your  case :

• Have the ICT technologies / innovative practices you are sharing  proved to work well and produced good results, can they be recommended as models?
• Are they successful experiences that has been tested and validated in the broad sense and deserves to be shared so that a greater number of people can adopt it?
• Alternatively, have these ICT technologies / innovative practices demonstrated a high degree of success in a single setting and guarantee the possibility of replication in the same setting?

You may want to further include details on what has been done, where, how, who, when and the results/ impacts of the ICT technologies / practices.

We look forward to receiving your inputs.

On Behalf of the forum moderators.