All roads this week lead to Accra, Ghana which hosts the African Green Revolution Forum 2019 under the theme, “ Grow digital: Leveraging digital transformation to drive sustainable food systems in Africa ” The Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) is a platform for global and African leaders to develop actionable plans that will move African agriculture forward. Initially established as an annual “African Green Revolution Conference” by Yara International ASA in Norway in 2006, the conference moved to the African continent in 2010 with the championing of the late Kofi Annan to take an African...
Scaling up innovations and solutions in agriculture was discussed in the September 2018 conference, Innovations in Agriculture: Scaling Up to Reach Millions , organized by Purdue University, in partnership with the African Development Bank. The Scale Up Sourcebook is a collection of contributions at the said conference and also aims to capture methodologies for leveraging globally the technology and innovations designed to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods in the developing world. The publication distils the expertise, ground-breaking innovations, and examples of successful...
A recent paper has been published and examines the use of Artificial Intelligence in 'just-in-time' crop disease detection in banana. The paper reviews research towards the development of an AI-based banana disease and pest detection system using a deep convolutional neural networks (DCNN) to support banana farmers. Banana is a popular fruit grown all over the world and a staple food in many developing countries. In many of these areas, traditional pest and disease identification approached rely on agricultural extension specialists; however, application of technologies such as Artificial...
The e-Agriculture team is launching a user survey to obtain feedback from the Community of Practice and interested users to better understand their needs, interaction on the platform and how content can be designed to meet their needs. The survey will take less than 10 minutes to complete and it will be open until the August 31, 2019. The e-Agriculture Community of Practice and the platform is in the process of being studied with a view to a redesigned solution that closely meet the needs of the community. Technology also provides a potential to better achieve the reach and needs of our...
The 3rd session of the AP-IS Steering Committee is planned to review the latest research findings, current implementation of the Master Plan 2019-2022 by member countries, ESCAP and partner organizations and discuss emerging trends and technologies which affect the implementation and agree on...
FAO welcomes the 3rd AU-EU Agriculture Ministerial Conference in FAO HQ, Rome on the 21st of June 2019. The conference is co-hosted by the African Union Commission and the European Commission. The AU Commissioner for Agriculture and rural economy, Ms Josefa Sacko and her counterpart the EU Commissioner for Agriculture and rural development, Mr. Phil Hogan are expected to attend. The African Union (AU) – European Union (EU) ministerial meetings take place on an ad hoc basis to monitor the progress achieved between summits, and to advance cooperation between both continents in certain fields...
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and partners will hold the Digital Agriculture Transformation Seminar: The challenges to be addressed . The seminar will be held in Rome, Italy on the 12th and 13th of June, 2019. The seminar aims to foster an exchange among stakeholders(...
Cover photo: Irrigating rice fields in Sirajganj, Bangladesh. Photo: Haseeb Md. Irfanullah. This post was originally published by I NASP blog and is reposted here for information sharing purposes A research system is basically made up of four components: accessing, conducting, communicating, and utilizing research. While we often talk about the first three, use of our research in policy and practice is less frequently discussed in developing countries. Discussions at a recent workshop in Bangladesh about recent agricultural and biological science research projects revealed opportunities to...
APPLY NOW: CGIAR’s 2019 Inspire Challenge awarding up to 750,000 USD for innovative big data solutions that transform lives of smallholder farmers The 2019 launch of CGIAR’s Inspire Challenge is great news for innovators looking to transform the agriculture sector, with smallholder farmers in the lead. The CGIAR Inspire Challenge is the innovation process of the Platform for Big Data in Agriculture and seeks to source and foster new solutions for digital agriculture in developing economies. The Challenge Grant The CGIAR is challenging partners, universities, and others to use CGIAR data to...
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has organized the Digital Agriculture Transformation Seminar which will be held on the 12th and 13th of June, 2019. The theme of the seminar is 'The challenges to be addressed'. The two day seminar will focus on the transformational digital technologies such as smart phones, Internet of Things (IoT), cloud-based services, and smart and prediction technologies such as artificial technologies and interconnected data-driven systems such as blockchain technologies. The purpose of the seminar is to foster an exchange among stakeholders (policy-makers,...
The 3rd session of the AP-IS Steering Committee is planned to review the latest research findings, current implementation of the Master Plan 2019-2022 by member countries, ESCAP and partner organizations and discuss emerging trends and technologies which affect the implementation and agree on...
