Kenya’s agriculture minister opens Africa Agriculture Geospatial Week and calls for efforts to take geospatial information to the ‘last mile’

While addressing the 2nd Africa Agriculture Geospatial Week (AAGW) that opened this week at theInternational Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) campus in Nairobi; Kenya’s Minister for Agriculture, Hon Dr Sally Kosgei, challenged researchers and GIS practitioners to ‘discuss steps towards the development of delivery mechanisms for making geospatial information accessible to poor smallholders in the villages across Sub-Saharan Africa.’

In a speech read on her behalf by Hon Japhet Mbiuki, Kenya’s assistant minister for agriculture, during the official opening of the conference on Wednesday 9 June, 2010, Dr Kosgei, noted that  geospatial information can help in providing  ‘relevant and timely agricultural information that will assist smallholder farmers in the continent in their bid to improve agricultural production’.

While acknowledging that Africa still faces the threat of food insecurity, the minister highlighted the need to focus on helping farmers produce enough to feed their people and create economic opportunities. She particularly emphasized the need to ‘provide seed technologies, explain the appropriate use of fertilization, share techniques to manage land effectively and to create a strong post-harvest infrastructure to help farmers increase their income’.  However, she said that such initiatives ‘will only benefit farmers and producers in general if they are appropriately targeted and if farmers are given easy access to relevant information through appropriate technology transfer mechanisms.’

She highlighted the critical role geospatial information plays in enabling good decision-making throughout the agriculture sector by providing essential location-specific information. ‘Farmers need early information systems to mitigate the effects of extreme climatic events’ she said. ‘They need to know which crops are best suited to their land, how to minimize the threats posed by pest and diseases and where to go to sell their products’.

She added that real-time, location-specific (geospatial) information will enable farmers to ‘better  plan and decide more effectively which crops or livestock will perform best on their farms, anticipate and manage disease outbreaks and rainfall shortfalls, as well as decide when to harvest and in which markets to sell their produce’.

In view of the valuable contribution that geospatial information can make to farming systems and practice in Africa, she challenged participants to find ways of moving geospatial technology from a research-based platform to one that  takes such technologies to the ‘last mile’ and makes them accessible to farmers who need this information the most.

She commended the organizers of the conference, who include AGCommons and the Consortium for Spatial Information (CSI) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) for their work towards providing farmers with location specific information to strengthen agricultural production.

Over 60 organizations, 13 CGIAR partners and 30 students from universities in Kenya have gathered to explore how location specific intelligence can be used to support agricultural production in this year’s meeting – Navigating the change: Highlighting the role of spatial information and analysis in transforming livelihoods and landscapes in a time of change.

Laban MacOpiyo, the director of AGCommons says that as one of the conveners of the event, the organization will use the ideas and lessons shared from the conference to ‘provide a repository of geospatial information that is easily accessible to farmers in Africa.’ More information about the work of AGCommons in using geospatial information can be found on http://blip.tv/file/2778519

This year’s conference is funded by Harvest Choice, AGCommons, and the information communication technology and knowledge management (ICT-KM) program of CGIAR among other partners and builds on the conference held last year also at ILRI. It aims among others, to share experiences in using geographical information systems (GIS) for agricultural development, encourage sharing and learning from each other’s good practices and provide staff from different organizations with opportunities in using GIS to meet the increasing demands of a changing global agriculture sector.

Story by Paul Karaimu, Corporate Communications Writer, ILRI

Here is the link to live broadcasting of the presentations:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ilri-headquarters

Check the agenda of the week here to find out what is on air..

Follow us on Twitter #AAGW10 and now on Ustream…

An introduction to AgCommons was given by Enrica Porcari, Chief Information Officer of the CGIAR, and Laban MacOpiyo, Director of AgCommons, which provided a background to the program and what services it offers.

One of the key highlights of AgCommons is the set of quick-win projects (those bolded were presented):

•Seeing Is Believing: unlocking precision agriculture in West African smallholder communities with very high resolution imagery.

