E-Agriculture

January 2018 News and Events

January 2018 News and Events

  • Emerging Opportunities for Blockchain in Development

    Highlights Blockchain and ICT4D Blockchain use cases in ICT4D Opportunities for blockchain In the past month within the ICT4D, blockchain is probably the most popular topic. The question that l feel resonates with many colleagues in the agricultural sector (and ICT4D) is that, what is this technology, and does it offer any value in international development work? It is with this self-inquisitiveness that l read the GSMA report entitled, ‘ Blockchain for Development: Emerging Opportunities for Mobile, Identity and Aid ”. My initial interest was to get practical applications and use cases of...
  • ICTs Supports Agricultural Development in Indonesia

    The Palawija Forum article reports on the implementation of ICTs to support agriculture in Indonesia. Agriculture is a key sector which accounts for 31.7% the country’s labour-force. Therefore, the investment in ICT in the agricultural sector supports the economic development and poverty reduction as well as a strategy for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The article notes that ICTs play a role in crop production within the following stages, (i) pre-cultivation; (ii) crop cultivation and harvesting; and (iii) post-harvest. This is particularly important for Indonesian...
  • GSMA: Mobile World Congress

    Mobile World Congress is an annual event gathering the world's largest gathering for the mobile industry, it is organised by the GSMA and held in the Mobile World Capital, Barcelona
  • Nano Ganesh technology continues to break new grounds

    Nano Ganesh (developed by the engineer Santosh Ostwal) is a device that uses mobile phones to remotely monitor and switch on irrigation pumps for watering crops. Nano Ganesh continues to be internationally getting visibility and mostly due to its life changing potential to farmers. Recently, the story of Nano Ganesh was covered by the Pune Mirror newspaper where they chronicled the history and development of this technology. Started in 2004, the development community still continues to recognise and appreciate Nano Ganesh- for example in 2011 Santosh was honoured as the Tech Award Laureate ,...
  • A 360 degrees view of the Principles for Digital Development

    Highlights: Why do we need the digital principles? What are these principles? How have they been implemented? The developmental world has seen an investment into platforms and infrastructure to support information and knowledge sharing, and lately hackathons, contest and apps galore have mushroomed. While these efforts are commendable and justifiable, there is an obvious result, systems and platforms are developed in silos. In some cases even duplicating efforts. The situation l just described above explains why the donor agencies and multilateral organisation thought of best practices in the...
  • Ethiopian herders get automated weather stations

    Image credit : Panos/SciDev.Net Ethiopian herders have been provided the automated weather stations which are providing them with reliable climate information; armed with this information they can weigh up risks and make preventative decisions – reports SciDev.Net . The Automated weather stations (AWS) are reported to be part of the Market Approaches to Resilience (MAR) project led by the NGO Farm Africa in three Ethiopian regions which are seeing an increase in climate variability. A total of 25 solar –powered AWSs have been installed since 2015.There are other challenges those that the MAR...
  • ICSD 2018: 6th International Conference on Sustainable Development

    The 6th International Conference on Sustainable Development (6th ICSD 2018) will be held in Rome,Congress Center, Piazza della Pilotta, 4, Rome, Italy Wednesday 12 to Thursday 13 September, 2018. The conference is organized by the European Center of Sustainable Development in collaboration with CIT...
  • 10 Key elements to enhance technological innovation for the Paris Agreement

    In 2015, many countries adopted the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development , there by committing to a vision of a low- carbon, climate-resilient and sustainable future for all. The world events leading to and after the signing of the agreement have shown that climate issues are becoming a reality; for instance, 2016 was the hottest year on record with the average global temperature at almost 1 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels. Under the Paris Agreement, countries have developed nationally determined contributions (NDCs), national adaptation plans and mid-...