e-Agriculture Newsletter No.1
e-Agriculture platform celebrated 10 years
The month of February 2017, marked the 10th year anniversary of the e-Agriculture Platform. The platform was launched in 2007 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and 13 founding partners as a Community of Practice – an online space to facilitate an exchange of knowledge and experiences of projects where ICTs are used for agriculture and rural development. Thus the e-Agriculture became a global initiative to enhance sustainable agricultural development and food security by advocating for the use of ICTs in agriculture and rural development.The ten year review report of the e-Agriculture as a programme was documented here.
By December 2014, the community had grown to more than 12,000 registered members and more than 35 000 followers through social media channels. In the past decade, e-Agriculture has documented many successful projects which have used ICTs to improve farmers’ access to agricultural information and knowledge. One of the early comparative advantage that the e-Agriculture platform exploited was the ‘forum’ discussions which focused on a chosen topics in ICTs and Agriculture.
The e-Agriculture Community of Practice will continue to play a role in monitoring new developments, validating models and methodologies, examining emerging trends and further possibility of adoption of emerging technologies in agriculture and rural development. A number of changes around the platform have happened over the few months, changes in project coordination, working towards aligning to the new requirements from FAO web guidelines, and the renewed focus on ICTs by FAO is premised to usher in new developments. For example, a newly improved platform is being developed to meet the needs and requirements of the host institution. We hope this new platform will usher in new services and also better align content to the needs of our community.
Forum discussions
The e-Agriculture team periodically organise forum discussions on a topic relevant to ICTs and agriculture.In the month of March 2017, the e-Agriculture is running the first forum of the year.
- Current Forum: The Role of ICTs in Sustainable Crop Production Intensification (SCPI) of horticulture crop based system (mainly fruits, vegetables, roots and tubers). Click on this link to participate
- Previous Forum: Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Resilience. Download policy brief here
Highlights
In the month of January 2017 the e-Agriculture team carried out a user survey in order to get feedback from its community that will inform of the priorities for 2017 and the continuous improvement of the platform.The Survey was conducted in the three languages used in e-Agriculture.org: English, French and Spanish. Among the respondents, 357 were in English, 50 in French and 66 in Spanish.
The summary of the results include:-
- More users are interested in receiving news ( preferring articles and case studies), newsletters and events
- More than 75% of the users are interested in following forum discussions
Below we highlight a selection of news published on e-Agriculture, these include news articles on ICTs, activities in the agriculture and rural development. The full news listing can be read here.
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G20 Agriculture Ministers’ Declaration acknowledges the importance of ICTs for agriculture |
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FAO pushing ahead with digital strategy to equip farmers with ICT |
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Connected Agriculture : The role of mobile in driving efficiency and sustainability in agriculture |
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Plantwise Knowledge bank, an open access website and app providing information on pest management |
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Can technological innovations help improve agricultural micro-insurance? |
e-Agricultural Solutions
There are a number of ICT related projects and solutions in agriculture and these are constantly been covered on the e-Agriculture Platform, some are also referred to in the news, blogs, policy briefs and forums. Browse this months selection:
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eLocust3 is the latest update to the eLocust series that allows national survey and control officers in locust-affected countries to record and transmit data in real time via satellite from the field to their national locust centres. This data is the basis for the global Desert Locust monitoring and early warning system that is operated by the Desert Locust Information Service (DLIS) at FAO Headquarters in Rome. |
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OpenForis |
OpenForis is a free open-source solutions for environmental monitoring. Open Foris is a set of free and open-source software tools that facilitates flexible and efficient data collection, analysis and reporting. |
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EMA-i |
EMA-i is a mobile app for reporing timely animal disease to enhance surveillance.Surveillance and early warning of animal disease outbreaks, including zoonotic diseases, with potential public health impact enables national authorities to advise at-risk populations. |
News from Partners
The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA)
This CTA Update newsletter focused on Open Data benefits for Agriculture and Nutrition within the GODAN framework. Of interest is the focus on the impact of open data for farmers and the benefits thereof to smallholders vulnerable farmers. The issue also looks at the Kenyan government to open up its agricultural data through the Open Data Initiative started in 2011.The articles contained in the newsletter are:-
- Actions to turn the power of Open Data into real impact
- Kenya opens up agricultural data
- The impact of Open data on Small holder farmers
- Translating complex data into accessible articles
The WorldBank
The WorldBank hosted the seminar, Digital Disruption: Farming Transmogrified, through its Community of Practice for ICT in Agriculture held on Wednesday the 25th of March 2017. The seminar brought together private sector actors together in sharing how ICT and digital tools are bringing about surprising and almost magical life-changing transformation (transmogrification) for small and traditional farmers around the world. Different agricultural solutions and digital tool were presented. The panel of speakers were drawn from Hello Tractor, CiBo Technologies, Dobbin International Inc, Plant Village, Vodaphone and Edenred.
The scope of the e-Agriculture Newsletter is to bring under the attention of the e-Agriculture community recent news, events and achievements in the field of ICTs and agriculture. If you have any contribution, suggestion, or need assistance with the newsletter, please contact us at [email protected].You received this message because you are subscribed to the e-Agriculture Newsletter