•Nodes of growth: Improving legume seed networks in Kenya (Andy Farrow, CIAT Africa)

•Roads Data Development in Ethiopia

•Community Level Crop Disease Surveillance (Hein Bouwmeester, IITA)

•Africa Trial Sites Catalogue: Reaching out to farmers, agronomists and plant breeders with spatially efficient, participatory testing networks (Kai Sonders, CIMMYT)

Some interesting questions and discussion points that came up from the workshop participants with respect to the Quick-win projects were as follows:

• What is the value addition of AgCommons? of such methods?
• How do you ensure the quality of the data that is provided to farmers (and others)?
• Would be good to collaborate with other NGOs, private sector and even other sectors (e.g Public health sector) which may be using innovate methods for collecting, sharing and translating data.

A presentation was also made by Mandhi Sehmi on KenCall, a partner to AgCommons which has developed a farmer helpline.

In order to improve AgCommons and improve collaboration, an interactive discussion session with the workshop participants was facilitated by Laban MacOpiyo to explore the following questions:

1. What do you think of the concept of AgCommons?
2. What gaps are there? What can be done to improve the concept and operationalisation of it?
3. What could/should people and/or organisations benefit from AgCommons?
4. What could/should people and/or organisations contribute to AgCommons?

Some of the comments and suggestions made included:

• AgCommons should be developed as a form of extension
• Needs to cover wide range of data which can help to support increased production, better understanding of markets, crop information as well as livestock information.
• AgCommons should help to address key issues e.g climate change
• AgCommons is necessary as a global approach which brings in the participation of farmers
• This concept can be used to appeal to policy makers and processes
• Need to think about how information is packaged
• While the commons is a good concept-would also be good to think about which information and products people would/could pay for.

At the end of the session Laban MacOpiyo showcased and launched the new AgCommons platform.  The platform:

provides key elements for geospatial information discovery and accessibility: a comprehensive metadata catalog supporting robust search for geospatial data; an overlay library providing a data gallery for previewing contents of the AGCommons database; and the SMS query interface for access to the data via mobile phone.

Laban highlighted the three main components of the platform:

1. Data Search
2. Data Gallery
3. SMS Query Tool

Geospatial experts from the world’s largest alliance of agricultural research centers (CGIAR) will gather in Nairobi from 8-12 June to develop new strategies for using high-tech mapping and analysis to improve productivity and market access for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa through better prediction, monitoring and mitigation of droughts, plant diseases and other crop crippling events.

The meeting is focused on the potential benefits of geographical information systems or GIS, which integrate a wide range of data about particular places—such as satellite images, weather forecasts, temperature trends, and soil conditions—to provide new insights that can lead to more productive farms.

Africa Agriculture GIS Week (AAGW 2010) will open with a welcome address from the Hon. Dr. Sally J. Kosgei, Minister of Agriculture, Kenya. Other highlights of the week include the launch of the AGCommons service bureau and its service delivery platform.

The week will also include the 2010 edition of the popular WhereCampAfrica Event

Agenda and background information available at:http://africaagriculturegisweek.org/

Collaborative GIS Web Applications Will Help Agricultural Researchers Make African Farmers More Productive and Profitable

Redlands, California—June 7, 2010—ESRI will be sharing ideas and knowledge on geographic information systems (GIS) for agricultural development at Africa Agriculture GIS Week (AAGW) 2010, to be held June 8–12 in Nairobi, Kenya. Staff will be on hand to meet with delegates and support agricultural programs for rural populations in less developed regions of the world.

“Food security and agricultural productivity initiatives are fully supported by ESRI,” says Geoff Wade, natural resources solution manager, ESRI. “We are excited to be a part of this prestigious community. We look forward to contributing to solutions that ensure that people in every nation on earth are fed and have the opportunity for a sustainable livelihood.”

A training workshop featuring ArcGIS Server will be hosted by ESRI on Friday, June 11. The workshop will cover a complete step-by-step process to create a variety of Web applications for enhanced collaboration between organizations. Attendees will learn how to use their own data to make maps and share them with others. Topics will include authoring maps, effective Web editing, and how to select the appropriate end client application to support different workflows.

