From the balcony of their apartments, to the backyards, and also small plots most urban dwellers grow crops and other plants. Urban and Peri-urban agriculture is instrumental in providing food products such as grains, root crops, vegetables, mushrooms and also small animals like rabbits, goats, fish etc. as well as non-food items such as herbs, ornamental plants. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) does support urban and peri-urban agriculture. Most urbanites farmers are perplexed when the crops they love fall prey to pests and diseases, for example caterpillars...
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is hosting the 2nd International Symposium on Agroecology : Scaling Up agroecology to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which is underway. The 2nd symposium has gathered around 400 policy-makers, practitioners, academics and public and private sector representatives to discuss policies and actions to support scaling up agroecology. The aim of the Second International Symposium is to identify needs and problems that countries face in the adoption and implementation of agroecology, to evaluate the impact of dedicated...
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has developed a new mobile phone application FAMEWS (Fall Armyworm Monitoring & Early Warning System) mobile app in English and French). The FAMEWS will help farmers and extension officers to collect and record information when scouting fields and checking pheromone traps for Fall Armyworm (FAW). The easy to use and intuitive app is meant to be used by countries affected by the FAW in Africa. Collected data can, once an internet connection is established, be transmitted to a centralized cloud by national FAW focal points before...
mVAM at the World Food Programme and World Agroforestry Centre published a case study where Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) was used in Kenya to collect data on nutrition indicators. In most projects in the field, it is expensive to collect data in some cases in remote areas or conflict areas can also be difficult. CATI was used in rural areas to collect data on two of WFP’s corporate nutrition indicators – Minimum Acceptable Diet (MAD) and Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women (MDDW). The project used the CATI to collect nutrition data as through the Face-to-Face (F2F) surveys...
Forests are part of our ecosystem and they cover 30% of the earth’s surface. Forests provides lumber, provides fuel to cook and boil water, provide nutritious food, offer medicines, animal fodder and homes for animals and are a source of income for many. Due to climate change and unstainable human practices forests are fast disappearing. In the SDG framework, deforestation is regarded as a major challenge and the Sustainable Development Goal 15 . Here are some facts and figures Forests Around 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihood. This includes some 70 million indigenous...
The FAO Technical Network on Sustainable Crop Production and Agroecology will hold a Seminar on FAO’s Farmer Field Schools programme and Global Platform on Wednesday in FAO HQ with remote participation online at http://www.fao.org/webcast/en/ . All interested e-Agriculture CoP members can participate remotely The Farmer Field Schools (FFS) was pioneered by FAO in 1989 as an approach to integrated pest management in rice production in Asia. The advantage of the FFS is that they offer a hands-on learning that allows agricultural knowledge to be applied to promote sustainable agriculture...
If you have worked and lived on the farm you will agree that farm labour is one of the key inputs and cost center in the farming system. In most countries farm labour is controlled, that is their condition of service and earnings. Can technology halve or eliminate labour costs? As l was reading the blog by AgFunder News , which noted that harvesting robotics market is on the rise and to reach US$5.5 bn. The reality is that despite the rising cost of labour amidst unpredictability in farm profitability, farm robotics is still immature. Another factor is that while many farming aspects have...
Highlights: AI use growing in agriculture AI is applied in some aspects of the farming practices Some examples of AI are offered by Thembani Malapela (FAO) When l reflected on the future of agriculture, l could not avoid thinking about the power of technology to solve problems bedeviling this sector. Climate change, population growth and food security concerns have pushed for innovative technological solutions to farming. Artificial Intelligence is emerging as part of the solutions towards improved agricultural productivity. In this item, l will look at what AI is, how it is used in...
The UN Climate Change Conference (COP23) is hosted by the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and presided over by Fiji; signaling the return of climate change to the international agenda. This meeting comes just in time when the world is seeing climate induced catastrophies in many parts of the world. At this UN Climate Change Conference, nations will meet to advance the aims of the Paris Agreement and measure progress of its implementation guidelines. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is representing as a leader of the...
mrittikā is a soil nutrient analysis and recommendation software. It works thanks the collaboration of agricultural entrepreneurs and farmers: the entrepreneurs offer soil testing services to the farmers, then analyse the results and finally recommend the best possible fertilizers to the farmers. Farmers in developing countries do not have enough knowledge on the quality and quantity fertilizers for their land. This lack of knowledge also applies to the nutrient levels in their soil. Because of this, farmers end up applying inadequate proportions of fertilizers which eventually leads to poor...
