by Olaitan Ogunnote & Raimot Adewunmi - Undergraduate Research Assistants, ECV Ontario, SEDRD, University of Guelph Introduction While we might not yet be able to live on our red monochromatic, moon-like planetary counterpart, Mars, we could make our stay on the bright bluish-green Earth with hints of white, a little bit longer and more enjoyable through technology. Particularly, through technology that makes the world less hungry and the environment more conducive, in other words, more food sovereign . Therefore, what does this world of food sovereignty look like and how can technology...
Access to Agriculture (a video platform with agricultural videos) won the ‘Digital for Development’ Prize. Access Agriculture was selected as the winner of ‘iStandOut’ category at the biannual Prize Digital for Development (D4D). Access to Agriculture seeks to promote innovations in sustainable agriculture and rural enterprises through capacity development and South-South exchange through farmer-to-farmer video trainings. In many countries, farmers use local languages (and cannot speak English, French or Spanish). Access agriculture has trained local partners to translate videos into their...
This conference is being collaboratively organized by AFITA, INFITA, and INSAIT with the aim to coalesce the 'Research Frontiers in Precision Agriculture' for sharing the recent advances in Remote Sensing & GIS, ICTs, IoAgT, sensor networks, image processing, robotics, machine learning, big...
The FAO e-Agriculture and Harvesting are inviting interested persons to attend the following webinar to be presented on the 25th of October 2018 at 16:00 (CEST) Rome Time [ Convert your time ] To attend kindly register here to receive attendance information and also to get the details of the recording after the event. Webinar details Title : Driving Financial Inclusion for Smallholder Farmers by Leveraging Satellite Data and Machine Learning Abstract There are an estimated 500 million smallholder farmers in the world. Only 7% have access to financing for inputs like improve seeds, fertilizer...
An interesting article appeared in The Guardian and reports that Dutch scientists say they can create millions of bee-like drones to take over if the insects die out. This comes at a timely moment when bees and other pollinators are reported to be under threat. In a recent report the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations noted that “present species extinction rates are 100 to 1 000 times higher than normal due to human impacts”. The solution of robotic bees by scientists at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands is an example of using ICTs to tackle world’s...
The growing world population means that food production will have to increase to meet the growing demand. ICTs are touted as one of the boosters and possible contributors to increased agricultural productivity. In a recent blog , it has been argued that the Internet of Things is one of such technologies to be watched. The Internet of Things in agriculture is construed as a “group of technologies that include soil sensors, cameras, weather stations and other technological gadgets that gather data about farming activities”. The data obtained is analysed by algorithms and other software and...
The Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart will request suppliers of leafy greens – lettuce, spinach and other greens to join its food-tracking Blockchain by the 31st of January 2019. In addition farmers, logistics firms and business partners have been mandated to join blockchain by 30 September 2019. This could be a turning point on the use of blockchain in the tracking of food and also in the food retail industry. This directives comes after 18 months of testing the blockchain system to trace berries, mangoes, chickens and other foods on the IBM Food Trust blockchain. Walmart joins other...
As CGIAR holds the Big Data in Agriculture Convention in Kenya this week, the question of data, big data and open data in agriculture is yet again rejuvenated. The link between farming and data has never been stronger than now. There are many efforts driving the data agenda in agriculture, which include FAO , GODAN , CGIAR , USAID programs , and many others. Data-driven agriculture But what is data-driven agriculture? And what does it mean for smallholder farmers? Perhaps the infographic by Grameen Foundation (for USAID Feed the Future) summarizes the issues ( click on image to download )...
The Committee on Agriculture (COAG) is one of FAO’s Governing Bodies established in 1971 and it meets every two years. Its role is providing overall policy and regulatory guidance on issues relating to agriculture, livestock, food safety, nutrition, rural development and natural resource management. The 26th Session runs from 1-5 October 2018 and was opened by the FAO Director General . The details of the current agenda of COAG can be found here . This year’s COAG is running an exhibition that focuses on Innovation for sustainable food and agriculture . The aim of this exhibition is aptly...
The e-Agriculture community is now above 14,000 users . e-Agriculture is a global community of practice, where people from all over the world exchange information, ideas, and resources related to the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for sustainable agriculture and rural development. Becoming a member of e-Agriculture Community of Practice provides possibilities to: Connect with other community members and share experiences Follow news and blogs published on the e-Agriculture platform Shar e good practices in the use of ICTs in agriculture Learn about new digital trends...
This conference is being collaboratively organized by AFITA, INFITA, and INSAIT with the aim to coalesce the 'Research Frontiers in Precision Agriculture' for sharing the recent advances in Remote Sensing & GIS, ICTs, IoAgT, sensor networks, image processing, robotics, machine learning, big...