AAGW is organized by the Consortium for Spatial Information (CSI) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR); HarvestChoice, an agriculture investment targeting program; Agricultural Geospatial Commons (AGCommons), a geospatial information program based in Africa; and other partners. ESRI is proud to support these organizations and has worked with CGIAR formally since 2002, bringing GIS technology to its network of research centers worldwide.

Through the training workshop and conference meetings at AAGW, ESRI wants to empower more organizations to share geospatial information through collaborative Web applications. An example is the HarvestChoice AgMarketFinder, a prototype application that helps locate potential markets in East Africa within an eight-hour travel time from a given location. The application was created with ESRI’s ArcGIS Server and the ArcGIS Server API for JavaScript. Data comes from ArcGIS Online and is used with crop production and harvest data from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and transportation networks and waterways from Vector Map, a product available from the Multinational Geospatial Co-Production Program (MGCP).

To register for AAGW and the ESRI-sponsored training workshop, visit http://africaagriculturegisweek.org/. For more information on ESRI’s agriculture solutions, visit www.esri.com/agriculture.

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OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap [http://www.openstreetmap.org/[ is a free and open map of the entire world, open to contribution and use by anyone. Contributors range from amateur enthusiasts, to GIS professionals, to national governments. OSM was recently very active in the mapping in post earthquake Haiti [http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Haiti], and in Kibera [http://mapkibera.org/]

The workshop will start with a general introduction to OpenStreetMap, introduce surveying with GPS and satellite imagery digitization, and use of the OpenStreetMap.org website. We’ll cover editing and tagging with our editors, JOSM and Potlatch. We’ll look at how OSM data can be used on the web, and in other GIS tools from ESRI, Google, and others. The day will close with a survey of advanced topics like API rendering, filtering, and imports.

aWhere

aWhere will provide an introductory look at Agricultural Information System – Weather Surfaces (AIS) and, aWhere desktop software – a lightweight GIS designed specifically for non-GIS specialist use. The AIS provides historical, forecasts and round-the-clock access to the most comprehensive, continuously updated and cleansed weather database available critical for agri-business. For more info on aWhere and AIS: (http://www2.awhere.com/AISEA/homepage.aspx)”

For the programme of the training from Google and ESRI please see this earlier  post.

To register please fill the form here

Please note that a specific registration is required to attend the training and that the  AAGW  registration DOES NOT grant you access to the training sessions.

If you need further information please send an email to info@africaagricultureGISweek.org

We are pleased to invite you to join us at this  five-day event which provides the ideal platform for AAGW partners to share ideas and knowledge on GIS for agricultural development and welcomes participation from others working in this field. To register send an email to registrations@africaagricultureGISweek.org.

Jointly organized by the Consortium for Spatial Information (CSI) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the HarvestChoice program and the Agricultural Geospatial Commons (AGCommons) program, AAGW 2010 will host a ‘GIS ShareFair’ (a market place with exhibitors) and training sessions offered by ESRI, Google and OpenStreetMap.  In order to register to the training session please fill out the registration form.

The event will also include the CGIAR-CSI annual meeting, giving CSI scientists an opportunity to present the results of their work.   In addition, a full day will be dedicated to researchers, professionals and students to present their innovative ideas in a variety of formats, with a small prize being awarded in the following categories: first time presenters (including students and young professionals); most innovative idea; most innovative medium for presentation delivery; and overall best.

AAGW 2010 will culminate in WhereCampAfrica a free ‘unconference’ for geogeographers, mobile location experts and social cartographers and others interested in place.  WhereCampAfrica will provide an opportunity for participants to present ideas, questions, projects, politics, and technical issues, while enabling them to contribute to and get feedback from others. An unconference is a conference planned by the participants.

For more information please visit http://africaagriculturegisweek.org/

Il était une fois, une grosse tempête, quelque part dans le Dakota du Sud. Ce n’était pas l’orage providentiel dont les fermiers rêvaient après plusieurs vilaines sécheresses. Elle était noire. Elle était sèche. Elle était vicieuse. Mauvaise. Et ce n’était que le 11 Novembre 1933, la 1^ère d’une série. Peu après le Dimanche Noir, des réponses furent cherchées. Des solutions furent trouvées. Bien sûr, la sécheresse, c’était le déclencheur. Mais la cause était surnaturelle : elle était humaine. Les solutions le furent aussi: agro-foresterie. Rotations culturales. Cultures en bandes. En terraces. LABOURS EN COURBES DE NIVEAU.

