The UN Climate Change Conference (COP23) is hosted by the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and presided over by Fiji; signaling the return of climate change to the international agenda. This meeting comes just in time when the world is seeing climate induced catastrophies in many parts of the world. At this UN Climate Change Conference, nations will meet to advance the aims of the Paris Agreement and measure progress of its implementation guidelines. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is representing as a leader of the...
The NewTimes Newspaper in Rwanda reports the testing of mobile applications developed under the "Agricultural Services and Digital Inclusion in Rwanda" - which includes the four mobile applications - 'Cure and feed your livestock', 'eNtrifood', 'Weather and crop', and 'AgriMarketplace' developed in support of FAO. The testing was done on Tuesday, 7th of November 2017 in Rulindo District, Northen Province in Rwanda. The purpose of the testing was to get the feedback of the technology based on the field farming practices or challenges they face in the farming process. This feedback will help...
Africa’s economy is based largely agriculture and most of them being smallholder farmers. One of the challenges these family farmers face is access to weather information and forecasting services. Lack of access to relevant weather information is due to lack of access of weather source information, dilapidated weather stations that fail to accurately provide reliable weather data, amongst many other reasons. Kukua is an initiative whose vision is to close Africa’s weather information gap by providing new weather station technology and improved weather forecast accuracy. Kukua seeks to...
On the 24th of November GFAR (Global Forum on Agricultural Research) has convened a syposium on farmers' rights and access to data in Johannesburg, South Africa. The event is co-funded by GODAN and CTA and organized by ITOCA . In order to learn more about the event or to register for the event, click here . During the symposium different angels of data access and data ownership will be adressed, specifically focussing on smallholder farmers. The fulll programme of the day is not yet available, but the announcement of the symposium gives us already a previeuw of some of the keynote speakers:...
Giacomo Rambaldi from the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) presented the below recording entitled, “ Drones for Agriculture ” at the the ICT-Agri ODA Forum for Sustainable ICT Convergence in Agricultural Sector; The Present and Future of ICT-Agri Convergence to Achieve Food Security in Seoul, Korea on 6 November 2017. About the presentation This 15-min presentation provides an introduction to the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) in the agricultural domain, with focus on the experience gained by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation...
Do you have a good and promising practices in agriculture? And you are in the Europe and Central Asia region? Then why not submit your good and promising practice before the 30th of November 2017. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the e-Agriculture Community of Practice (CoP) are launching a call for good and promising practices on the use of ICTs for Agriculture in the region of Europe and Central Asia. The call aims at collecting lessons learned and recommendations of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), also called digital technologies, for...
In the next WSIS FORUM 2018 , there is going to be held a HACKATHON on Agriculture. The Hackathon is on ICTs for SDGs focusing on ending hunger will be held at the #WSIS Forum 2018. The first ever Hackathon at WSIS Forum was held in 2017 and it focused on e-Health. All members of e-Agriculture CoP coders who are interested are invited to participate in the WSIS Hack Against End Hunger. See the poster below For more information here
" ICT-centric economic growth, innovation and job creation ", is the title of a book written by leading scholars and experts. The book's objective is to address the challenges and opportunities offered by ICTs in the areas of innovation, governance, education, job creation and economic growth. The book is written against the background of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the book recognizes that ICTs are permeating all aspects of the global economy and society. This book was launched at the Ministerial Roundtable on ICT4SDG organized to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the ITU...
The role of the mobile phone in accelerating Africa’s social and economic development was reflectedby the UCT Vice-Chancellor’s Inaugural Lecture , titled “ ICTs for development: the good intentions of the mobile phone ”. This lecture was delivered by Professor Rivett is the first woman to be appointed as a full professor at her department. While this address was academic, it provides an insight into the history and uptake of technology within the development and in the African context, in various fields. Some key excepts from the lecture :- “ One of the things the mobile phone allowed for...
This blog is shared as published on AGORA website Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) is one of the four Research4Life programmes that provides free or low cost access to major scientific journals in agriculture and related biological, environmental and social sciences to public institutions in developing countries. AGORA was launched in October 2003 and today, after more than 14 years, it provides access to up to 8200 journals from the world’s leading academic publishers. AGORA is led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and its goal is to...