Pitch AgriHack West Africa 2017 is a competition for start-ups and entrepreneurs in the e-agriculture sector. The objective is to help develop these business and at the same time contribute to accelerate the adoption of technology services in the agricultural sector. This edition of the prize is open for start-ups from West African countries and owners must not be older than 35 years. Candidates must be owners of a mobile application or an ICT service in the agricultural sector. Winning start-ups will receive from CTA up to Euros 15,000 to advance their services, apart from investment and...
The new ICT Update, Issue 85 is now available online. The issue is entitled "Applications for Agricultue" reporting CTA's work in covering the growth and proliferation of digital and mobile phone technologies for agriculture. CTA is now moving forward by developing the Apps4Ag database - which is envisaged as a comprehensive, up-to-date and responsive database of ICTs including mobile, web, animation, audio, and video applications involved in the food value chains. CTA has a clear approach in integrating ICTs into the food value chains and is now working on building a sustainable platform for...
Millions of underemployed skilled farmers and millions of hectares of underused arable land exhist all over the world, especially in developing countries. At the same time, the demand for high-quality organic food increases daily. According to FAO , our food production will have to increase dramatically to feed a growing population that will reach 9.7 billion in 2050. iGrow is a marketplace that helps underemployed farmers, under-utilized land, and investors to produce high-quality organic food and sustainable incomes through cloud-based agricultural management software. The online platform...
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recently held on the 27th of June a seminar entitled, " Towards Inclusive Rural Communication Services: Contributing to Poverty Reduction and the SDGs ". This seminar is timely in that FAO recently aligned its strategic objectives with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There is an interest in reaching out to the rural communities, and in particular smallholder and family farmers face social, economic and environmental challenges and access to information can make a huge difference in allevieting poverty. In 2014, FAO...
Youth employment should be at the center of any strategy to face economic and demographic challenges in Africa, the Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization José Graziano da Silva told a joint African Union - European Union meeting, hosted at FAO headquarters in Rome on July 2nd, 2017. In 2014 alone, about 11 million young people entered the labor market in Africa. Fostering sustainable agriculture and rural development is essential to absorb these millions of youth looking for a job. The problem is that young people see few opportunities in remaining in the traditional...
EFITA is the European conference dedicated to the future use of ICT in the agri-food sector, bioresource and biomass sector. The 2017 conference, which is the 11th of the series is being held in Montpellier in France from the 2nd to the 6th of July 2017. According to the conference website, there are 200 participants that are expected from around 30 countries. This year's conference is held in collaboration with the World Congress on Computers in Agriculture (WCCA). Program overview The program is comprised of a number of sessions, keynotes speakers, workshops and panel session. The abstracts...
Making Sustainable Agriculture a Future for Youth in Africa was the joint African Union and European Union Agriculture Ministers Conference held in Rome, at the Food and Agriculture Organization premises. The AU-EU Agriculture Ministerial Conference aimed to build up political engagement ahead of the Africa-EU Summit in November 2017 whose objective is a common vision on how to generate sustainable, inclusive jobs for African youth in the agri-food sector and rural economy. Making Sustainable Agriculture a Future for Youth in Africa Plenary Opening The opening plenary was addressed by Mr José...
The second week of the e-forum discussion on ICTs and Open Data in Agriculture and Nutrition continued with participants sharing examples and case studies on open data in agriculture. The question for week 2 was: What is the potential for open data in agriculture and nutrition? Does open data benefit and damage farmers, especially smallholder family farmers, women and the youth in developing countries? What case studies can demonstrate the benefits and/or damages of the use of ICTs and Open Data? Summary of contributions The Global Open Data in Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative...