Quoi? Juste ça? OUI, JUSTE CA. DES TRUCS SIMPLES, QUI MARCHENT. Et 80 ans plus tard, l’Afrique de l’Ouest est prête à engager son propre Civilian Conservation Corps régional, et régler ça pour de bon. Dès les années 1990, les chercheurs du CIRAD et de l’IER ont déterminé ce qu’il faut pour injecter les AMENAGEMENTS EN COURBES DE NIVEAU (ACN) dans le système, et déclencher une amélioration à grande échelle dans la vie des petits producteurs. Et, à SIBWA, nous avons la chance d’avoir 2 de ces pionniers : Kalifa et Bougouna. Ensemble, ces gars possèdent une connaissance de mammouth sur les ACN, leur design, leurs limites, et surtout, leur potentiel. Ils peuvent vous dire comment ça augmente les rendements (la biomasse) par +12 à +56% (+25 à +62%) SANS AUTRE INTRANTS. C’est ça, une technologie adaptée aux petits producteurs. Et on ne parle même pas de ce qui arrive quand on combine ça avec des engrais. Et on vous voit venir avec vos petites questions assassines: “…alors pourquoi les ACN ne sont-ils pas plus répandus ? “

Oh oh. Problème. Permettez-nous de dévier la question. Plutôt, de la plagier. De la reposer. De l’amplifier. De la reformuler. Vous dites: “…alors pourquoi les ACN ne sont-ils pas plus répandus ? “ Nous disons: “… alors pourquoi négligeons-nous l’agriculture pluviale? Pourquoi surtout des grands projets d’irrigation ? Pourquoi amadouer et ensemencer les nuages, AU LIEU DE PREPARER ET ENSEMENCER LA TERRE?” NOUS LE DEMANDONS, A VOUS. Les décideurs politiques. Les conseillers techniques. Les partenaires financiers. Pourquoi? Bougouna vous le dirait, $20/ha suffisent pour installer des ACN. Faites vos propres calculs. Et en passant, à combien montait le dernier surplus de récolte dù à l’ensemencement de nuages ? Peut-être voulez-vous plus de preuves. QuickBird pourrait vous dire que les ACN accélèrent l’établissement des cultures par 69% EN MOYENNE dans 77% des cas étudiés en milieu réel. Oui. Réel, paysan, pas expérimental. Peut-être devons-nous apprendre, de QuickBird, que les ACN augmentent l’hétérogénéité des plants tôt dans la saison, ET C’EST UN BON SIGNE. Signe que les plantes ont maintenant l’eau nécessaire pour exploiter la fertilité résiduelle des sols, qui vérole les champs des petits producteurs. Peut-être était-ce le chaînon manquant. Cette imagerie qui définit l’aménagement du paysage agricole. Qui apporte des preuves. Indépendantes. Qui quantifie l’adoption. Comme ici  (contours verts = champs équipés d’ACN à Sukumba, Mali).

VHRI vous dira bientôt où les ACN peuvent mieux marcher dans votre exploitation. Quand les MNT¹ seront plus précis. ALORS NOUS VOUS DEMANDONS ENCORE: RAIN OR DRAIN²? Récolter plus de pluie, ou assécher plus de nuages ? Récolter plus de pluie, ou assécher plus de rivières? Récolter plus de pluie, ou assécher plus d’aquifères? Vous devriez le savoir maintenant. Sinon, venez nous voir. Nous vous montrerons des cartes. Nous irons au champ. Parce qu’alors, vous VERREZ, et qu’ensuite vous Y CROIREZ.

1. Modèles Numériques de Terrain    2. Pleuvoir ou assécher?

Télécharger le fichier PDF: 200910XX_SIBWA_inSilico_RainOrDrain_PCST_V02_Fr

Once upon a time, a massive storm came to life somewhere in South Dakota. It was not the refreshing rainstorm farmers had prayed for after several ugly drought seasons. It was dark. It was dry. It was nasty.  Malevolent. And it was only November 11, 1933, the first of many. But not long after Black Sunday cleared, answers were sought. Solutions were found. Of course, drought was the trigger. But the cause was supernatural: it was the Dust Bowlers. It was human. And so were the solutions: Agro-forestry. Crop rotation. Strip farming. Terracing. CONTOUR PLOWING.

