There is no denying that we all agreee that eAgriculture is important. We are all researching in the area or stakeholders, policy makers etc. There has been a massive increase in the application of ICT in agriculture. This has mostly been at the  research level and I agree with Gerald Sylvester that the problem is the level of adoption of these technologies. We are a very disjointed bunch of researchers crossing many disciplines. There is a percentage of agricultural researchers who view ICT as a means to complete their statisical analysis or some out-of-date production modelling tool. Likewise those coming to eAgriculture from a computing background lack the knowledge and context of what tools they are developing.  This has lead to a fairly disjointed number of attempts to show the potential of eAgriculture technologies.  

i fell the issue is to try and move eAgriculture into the mainstream, promote its potential and a strategy for research and development, engagement with farmers and other stakeholders, and a plan for the uptake and adoption of these strategies as part of the overall agricultural industry strategies.  

One issue in Australia seems to be lack of focus for a body that is solely aimed to promote eAgriculture, There seems to be a conflict between what is termed as Precision agriculture and the more broad aims of eAgriculture.  I do feel a discourse on developing a eAgriculture strategy that can be used to lobby the government and research organizations and farmer bodies to focus more on how eAgriculture can facilitate not only other agricultural research but also farmer practices is needed  We have  formed a national society in Australia , ASICTA  http://www.asicta.org/ (which is dedicated to such aims ).

 How do we determine the stakeholders and create discussion amongst them to get the dialogue going. And more importantly how can we get the funding to dedicate time to determine these strategies.

We have discuss these matters amongst our ASICTA members in terms of starting to develop a white paper on eAgriculture strategies at a national level.  This is one of the goals of of our national society. 

I would also agree that there needs to be a development of a regional strategy (Asia for example) as well as perhaps statewide strategies which could be tailored from the national and regional strategies. I suggest that all the other national ICT in agriculture societies  and regional bodies such  AFITA, EFITA work on developing white papers on this.