The theme for this years’ International Women’s Day celebration is “Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty.” This is in recognition of the critical role and contribution women, especially rural women are playing globally to enhance agricultural and rural development, improve food security and help reduce poverty levels in their communities. Unfortunately, there are others…
Category: ICT4D
ICTs for “Productivity” Component of the Ag. Value Chain
Smallholder farmers face agricultural productivity challenges in the areas of under-investment in R&D; the actual processes of agricultural research and communication; access and utilization of agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilizer, agrochemicals, etc. by farmers; and accurate information on field production practices. On the other hand, success stories of the use of information and communication…
Mapping ICT Solutions along the Ag. Value Chain
The agriculture and food security value chain system is known for its complexity with varied actors at various levels interacting among themselves and with their external environment to provide sustainable food security situation across the world. In this complex system, the key for success depends on how well the value chain actors collaborate and coordinate…
Can ICTs help reduce side-selling? Challenges with financing the Ag Value Chain
I was part of a recent USAID After Hours Seminar Series (even though this particular one was a breakfast event) sponsored by the Microenterprise Development office on the topic “Viewing Value Chain and Household Finance From a Demand Perspective.” The discussion was led by Geoffrey Chalmers, a senior technical advisor at ACDI/VOCA and Jason Agar,…
The World Bank Launches e-Sourcebook on Ag.
The official launch of the World Bank’s e-Sourcebook, “ICT in Agriculture: Connecting Smallholders to Knowledge, Networks and Institutions” took place at the premises of the Bank on Wednesday January 18 2012, with a number of activities. Among these activities was a panel discussion on the key modules in the book moderated by Mark E. Cackler,…
Reflections on mAg. Services: Mistakes and Pitfalls of MNOs/NGOs
NB: This is my personal analysis of contributions to question six from the forum. This post is the final in series of six, analyzing each of the six forum questions that were discussed. Question 6: What are some of the common mistakes or pitfalls mobile operators or NGOs run into when developing these services? Below…
Reflections on mAg. Services: Content Sourcing, Quality Assurance & Dissemination
NB: This is my personal analysis of contributions to question five from the forum. This post is the fifth in series of six, analyzing each of the six forum questions that were discussed. With my interest in this area, I began the discussion with a post which pointed out the need to source content from…
Reflections on mAg. Services: Financial Sustainability
NB: This is my personal analysis of contributions to question four from the forum. This post is the fourth in series of six, analyzing each of the six forum questions that were discussed. The fourth question for the forum was about financial sustainability. With a thorough discussion on partnership models in question 1, the focus…
Reflections on mAg. Services: Is there a Business Case for Serving Farmers?
NB: This is my personal analysis of contributions to question three from the forum. This post is the third in series of six, analyzing each of the six forum questions that were discussed. Following the first two discussions on partnerships and scale, the third discussion was based on justifying a business case for investing in…
Reflections on mAg. Services: Barriers to Scale
NB: This is my personal analysis of contributions to question two from the forum. This post is the second in series of six, analyzing each of the six forum questions that were discussed. One of the objectives of the mFarmer Initiative is to drive scalable, replicable and commercially successful mobile agricultural solutions that bridge the…
Digitalisation and Smallholder Agriculture 