e-Agricu lture team interviewed Cesar Santos Alvarez, Senior Information Technology Officer at FAO after his attendance to the WSIS 2017 and he shares his experiences and also sheds light on the on the Agricultural Services and Digital inclusion project in Africa. A proj ect that is piloting 4 new apps. "...mobile apps alone as a tool don’t mean much, but coupled with essential information they can be a good innovation.." an Interview with Mr. Cezar Alvarez Santos Tell us briefly about your recent work in ICTs for agriculture What I call ICTs for agriculture are agricultural digital services...
A workshop called “Developing Apps: Building and Sharing Knowledge” will be held from July 31th to August 4th 2017 in FAO HQ in Rome, Italy, as part of the development of four new agricultural service apps delivered by FAO in the framework of the “Agricultural Services and Digital Inclusion in Africa” project, funded by FMM. The workshop will bring together young developers from Rwanda, Senegal and from FAO HQ to share knowledge and build capacity. The objective, at the end of the 5 day-workshop, is that the participants will have exchanged each other’s vision and contributed with their own...
mFarmer is an app developed by EcoHub that aims to provide free information such as access to market information, training and education to improve their productivity and yields and mobile money in order to enable farmers to be part of the formal financial system. mFarmer provides farmers with information such as weather data, optimal uses of fertilizers and inputs, sustainability best practices, and other content improves their profitability and their livelihoods. Watch the mFarmer pilot video: Credits: mFarmer The great majority of the world’s farmers have limited access to broadband data...
AMAN (Avian-Diseases Monitoring and Awareness Network) mobile app and web platform has been developed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a communication tool for early warning, reporting, monitoring and awareness services for small poultry farmers in Egypt (a country with 2.5 million small poultry farms). Through the AMAN app, a rapid, real time, efficient and highly open and confidential communication channel is guaranteed, allowing for an effective and immediate action during the occurrence of a poultry disease outbreak from detection, reporting and response...
The FAO in Emergencies app allows you to follow the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations top news and recent highlights covering response to disasters, emergencies and food security crises all over the world. This new tool will allow you to keep up with FAO’s continued efforts to increase the resilience of people and their livelihoods to threats and crises. The app is divided in six categories: the " Crises " section allows the user to learn more on the current crises in the world, the " Open projects " section showcase ongoing FAO's or partner's projects to tackle those...
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...
FAO, along with several partners, is involved in the implementation of ICT initiatives in Africa The majority of family farmers in developing countries live rural areas and in most cases don't have access to technology and digital agricultural services. Through the use of ICTs, farmers have more access to information on markets, weather and nutrition. The digital service project is part of FAO's Digital Strategy and is aimed at people in the field, local governments, community leaders and extension workers. The project aims to develop four apps designed to help farmers have better...
Esoko is a communication tool created with a view to building connection between businesses, projects, NGOs, governments and smallholder farmers. Esoko started as a price information service but the team soon realized that farmers needed much more than market information and added weather alerts, crop advice, and linking buyers with sellers. Various research finds such services can improve incomes for farmers by roughly 10%. Watch this introductory video on Esoko: Credits: Esoko Over the years, Esoko developed two products: Tulaa and Insyt . Tulaa is a mobile money solution that allows...
