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…
Tag: agriculture
ICTs for “Marketing” Component of the Ag Value Chain
Markets for agricultural products is another critical component of the value chain – i.e from the time the produce is ready for harvest till it reaches the final consumer. A number of activities take place within this period from storage, processing, transportation, retail, and wholesale that add value to the produce. These value adding processes…
AMIS-Cameroon for UN’s MDGs 1, 3, 7, and 8
AMIS-Cameroon is bridging information gap in the African country of Cameroon by connecting farmers with vital information through SMS thereby boosting sustainable agricultural activities that promote the UN’s Millennium Development Goals 1 (Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger), 3 (Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women), 7 (Ensure environmental Sustainability), and 8 (Develop a Global Partnership for…
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,…
Social Media @ IFAD’s 2012 GC Meeting
The 35th Session of International Fund for Agriculture and Development (IFAD’s) Governing Council (GC) is currently underway with innovative use of social media for more inclusive, interactive and impact-oriented forum. The 2-day event with the theme “Sustainable smallholder agriculture: feeding the world, protecting the planet” takes off officially on Wednesday at IFAD’s headquarters in Rome…
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,…
Fasal: A Free SMS Service to Boost Farmers’ Income
Over 500 000 rural farmers in India can now access free daily market information and weather services on their cell phones with the help of Intuit Fasal platform, an SMS based mobile service. Fasal begun as an experiment after it was recognized that rural farmers in Karnataka, India lack price information in relevant multiple markets; have…
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: 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…
Digitalisation and Smallholder Agriculture 