E-Agriculture

extensionists News and Events

  • InterDrone: The International Drone Conference and Exposition

    InterDrone: The International Drone Conference and Exposition Date September 6-8, 2017 Location Rio Hotel - Las Vegas, NV Description InterDrone is where the UAV industry comes together, bringing drone pilots, UAS engineers and developers, commercial drone service businesses, UAV manufacturers,...
    United States of America

  • Introducing the new FAOSTAT: the world's largest database of food and agriculture statistics

    FAO introduced a new and updated FAOSTAT website , making the world's most comprehensive statistical database on food, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, natural resource management and nutrition even more accessible. The updated web tool - in its fourth edition - incorporates multiple technology improvements as well as various easy-to-use innovations, full mobile device compatibility and new download options, which will significantly enhance the overall user experience. New FAO STAT Website FAOSTAT offers free, open and simple access to time series and cross-sectional data from 245 countries...

  • SoilMapp for iPad: soil information at your fingertips

    SoilMapp is an app for iPad that lets users find out soil information such as how much water the soil holds, its clay content and acidity, among other attributes related to agricultural productivity and land management. The app enables users to view maps, photographs, satellite images, tables and graphs of data about nearby soils and learn about the soil’s physical and chemical characteristics (acidity, soil carbon, available water storage, salinity and erodibility). View this SoilMapp introductory video: Credits: CSIRO SoilMapp is designed for Australian farmers, consultants, planners,...

  • FAO Water Productivity through Open access of Remotely sensed derived data (WaPOR) beta version portal is now online

    The first beta release of the FAO Water Productivity through Open access of Remotely sensed derived data (WaPOR) portal is available as of 14 April 2017. The FAO portal monitors and reports on agriculture water productivity over Africa and the Near East. The portal provides open access to the water productivity database and allows for direct data queries, time series analyses, area statistics and data download of key variables associated to water and land productivity. The portal provides information on variables such as water productivity, land productivity, above ground biomass production,...

  • Six Ways Drones Are Revolutionizing Agriculture

    By 2050, there will be 9.6 billion people in the planet. Feeding the whole worldwide population will be a central challenge for the next generations. Farmers will have to think of ways to reduce the inputs, for example water and pesticides, while maintaining the outputs. Drones can be of great help to farmers in reducing the inputs while trying to provide the same production, or even increase it. This article presents six ways in which drones can be central in agricultural productivity and sustainability. 1. Soil and field analysis: Drones produce precise 3-D maps for early soil analysis for...

  • Drone Technology is aiding data collection for crop breeding in Africa

    Preliminary results of a study shows that using drone technology could cut labour and costs spent in collecting data for maize breeding by at least 10% . The SciDevNEt reported that The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center ( CIMMYT ) in Southern Africa has adopted the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) also known as drones to collect data as a critical part of a breeding programme. The article quotes Mainassara Abdou Zaman-Allah, a maize physiologist at CIMMYT who noted that UAVs facilitated the collection of instant data gathering and that drones are able to collect data from...

  • Using remote sensing to track water productivity

    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...

  • Focus on technology and agriculture : EU Farming Getting Smarter

    In the recent special report entitled ' EU Farming getting smarte r' the EURACTIV.com covers on technology and agriculture. The publication reports that European Union is exploring ways of helping its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) enter the digital era after 2020. However, there are numerous challenges that are identified such as the e-skills building, lack of broadband infrastructure and Big Data management. Below we present the abstracts of the titles covered in this report. Smart farming hinges on e-skills and rural internet access The digitisation of agriculture could help Europe...

  • CTA supports drone operations in Benin, DRC, Ghana, Tanzania and Rwanda

    The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ( CTA ) is informing the community that it has established a supporting centre for drone operations in Benin, DRC, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda . CTA is partnering with a French Company Airinov in this project. Drones are also called the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and are used in the management of crops, fisheries, forests and other natural resource-based activities within farming activities. This is possible as drones are equipped with high resolution cameras to facilitate advanced crop research using remote-sensed data . Airinov...

  • m-Omulimisa, the mobile extension officer

    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...