ICTs can help smallholder farmers maximise the return on agricultural inputs, provided timely and relevant information is made available to them.
A feature by Enrica Porcari, CGIAR Chief Information Officer, ICT-KM Program Leader and AGCommons Program Leader, in the I4D (Information For Development) Magazine describes the work of the ICT-KM Program, the AGCommons service bureau and the role of location specific (GIS) information for agriculture development.
Like any business owner, smallholder farmers want to get the most out of their resources. ICTs can help them maximise the return on inputs such as land, fertilizer, livestock feed, water, pesticides, labour, etc. ICTs can also warn farmers about potential risks from pests, adverse weather and climatic changes, and alert them to the best places to market their produce. Unfortunately, many smallholder farmers in developing countries have little or no access to the ICT applications that could help them increase their outputs and sell their produce at a reasonable price. Lack of information about the technology available coupled with limited financial resources make it almost impossible for many farmers to escape from their existing poverty levels without interventions from organisations like the CGIAR.
The CGIAR’s high-quality research outputs need to be communicated and put to use in the village, on the ground, in the lab or across the negotiating table and that is where the ICT-KM program comes into the picture: it recognises that scientific research organisations are becoming more and more information intensive, multi-disciplinary and partnership-based, requiring up-to-date communications infrastructure and knowledge sharing practices.
ICT-KM uses several different approaches, within its network to harness the innovations in ICTs to further the way it works: location specific
Location specific (geospatial) information is one of the ICTs that the ICT-KM is promoting through AGCommons, one of its most recent initiatives to have shown immediate results on the ground with its Quick-Win projects.
Read the full article here
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