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...
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...
The Plantwise Knowledge bank developed by CABI is an online and offline platform and app on plant health information and services. The website provides three different tools: search tool to identify pest problems, a search tool to find factsheets on pest problems, a map of pest distribution and a customized alert on pest news. The "Identify a Pest Problem" search tool invites you to select your location by country or region, then select a crop, and finally select the plant part affected. The results page shows the user a photo of the pest problem on one side and the symptoms on the other side...
The Food and Agriculture Policy Decision Analysis (FAPDA) promotes evidence-based decision making by collecting and disseminating information on policy information through a freely accessible web-based tool. The FAPDA tool provides an electronic repository for food and agriculture policies in over 130 countries. The repository presents itself as a map with the different countries coloured according to the coverage of their policies. A free text search is also available. The policies in the repository can be filtered by Country/region , Date , Policy decision and Policy framework . For each...
The Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University together with iSoftStone (a joint venture of Chinese Huawei Technologies) will implement a new sensor technology project to boost agriculture production in Bangladesh. This technology will allow farmers to get information such as soil moisture, leaf wetness, diseases and pest identification using the sensor device. This information will then be transferred to the university where reaserachers will analyze the data and provide information on crop management to the farmers. The objective is to develop an Android app in order for the...
