For the past two decades, I have worked on e-Agriculture, ICTs for Agriculture and Digital Agriculture as a practitioner, researcher, development officer, and now a policy adviser. My conclusion is that, for digital solutions and services to be sustained, scaled and then accelerate smallholder agriculture transformation, we need a better approach to data management at…
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CTA’s expertise informs concept for new International Digital Council for Food and Agriculture
Originally published by CTA on Thursday, 12 March 2020 Extensive consultation with CTA and other stakeholders has resulted in a concept note for the establishment of a new International Digital Council for Food and Agriculture. Once operationalised, the Digital Council will advise governments and other relevant actors with the aim of realising the immense potential…
Why Europe should partner the world’s smallholders to adopt big tech
Originally written on Monday, 4 February 2019 Despite the rise of industrial and intensive farming, it is the world’s 800 million smallholder farmers who continue to shoulder a disproportionate burden of global food security. Family farms with modest plots of land make up around 90 per cent of all agricultural operations and are responsible for producing more…
ACP agribusiness digitalisation – Big data analytics a pathway towards sustainability
Originally written on Tuesday, 11 December 2018 In his five years working on ICT for Agriculture (ICT4Ag) at CTA, Benjamin Addom has seen plenty of digital agricultural projects come and go. Here he discusses what it takes to ensure that promising ICT4Ag initiatives have staying power – and how big data analytics can help make…
Attracting private sector investment to digitalise African farming
Originally written on Friday, 7 December 2018 Agriculture in Africa presents a unique investment opportunity. The African Center for Economic Transformation estimates that the continent holds around 600 million hectares of uncultivated arable land, representing almost 65 per cent of the global total. Of the land already cultivated, close to 95 per cent is still rainfed,…
Creating ICT opportunities with the apps4ag database
Originally written on Wednesday, 21 June 2017 In ICT Update and on websites as ICT4D, CTA has covered the explosive growth and proliferation of digital and mobile phone technologies for agriculture. Now CTA takes the next step with developing the Apps4Ag database, a comprehensive, up-to-date and responsive database of ICTs including mobile, web, animation, audio,…
Alternative extension models vs. ICT enabled systems
Originally written on Thursday, 8 June 2017 There is no doubt that agricultural extension and advisory services (EAS) have been going through a tumultuous crisis over the past years. But, from my over 25 years of experience as a farmer, agricultural extension practitioner, and ICT for development specialist, I have come to believe ICTs are…
Building the ICT infrastructure of MUIIS for SMS delivery
Originally written on Wednesday, 21 December 2016 The development of MUIIS technology suite involves a team of technology, communication, data, agronomy and extension experts working together to create a package of bundled services enabled by ICTs. The bundled information services (agronomic, weather and insurance) will be delivered to targeted customers through different delivery channels. SMS…
The web: a thing of the past, or here to stay?
Originally written on Saturday, 1 August 2015 How relevant and useful are web tools for ICT4Ag today? Are they on their way out, or on the contrary, is the web a nucleus from which other channels spread? Is the web still a relevant environment for communicating agricultural information to users? Or is it doomed to…
Making it happen
Originally written on Monday, 2 December 2013 The ICT4Ag conference held in Rwanda in November 2013 was unique in that it brought together a highly representative body of delegates from the ICT and agricultural sectors. The CTA-sponsored ICT4ag conference held on 4–8 November 2013 in Kigali, Rwanda had several objectives, but the conference heading –…
Digitalisation and Smallholder Agriculture 