What? Only that? YES, ONLY THAT. ONLY SIMPLE THINGS THAT WORK. And 80 years later, the time is ripe for West Africa to engage its own regional Civilian Conservation Corps, and just do it. Since the 1990s, scientists at CIRAD and IER have nailed down what it takes to inject CONTOUR RIDGE TILLAGE (CRT) into the system, and kick off widespread improvement in smallholder livelihoods. And we, at SIBWA, are privileged to have two of these pioneers on board: Kalifa and Bougouna. Together, these guys entertain mammoth knowledge about the thing, its design, its limitations, and above all, its potential. They can tell you how it increases grain yields (biomass) by +12 to +56% (+25 to +62%) WITHOUT OTHER INPUTS. Talk about a smallholder-friendly technology. We’re not even touching on what happens when you combine it with fertilizers. So now we see you coming with your backhanded wittiness: “so why is it that CRT is not more widespread yet?”

Uh oh. Problem. Allow us to deflect the question. Actually, to plagiate it. To ask it again. To amplify it. Rephrase it. You say: “… so why is it that CRT is not more widespread yet?” We say: “… so why is it that we under-invest in rainfed agriculture? So why is it that we only think of large-scale irrigation schemes? So why is it that we try to coax and seed the clouds, INSTEAD OF WORKING AND SEEDING THE LAND?” WE ASK YOU. You, the policy makers. The technical advisors. The financial partners. Why? Bougouna would tell you, $20/ha is all it takes to install CRT. Make you own calculations. By the way, what was the last yield gain from cloud seeding? Or maybe you need more proof to be convinced. You need to learn, from QuickBird, that CRT, early in the season, accelerates crop establishment by 69% ON THE AVERAGE in 77% of surveyed cases, on-farm. Yes. In actual, real-world, not experimental, conditions. Maybe we need to learn, from VHRI, and so far largely unbeknownst to research, that CRT increases stand heterogeneity early in the season, WHICH IS A GOOD SIGN. A sign that plants have more water take advantage of these residual, patchy soil fertility pockets typical of smallholder conditions. Maybe we need to realize that there was a missing link. There WAS. Because now we’re bridging it just before your very own eyes. By using VHRI for agricultural landscape design. By providing independent confirmations. By monitoring adoption. Like this ¯ (green outlines are CRT-equipped fields in Sukumba, Mali).

VHRI may soon tell you where to best implement CRT on your farm. When DEMs become more accurate. SO WE ASK YOU AGAIN: RAIN OR DRAIN? Harvest more rain, or drain more clouds? Harvest more rain, or drain more rivers? Harvest more rain, or drain more aquifers? By now, you should know. If you don’t, come and visit us. We’ll show you maps. We’ll take you to the farms. Because then you will SEE, and then you will BELIEVE.

Donwload the pdf of this post: 200910XX_SIBWA_inSilico_RainOrDrain_PCST_V02

The training day will take place on Friday 11 June at the ILRI Campus in Nairobi, Kenya.

The program of the day includes parallel training sessions from ESRI and Google.

Google program:

A series of workshops  to learn how Google’s geo tools relate to each other and can be used for scientific investigations, resource management, monitoring deforestation, and also as powerful communication tools.

Featured products will include

Google Earth
Google Maps
Google Map Maker
Fusion Tables
Open Data Kit.

All products will be presented in a context of applied agriculture in order to facilitate discussions in the spirit of the theme of the event.

ESRI program:
Featuring the latest version of ArcGIS Server. Details of the program to be confirmed.

Due to space limitations registrations will be accepted on a “first come first served”  basis,  and precedence will be given to those who have registered to attend other events of the AAGW 2010.

To register please fill the form here

Please note that a specific registration is required to attend the training and that the  AAGW  registration DOES NOT grant you access to the training sessions.

If you need further information please send an email to info@africaagricultureGISweek.org