Many smallholder farmers in many part of Africa produce fruits and vegetables alongside their stable food – such as cereals, tubers and roots. Yet farmers are losing more than 50% of their crops due to lack of cold storage. The Food and Agriculture Organization the United Nations estimates that one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption (approx. 1.3 billion tonnes) gets lost or wasted. Therefore, there is a need for post-harvest handling facilities for both horticultural produces and also for cereals. For ten years, Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu has been producing radio shows for...
We enjoyed working with you and sharing news related to ICTs for Agriculture in 2017. We wish you happy holidays. We invite you to review a selection of some of our 2017 activities e-Forum Discussions The Role of ICTs in Sustainable Crop Production Intensification (SCPI) of horticulture crop based system (mainly fruits, vegetables, roots and tubers) e-Forum on ICTs and Open Data in Agriculture and Nutrition e-Forum discussion on the Agriculture Open Data Package - AgPack.info e-Agriculture Webinars e-Agriculture Newsletters e -Agriculture Learning activity on drones in agriculture Good and...
Microsoft India has collaborated with ICRISAT to develop Artificial Intelligence based system to help farmers in the states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya, Pradesh, Maharashtra and Telangana. The technologies are part of the Microsoft Cortana Intelligence Suite and include Cloud Machine Learning, Satellite Imagery and Advanced Analytics. The developed app sends sowing advisories to participating farmers on the optimal date to sow. Through their cell phones farmers receives these advices as text messages. Read more about this app here
Seeds and Chips recently published a piece by Marco Gualtieri who proposes that technology is combating climate change in African Agriculture. In Africa, due to climate induced changes the availability of fertile land shrinks and this has sparked rural to urban migration. Ballooning urban population has skewed allocation of funds to cities and support for farming is slashed even further with an impact of lowering food production. The article also notes that there is a need to find sustainable methods in food and rural agriculture; keeping young dedicated people on the ground and then...
Quick read The world still need more food to feed the growing population Internet of Things (loT) is being used in agriculture Some advantages of Internet of Things (loT) Learn more about Internet of Things (loT) The Agricultural revolution of 1930s to 1960s focused on increasing agricultural production and mechanization; technology was at the center of its success. However, in reality 50 years later, there are still many people who are hungry, today 815 million people are chronically undernourished. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) predicted that the global...
SciDevNet published an article supported by the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA). The article focuses on the various apps that are available in agriculture as curated by the Apps4Ag database . The example of Farmerline app is highlighted; this app gives smallholder farmers voice-based messages in their local langauges. Through this service farmers can get price related information; the use of insecticides and weather information. Other cited in the article that are popular in agriculture include the iCow – cattle information services in Kenya; Mrittikā – weather...
Quick read Indigenous territories are facing threats of illegal activities, such as land grabbing and territorial boundary encroachments Technologies such as drones facilitates mapping and monitoring of indigenous land and other natural resources Review of 5 projects on the use of drones in Peru, Guyana and Panama by indigenous communities Indigenous lands are facing a lot of increasing pressures from numerous legal and illegal activities, causing severe environmental degradation and threatening indigenous territorial rights and livelihoods – proposes are recent article . The article reviews...
Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID) hosted the seminar session titled “ Smart Agriculture, Smart Future ” at Digital World 2017 with support from the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA). On the 2nd day of the mega event, speakers highlighted the importance of use of Big Data and other...
This event is reported here as announced and their text re-used UNESCO is pleased to announce that it will partner with ITU, the United Nations specialized agency for ICTs, to organize Mobile Learning Week 2018 under the theme 'Skills for a connected world'. The event will examine how governments...
According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has projected that the number of mobile subscription stands at 7.74 billion now exceeds the global population. Similarly, the number of apps were reported to be on the increase , for example, as of March 2017 the number of apps available for download on Android stood at 2.8 million apps while Apple’s Apps store recorded 2.2 million apps. While the figures for apps related to agriculture is not readily known, the verity is that equally numbers are on the rise. This has led many to predict that mobile technologies are poised to...