The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has developed a new mobile phone application FAMEWS (Fall Armyworm Monitoring & Early Warning System) mobile app in English and French). The FAMEWS will help farmers and extension officers to collect and record information when scouting fields and checking pheromone traps for Fall Armyworm (FAW). The easy to use and intuitive app is meant to be used by countries affected by the FAW in Africa. Collected data can, once an internet connection is established, be transmitted to a centralized cloud by national FAW focal points before...
The FAO Technical Network on Sustainable Crop Production and Agroecology will hold a Seminar on FAO’s Farmer Field Schools programme and Global Platform on Wednesday in FAO HQ with remote participation online at http://www.fao.org/webcast/en/ . All interested e-Agriculture CoP members can participate remotely The Farmer Field Schools (FFS) was pioneered by FAO in 1989 as an approach to integrated pest management in rice production in Asia. The advantage of the FFS is that they offer a hands-on learning that allows agricultural knowledge to be applied to promote sustainable agriculture...
GFAR recently announced a series of webinars on farmers' rights to data and this is a follow-up to the face-to-face course on Farmers Access to Data that was held in Centurion (Pretoria), South Africa in November 2017. According to the GFAR website ,the webinars will be co-convened together with GODAN and CTA and will be conducted by the very same trainers who so successfully handled the course in Centurion: Dan Berne, Stephen Kalyesubula, Nicolene Fourie and Anneliza Collett. The two webinars will be held on the 22 and 28 February at 4pm CET , and a recording of each respective webinar will...
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...
Agriculture has always been affected by plant pests and diseases, outbreaks can cause huge losses to crops and pastures and threatening the livelihoods of vulnerable smallholder farmers. The following are some of the known pests that have caused in agriculture include, locusts, armyworm, fruit flies, banana diseases, cassava diseases and wheat rusts. Currently, the Fall Armyworm (FAW) has ravaged many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. FAO has already offered a briefing note on FAW which can be read here . The following map shows the countries in Africa affected by the FAW ICTs and pests...
FAO is using drones to fight hunger, improve nutrition and counter the effects of climate change and extreme weather events. A documentary from Asia and the Pacific Office of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization shows collaboration with countries to leverage the used of ICTs using drones. Philippines is a country prone to typhoons, aerial drones are used to map out the risk areas of agricultural land to mitigate the risk. This ensures that once a disaster strikes farmers affected can get assistance quicker. Drones have an advantage of wider coverage and since they are remotely...
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 ,...
If you have worked and lived on the farm you will agree that farm labour is one of the key inputs and cost center in the farming system. In most countries farm labour is controlled, that is their condition of service and earnings. Can technology halve or eliminate labour costs? As l was reading the blog by AgFunder News , which noted that harvesting robotics market is on the rise and to reach US$5.5 bn. The reality is that despite the rising cost of labour amidst unpredictability in farm profitability, farm robotics is still immature. Another factor is that while many farming aspects have...
Quick read The world still need more food to feed the growing population Internet of Things (loT) is being used in agriculture Some advantages of Internet of Things (loT) Learn more about Internet of Things (loT) The Agricultural revolution of 1930s to 1960s focused on increasing agricultural production and mechanization; technology was at the center of its success. However, in reality 50 years later, there are still many people who are hungry, today 815 million people are chronically undernourished. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) predicted that the global...
The proliferation of smartphones and their usage has spread throughout the world, including in Africa. In Liberia, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has supported and funded the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) to train extension workers in the latest data collection technology. The Daily Observer reported that 24 extension officers, including 6 employees from the Liberia Institute for Geo-Information Services had a three-day training at the Central Agricultural Research Institute (CARI) in Suakoko District, Bong County. The attendees received a training on the...
