What is the e-Agriculture Community of Practice?
The e-Agriculture Community of Practice is a global initiative to enhance sustainable agricultural development and food security by improving the use of information, communication, and associated technologies in the sector.
The overall aim is to enable members to exchange opinions, experiences, good practices and resources related to e-agriculture, and to ensure that the knowledge created is effectively shared and used worldwide.
About e-agriculture
E-agriculture is an emerging field focusing on the enhancement of agricultural and rural development through improved information and communication processes. More specifically, e-agriculture involves the conceptualization, design, development, evaluation and application of innovative ways to use information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the rural domain, with a primary focus on agriculture.
E-agriculture is a relatively new term and we fully expect its scope to change and evolve as our understanding of the area grows.
WSIS and e-agriculture
E-agriculture is one of the action lines identified in the declaration and plan of action of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The "Tunis Agenda for the Information Society," published on 18 November 2005, emphasizes the leading facilitating roles that UN agencies need to play in the implementation of the Geneva Plan of Action. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has been assigned the responsibility of organizing activities related to the action line under C7. - ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life - and more particularly on the e-agriculture. In 2006, a multi-stakeholder working group was set up to guide efforts in this area.
For the WSIS Plan of Action click here
For more information on the role of e-agriculture in the WSIS Plan of Action, contact info@e-agriculture.org
Current Community Participation
WSIS Forum May 2010
ICT in Rural Enterprises: Social media plays key role in WSIS e-agriculture dialogue as virtual audience ensures global participation. See how Twitter and other social media were used by e-Agriculture Community members from around the world in this year's debate. Read more
As virtual participants were twittering last minute questions to the e-Agriculture Session Chair Allison Hornery at this week’s WSIS Forum in Geneva, her team was standing by in Australia to receive comme
nts from participants via SMS. FAO’s Michael Riggs talks to Allison Hornery of CivicTEC, a not-for-profit organization that fosters social innovation through initiatives on digital leadership, digital citizenship & digital equity. Allison moderated this year’s WSIS e-Agriculture discussion held at ITU and ensured that Community members insights were shared with those in the room, and around the world. She talks about ICT and rural enterprise, and the challenge of creating awareness at the rural level. Click here for the interview (mp3 file)
To view a recorded video of the session, access this link, and once, in, click on the file 'floor' on the line for IFM AL C7 (Room K) 'Floor'. You must have Real Player installed on your computer and be connected to the Internet to watch the video.
Global Perspective on e-agriculture
The week-long dialogue, that took place 21-28 September 2007 at FAO in Rome, Italy, focused on the use of information, communication, and associated technologies in sustainable agricultural development and food security. Click here for more information.
