Do you know talented African web developers? As part of the ICT4D conference, John Deere is hosting a hackathon that seeks to improve African smallholder farmers' access to tractors. This application development competition is an opportunity for developers from across the continent to showcase their skills, connect with tech leaders from around the world, and develop tools to serve others. The winning teams will receive USD$2,000, USD$1,000, & USD$500 for 1st, 2nd & 3rd place respectively at the ICT4DConference , attended by technology leaders from around the world To learn more and...
GFAR/CTA/GODAN invites interested persons to a webinar "Data Driven Services for Farmer led Business" to be held on Thursday the 5th of April, 2018 This webinar is part of the work on farmers’ rights to data and following up on the face-to-face course on Farmers’ Access to Data organized in Centurion in November 2017, GFAR continues its collaboration with the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition initiative (GODAN) and the Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperarion (CTA) on a series of webinars on data-driven agriculture, its opportunities and its challenges. More...
Evidence have shown that technology has the potential to improve agricultural productivity. Specifically ICTs can help governments and developmental organizations to enhance food security and improve rural livelihoods through both knowledge and skills transfer. In most cases also improve the capacities of communities in agricultural productivity, pests control and easier access to markets. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) adopts innovations in information and communication technology (ICT) for agriculture and rural development. In a recent article by its President,...
African Union publishes a Decision EX . CL/Dec. 986-1007 (XXXII), the Executive Council of the African Union (AU), requests the AU and Member States to harness drones for agriculture as one of three emerging technologies of relevance for African development. The recently held African Union saw its Executive Council of the African Union requesting the AU and Member States to harness drones for agriculture. Drones or the Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been in existence for decades and initially used in the military. Today drones have permeated the development world and has been applied in...
Does your agricultural ministry still use paper for filing documents and submissions? How can technology help? The e-service support to farmers in Latvia is a good example of how technology can help in these situations. The Electronic Application System (EAS) of the Rural Support Service of the Republic of Latvia was created to electronically submit different types of applications for EU and Latvia’s state support for agriculture, fisheries, forestry, rural areas development, fishermen and rural entrepreneurs. The EAS system held in administration of the ministry and the implementation of...
For commercial agriculture to succeed, an investment into cash crops and investing in traditional agriculture is essential, also using information and communication technology (ICT). Mountain Hazelnuts is a company established with funding from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank , to develop innovative uses of ICT for its commercial agriculture operations. The company has helped farmers integrate ICTs within each step of the Mountain Hazelnuts business model. Furthermore, about 150 staff provide extension support to farmers and also use smart phones and ICTs to communicate with...
Nano Ganesh (developed by the engineer Santosh Ostwal) is a device that uses mobile phones to remotely monitor and switch on irrigation pumps for watering crops. Nano Ganesh continues to be internationally getting visibility and mostly due to its life changing potential to farmers. Recently, the story of Nano Ganesh was covered by the Pune Mirror newspaper where they chronicled the history and development of this technology. Started in 2004, the development community still continues to recognise and appreciate Nano Ganesh- for example in 2011 Santosh was honoured as the Tech Award Laureate ,...
Many smallholder farmers in many part of Africa produce fruits and vegetables alongside their stable food – such as cereals, tubers and roots. Yet farmers are losing more than 50% of their crops due to lack of cold storage. The Food and Agriculture Organization the United Nations estimates that one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption (approx. 1.3 billion tonnes) gets lost or wasted. Therefore, there is a need for post-harvest handling facilities for both horticultural produces and also for cereals. For ten years, Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu has been producing radio shows for...
In this article, you will Learn about the possibility of using ICTs to combat illegal logging Review some Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) that have been used elsewhere Appreciate some few cases from LAOs, Cameroon and Greece where ICTs have been used to combat illegal logging. In the beginning of the year, l wrote a piece focusing on ICTs and Forestry management in general. Additionally, for more information on how ICTs can be used to improve forestry governance, see Module 14 of the ICT in Agriculture e-Sourcebook . However, in this present piece l would like to focus on...
According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has projected that the number of mobile subscription stands at 7.74 billion now exceeds the global population. Similarly, the number of apps were reported to be on the increase , for example, as of March 2017 the number of apps available for download on Android stood at 2.8 million apps while Apple’s Apps store recorded 2.2 million apps. While the figures for apps related to agriculture is not readily known, the verity is that equally numbers are on the rise. This has led many to predict that mobile technologies are poised to...
