There are about 500 million small-scale farmers on Earth, and most of them live on less than $1 a day. They’re often separated from larger population centers, or lack the means to educate themselves on specialized farming methods. Internet connections might be less common in the developing world, but mobile technology is pervasive. Today, 90% of smallholder farmers are able to access a basic mobile phone. In Africa especially, people have turned directly to mobiles instead of owning first personal computers. WeFarm is a peer-to-peer (P2P) knowledge sharing platform for small-scale farmers in...
For poultry farmers in Bangladesh, avian influenza can be a devastating problem. The avian influenza, called H5N1 HPAI, is highly pathogenic and spreads very fast. Once the flu is spread out, birds can die in 5 to 10 minutes from it and the farmer sees its poultry farm devastated. This information fact sheet sets out to show how an SMS Gateway system developed by FAO has been used to improve rural communication, support animal disease crisis management and contribute to livelihood resilience for small-scale farmers in Bangladesh. Focusing on the case study of avian influenza in Bangladesh,...
Ecosia is a search engine that plants trees each time you search for something. The Bing-powered search engine earns about half a Euro cent with each search and spends 28 cents to plant a tree. So to plant one tree Ecosia only needs about 56 searches. This way, the Berlin-based search engine has already planted over 7 million trees worldwide. Ecosia has focused on planting trees as it presents countless advantages, among which fighting climate change, restart water cycles, turn deserts back into fertile forests and provide nutrition, employment, education, medical assistance and political as...
In order to enhance its capacity to observe large swathes of territory on a regular basis, as well as viewing otherwise inaccessible areas, SWALIM developed a remote monitoring system using remotely sensed data. Remote Sensing (RS) is the ability to capture and analyse information from the earth’s surface from a distance. The system was developed in large part to address the issue of lack of access due to insecurity. The initial objective was to ensure accountability for FAO’s programme beneficiaries after the 2011 famine, following which FAO provided cash to communities in return for...
The World Food Program (WFP) is officially partnering with WeRobotics to develop coordination mechanisms to guide the safe and effective use of aerial robotics (UAVs) in response to humanitarian disasters. Assisting 80 million people in around 80 countries each year, the World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization fighting hunger worldwide, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. UAVs are increasingly recognised by humanitarian organizations for their potential effectiveness in disaster response...
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Global Drylands Assessment is a thematic study based on the visual interpretation of satellite images in publicly available repositories (such as Google Earth Engine and Bing Maps ) focusing on drylands. Results are reported at the global and regional levels. More than 200 experts with knowledge on land uses in specific dryland regions conducted the interpretation using the Open Foris software tool Collect Earth. Collect Earth communicates with Google Earth Engine to facilitate access to freely available satellite images from...
Open Tenure is an open source software designed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to help communities to better govern their natural resources. It uses handheld tablets, and a community server allows community members to map and collect data on land tenure claims in their community. The data can then be viewed and moderated, and important documents and photos can be stored electronically for safekeeping. This video presents the Open Tenure trial with a community forestry group in northwest Cambodia during 16-20 February 2016. The participants were quick to...
2017 EFITA WCCA Congress Date July 2nd - 6th, 2017 Location Montpellier Supagro school Description Many initiatives such as invited workshops and sessions and internal meetings come together within EFITA conference to make Montpellier the place to go in July when it comes to ICT for agri-food,...
The Listening Post is a project by Farm Radio, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with the aim to put the farmer as a leading actor in the agricultural development. The vision is to have a two way communication between policy-makers, NGOs, extension officers, agricultural researchers and the farmers in their fields. The goal is to ensure their initiatives are responsive and accountable to farmers. The Listening Post is an interactive radio series aimed at an audience of farmers. The project uses mobile phones, multimedia and FM radio to build a two-way communication...
Grameen America announced a collaboration with Citi and Mastercard to provide financial technology solutions that will assist low-income minority women entrepreneurs. The aim is to improve the organization's ability to promote digital financial access. The project will target more than more than 86,000 low-income minority women entrepreneurs across the United States. The most important advancement in the project will be a cloud-based Management Information System that will allow Grameen America to modernize and standardize its back-office processes. The new system will allow the employees to...
2017 EFITA WCCA Congress Date July 2nd - 6th, 2017 Location Montpellier Supagro school Description Many initiatives such as invited workshops and sessions and internal meetings come together within EFITA conference to make Montpellier the place to go in July when it comes to ICT for agri-food,...