The proliferation of mobile phones across the world has enabled financial institutions to take advantage and introduce services accessible through mobile handsets. A scoping study has explored the challenges of implementing mobile-finance in low-income communities and also evaluated secondary data from online discussion and webinars. The study was done by two researchers at the University of Machester and raises very interesting questions into the application of mobile finance for low income countries. The following questions are answered in the paper:- What are the potential benefits of m-...
This announcement is reproduced as published on AIMS Dear Users AIMS team pleased to invite you to attend an upcoming webinar as part of the AIMS@Webinars series: HOW MUCH DATA IS ENOUGH IN PRECISION AGRICULTURE? DATE: Wednesday May 10th, 2017 TIME: at 15.00 CET / 16.00 CEST TARGET AUDIENCE: The webinar is open to all We welcome questions and suggestions at: [email protected] To PARTICIPATE: SEND YOUR REQUEST at: [email protected] containing: Subject: AIMS@Webinar_BDI Your Name: Your e-mail: Affiliation: LINK TO THE WEBINAR ROOM http://fao.adobeconnect.com/bde-pilot/ Once registered, you will receive...
Yara ImageIT is a smartphone app designed to measure nitrogen uptake in a crop and generate a nitrogen recommendation based on photographs of the crop. ImageIT calculates nitrogen uptake based on leaf cover, leaf green color and estimated fraction of brown leaves. The app also generates an intelligent recommendation for adjusting the fertilization program based on measurements. ImageIT is user-friendly and flexible in terms of technical requirements: it works with low resolution images with a file size as small as 50 – 200 KB. If internet coverage is poor, ImageIT can save the photos on the...
ICTs are pivotal for the future of agriculture. As they are finding an ever important space in most sectors of everyday life, agriculture should't be an exeption. ICTs can help in many ways producers and particularly smallholders in their livelihoods and development. In particular, ICTs can be an essential tool for young people aspiring to create their own agricultural business. As most of them have grown with these tools, they are more eager to use them in their worklife as well. This handbook published by the CTA is a guide designed for aspiring ICT entrepreneurs to instruct them with the...
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...
The Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) is set to launch a new book entitled, ICT Agripreneurship Guide – A Path to Success for Young ACP Entrepreneurs. This books relays CTA's experience of working with young people in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector The book is set to be launched at the African Agripreneurs Youth Forum (AYA Forum) in Ibadan, Nigeria. The AYA Forum is organised by the African Development Bank (AfDB), in collaboration with CTA, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the African Agribusiness Incubation...
Nigeria has one of the largest inventories of uncultivated farmland on earth, but they are losing crops in volumes because of labor shortages and lack of mechanization.” according to Jehiel Oliver, CEO of Hello Tractor. Many smallholder farmers cannot afford to pay someone else for high-season help. Owning a tractor would solve many of those problems. The first part of the business is the small, 15 horsepower tractor itself that Hello Tractor sells at $4,000, 10 times cheaper than the average tractor found in Africa. Each tractor comes with a GPS tracking device, so that its position can be...
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...
Over 90% of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 million smallholder farmers lack access to formal credit. Although agriculture accounts for around 65% of employment and 32% of gross domestic product, less than 6% of commercial loan recipients are smallholder farmers. The problem is on both sides: on the one hand, farmers cannot purchase quality inputs to improve their production, on the other hand, financial institutions cannot provide loans without an accurate assessment of the farmers’ financial viability. Farmers are therefore left with little access to credit, and financial institutions with a hole...
In Ghana, the agricultural north supplies food to buyers in the south. The travel is mostly done by car and takes up a lot of time. Also, these long journeys are done carrying large sums of money, as the north suffers from a lack of banks. To face the issue of large money trandactions across the country, the ADVANCE II Project (Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement) has developed a mobile money solution as it diminishes the threat of theft, ensures efficient payment and offers the access to financial services such as savings, insurance, and credit. USAID ’s ADVANCE II Project...
