Resources

The FAO organized regional workshop on “Mobile Technologies for food security, agriculture and rural development”, held in April 2012, brought together senior officials from the Ministries of Agriculture and allied ministries to share examples of the use of mobile technologies used in their countries, in both public and private sectors, for agricultural information services.

The examples quoted in this publication provide an indicative list of the types of services available, and are by no means a comprehensive analysis of relevant activities in the countries concerned. The aim was to use some cases mentioned during the workshop to achieve a common understanding of the state of the art in these Asian countries, taking account of the tremendous increase in the adoption of mobile phones for delivering agricultural information services.

Their discussion generated the insights and recommendations that are relevant to this discussion.

Access the document at http://www.fao.org/docrep/017/i3074e/i3074e00.htm

I am a member of Farm Radio International team. And I bring "to some of you" our experience of using ICT in agriculture in Africa.
The African Farm Radio Research Initiative (AFRRI) was a 42-month action research project implemented by Farm Radio International (FRI) in partnership with World University Service of Canada (WUSC), and with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The following are the results of this multi-year, multi country research project that are among the first in-depth studies of rural radio in Africa. The first report outlines our use of a newly developed methodology called the Participatory Radio Campaign. The second report presents our analysis of market information services (MIS) and their effectiveness on the radio. The last report presents our results from integrating newer ICTs with radio to create more effective farm radio programs. I invite you to visit our web site: http://www.farmradio.org/publications/our-research/
And for more information, please contact us

Thanks for making available this document.It will indeed be a good resource for the discussions.

Ecolife Café, a social business model serving as an informal learning hub for information exchange, technology services for local businesses and communities. The Ecolife Café  in Giao Xuan commune of Nam Dinh province, a coastal province of Vietnam, was facilitated by Vietnet-ICT  in 2010.

Being known as a typical community- based ecotourism site with services provided by local community, Giao Xuan always fulfill tourists with new impressions of the real Vietnam rural atmosphere with plain country people and nature beauty of “peaceful land, ideal migrate place” that engraved in tourists’ mind.

Coming to Ecolife Café, tourists and community citizen can enjoy the nature, with water lily pond, betel tree line, sipping a cup of coffee when feeling the bird’s singing, the sound of the wind under the local typical house: Boi house, listening to traditional folk song and leave all the stuff of life behind but absorbing leisure time here. Tourists may also be in love with local products like: embroiled picture, fish sauces, rice, sophora flower, eugenia flower bud, etc. that are made and offered by local people to gain a sustainable income without exploiting natural resources.

In addition, Ecolife Café play as a community learning center including climate change adaptation corner and wifi – free that bring community access to information relating to livelihoods and climate change to raise community awareness and material life.

Established in 2007, Vietnet-ICT contributes its efforts to promote opportunities for development of disadvantaged Vietnamese people, supports the poor and vulnerable populations to benefit from information technology and communication services through narrowing the digital divide with effective information access, promoting partnership and capacity building. W: www.vietnet-ict.org.

Thanks to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), for sharing this.

Information and communication technologies for agricultural development in Latin America: trends, barriers and policies

By Mônica Rodrigues, Adrián Rodríguez, Feb 2013, 290 pp ECLAC, European Union (@LIS2).

The present publication has been prepared in the dual context of abundance (of ideas, opinions and initiatives) and scarcity (of systematic and organized information) on the potential of ICTs to promote socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable agricultural development. In Latin America, social inclusion and environmental sustainability in agriculture are especially relevant issues, in light of the great structural heterogeneity within the sector and, more recently, the stepped-up pressures on natural resources resulting from the boom in international commodity markets. Yet, the adoption of ICTs in agriculture cannot be expected by itself to reduce production asymmetries and enhance social inclusion. On the contrary, the dissemination of ICTs could indeed produce new gaps by replicating the sector’s historic disparities. 

Taking advantage of ICTs for reversing patterns of unequal development and promoting environmental sustainability in the region’s agriculture will require policies for overcoming barriers to their adoption in those segments that are lagging furthest behind. One way to pursue this goal is to identify successful policies and projects in neighboring countries and in other continents with similar patterns of economic and social diversity and adapt them to countries of the region. This publication is intended to contribute to the identification of successful experiments in fostering the use of ICTs in agriculture.

http://www.cepal.org/cgi-bin/getProd.asp?xml=/publicaciones/xml/9/49319/...

(Start date: September 2002)

This project initiates the development of an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) strategy for the Agriculture sector in Bolivia with a focus on small-scale farmers and indigenous groups. The project seeks active participation of policy makers through awareness and capacity development of top-level policy makers in the ministry of agriculture. In addition, other stakeholders in the government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), private sector and grass root organizations provide input through a series of workshops. The project is the first ICT policy project in Bolivia, providing the newly appointed policy makers in the ministry with a possibility of additional media and political attention.

Read more : http://www.iicd.org/projects/bolivia-ict-policy-for-agriculture

The key findings does not represent the entire Pacific Island Countries and Territories. I don't think it captures the detailed analysis on the status of e-agriculture strategy in the various countries.

Hello Anju

Thank you for your feedback. I guess you are talking about the summary of findings of the background report we produced. Actually it does not provide details and comprehensive information on any region/country. As we indicated, it's just an introductory research, undertaken through desk research, to have some elements on ICT for agriculture development in the ACP and to spur discussions. So I'm happy you are sharing this feedback. We hope that during the meeting you will give us updates on the Pacific. Moreover, we are planning a detailed study after the Observatory, to better capture (selected) country experiences, lessons learned, innovative experiences, that could be shared. We can discuss about how other partners could join it, help define the scope and expected results, etc.

Regards

Ken Lohento, CTA

Hi Ken,

Thank you for your comment and clarification. The detailed study would be ideal especially here in the Pacific. We would be keen to learn from the different countries about their ICT strategies etc. The one thing I did notice is that people usually do the activitiy without having a strategy. This is common in some countries.

Thanks

Anju