By the year 2050, the world population is expected to grow to 9.7 billion: demand for food will grow dramatically. Following a present trend, 2/3 of this population will be concetrated in big cities. In sub-saharan Africa, the number of 15-24 year olds will dramatically increase. The challenge at this point is to engage the youth in Africa to work in agriculture and develop its potential. The problem is that young generations living in rural areas prefer to migrate to big cities in search for a stable job instead of trying to develop the rural areas in which they grew up. The aim of this...
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...
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...
The online discussion on, “The role of Information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the Sustainable Intensification of Crop Production (SCPI)” has officially ended. This has been a very fascinating discussion!. The sharp increase in the number of people joining the e-Agriculture platform over the course of the three weeks as well as the remarkable enthusiasm, with which the topic was discussed put in evidence the significant role of ICTs in sustainable intensification of horticulture crop-based systems. Over the course of the discussion forum (06 March to 03 April 2017), 247 new...
The CTA ICT Update 84th issue is now online. The new issue focuses entirely on open data for agriculture and nutrition. Open data is data that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone. There is an enormous amount of data and open data but its potential and opportunities are not yet fully exploited. This issue of ICT Update will explore different ways of using open data for agricultural or nutritional purposes. Discover this issue entirely online on the ICT Update website . Here is an overview of the different topics covered in this issue. Enjoy the reading! Actions to turn the...
The forum discussion on The Role of ICTs in Sustainable Crop Production Intensification (SCPI) of horticulture crop based systems ( mainly on fruits, vegetables, roots and tubers) is still on-going. Below we provide the summaries for the second week, you can read the summaries for the first week here . The question for week 2 was:- Do you have any concrete examples of successful use of ICTs in sustainable intensification of horticulture crop based systems? Summary of participation As envisaged, this was yet another interesting and exciting week of learning, a number of promising and...
Vision The vision of the Ministry is a modernised agriculture culminating in a structurally transformed economy and evident in food security, employment opportunities and reduced poverty. read more at www.mofa.gov.gh Mission MOFA’s Mission is to promote sustainable agriculture and thriving agribusiness through research and technology development, effective extension and other support services to farmers, processors and traders for improved livelihood. The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) Information Communication and Technology Unit has implemented the E-Agriculture Programme which is...
The G20 Agriculture Ministers’ Declaration 2017 "Towards food and water security: Fostering sustainability, advancing innovation" published after the meeting held on January 22nd 2017 in Berlin, acknowledges the importance of ICTs for agricultural development, following the discussion on ICT in agriculture initiated at the G20 Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting in Xi’an in 2016. The Agriculture Ministers acknowledged the potential of ICTs for improved food chain efficiency, productivity and sustainability of agriculture, improved animal husbandry practices and for adaptation and mitigation...
Join the HSRC Annual innovation and development lecture: Interrogating agricultural innovation systems from a small farmer perspective. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) over 1.3 billion people, or about 40% of the global work force is employed by agriculture. About 90 percent of the world’s 570 million farms are owned and operated by families. Most of these farms are small and are found in the rural areas of the developing world, where 75% of the population is employed in agriculture. But with the increase of the world's population and the advent of climate...
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...
