In India’s southern state of Kerala, because of overfishing and climate change, fish stocks are rapidly decreasing. In order to catch more fish, fishermen are forced to go out into the open sea with their small boats, risking life especially during the monsoon season. Radio Monsoon radio station provides a low-tech forecast service to encourage 30,000 families to fish more safely. Radio Monsoon’s forecasts are disseminated through social media, loudspeakers placed in harbours and through a phone line supported by an internet server. The weather data is based on India’s Meteorological...
This announcement is reproduced as published on AIMS Dear Users AIMS team pleased to invite you to attend an upcoming webinar as part of the AIMS@Webinars series: HOW MUCH DATA IS ENOUGH IN PRECISION AGRICULTURE? DATE: Wednesday May 10th, 2017 TIME: at 15.00 CET / 16.00 CEST TARGET AUDIENCE: The webinar is open to all We welcome questions and suggestions at: [email protected] To PARTICIPATE: SEND YOUR REQUEST at: [email protected] containing: Subject: AIMS@Webinar_BDI Your Name: Your e-mail: Affiliation: LINK TO THE WEBINAR ROOM http://fao.adobeconnect.com/bde-pilot/ Once registered, you will receive...
Yara ImageIT is a smartphone app designed to measure nitrogen uptake in a crop and generate a nitrogen recommendation based on photographs of the crop. ImageIT calculates nitrogen uptake based on leaf cover, leaf green color and estimated fraction of brown leaves. The app also generates an intelligent recommendation for adjusting the fertilization program based on measurements. ImageIT is user-friendly and flexible in terms of technical requirements: it works with low resolution images with a file size as small as 50 – 200 KB. If internet coverage is poor, ImageIT can save the photos on the...
ICTs are pivotal for the future of agriculture. As they are finding an ever important space in most sectors of everyday life, agriculture should't be an exeption. ICTs can help in many ways producers and particularly smallholders in their livelihoods and development. In particular, ICTs can be an essential tool for young people aspiring to create their own agricultural business. As most of them have grown with these tools, they are more eager to use them in their worklife as well. This handbook published by the CTA is a guide designed for aspiring ICT entrepreneurs to instruct them with the...
Nigeria has one of the largest inventories of uncultivated farmland on earth, but they are losing crops in volumes because of labor shortages and lack of mechanization.” according to Jehiel Oliver, CEO of Hello Tractor. Many smallholder farmers cannot afford to pay someone else for high-season help. Owning a tractor would solve many of those problems. The first part of the business is the small, 15 horsepower tractor itself that Hello Tractor sells at $4,000, 10 times cheaper than the average tractor found in Africa. Each tractor comes with a GPS tracking device, so that its position can be...
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has developed a publicly accessible near real time database (WaPOR) using satellite data that allows monitoring of agricultural water productivity . The WaPOR monitors and reports on agriculture water productivity over Africa and the Near East. The database uses satellite data to help farmers achieve more reliable agricultural yields. This tool provides open access to the water database over underlying maps - the tool allows quering of data; time series analyses, area statistics related to water and land use assessments. The...
Over 90% of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 million smallholder farmers lack access to formal credit. Although agriculture accounts for around 65% of employment and 32% of gross domestic product, less than 6% of commercial loan recipients are smallholder farmers. The problem is on both sides: on the one hand, farmers cannot purchase quality inputs to improve their production, on the other hand, financial institutions cannot provide loans without an accurate assessment of the farmers’ financial viability. Farmers are therefore left with little access to credit, and financial institutions with a hole...
The PRISE (Pest Risk Information Service) project forecasts pest outbreaks based on earth observation providing risk forecasts and early warnings in order for smallholders to take action and avoid crop losses. The project has been awarded £6.38 million (or 7,9 million USD) in funding over five years by the UK Space Agency . CABI CEO, Dr Trevor Nicholls, said, “An estimated 40 per cent of the world’s crops are lost to pests. This impacts the ability of smallholders living in poor rural communities to feed their families." The project will also be based on Plantwise, a CABI program combining a...
The Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) has published a guide or laws governing the use of UAVs. As of April 2016, 73% of ACP countries did not have any rules or regulations in place; 19% had some regulations in place; and 8% were in the process of formulating them. The data gathered in the course of the study have been published on a site hosted by The Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) and are accessible at w ww.droneregulations.info . The use and application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or popularly known as drones is increasingly becoming common in...
In Uganda, the spread of agronomical information is quite challenging, and the number of extension officers cannot meet the growing demand from farmers who often need immediate assistance. Thanks to innovations in information technology, mobile and web-based platforms are proving to be a huge help. m-Omulimisa provides smallholder farmers with real-time farming information and solutions written in local languages via mobile technologies. Farmers can use their phones to ask questions in languages that they understand, and receive understandable feedback from extension officers in the region...
