What is e-Agriculture Strategy?
An e-Agriculture strategy is using innovative digital technology solutions like precision agriculture, drones, big data, predictive analytics, and blockchain to improve social and economic outcomes for smallholder farmers.
e-Agriculture programs aim to increase food security by helping smallholder farmers improve modern ICT4Ag farming methods and access to markets. Agricultural ICT4D strategies encompass the full agricultural value chain and includes adjacent technologies like digital financial services and geographic information systems.
Communication in Agriculture
Smallholder farmers have limited knowledge, services, and technologies available to them. They typically need support to adopt modern farming methodologies.
Agriculture technology solutions focus on extension services for farmers to adopt new technologies and innovation. ICTs can amplify the efforts of the extension agents to help farmers plan what crops to grow, source inputs for crop cultivation, and selling their produce in local market.
Chatbots offer an exciting opportunity for governments to engage farmers on the social media platforms where farmers already congregate. For example:
- Facebook chatbots are a popular way to answer basic questions or help farmers apply for government support services.
- SMS text message chatbots can also help private sector companies develop new business leads and educate extension agents on their services.
ICT communication tools can play a crucial role in supporting farmers to access new inputs, credit, and markets with personalized and customized services.
Examples of e-Agriculture Programs
The potential to achieve high impact at the farm-level requires appropriate technology and adoption methodologies. International development organizations can use e-Agriculture communication programs like those below to support ICTforAg value chain ecosystems in developing countries.
Three Factors to Make Your ICTforAg Efforts More Effective
I am an optimistic skeptic of ICT4D and ICTforAg. The potential role of ICT in Development is obvious, but we often seem to be overselling the current reality.
Donors...
How Can We Create an Integrated ICTforAg Sensor Ecosystem?
We are on the cusp of a second green revolution. Through the application of connected technologies, we have the potential to increase agricultural productivity...
Managing the Data Transmission Constraints When Using ICTforAg Sensors
By 2018, according to a recent report from Ericsson, the largest category of connected devices in the world will be comprised of a variety of vehicles and machines,...
3 Barriers to Using Sensors to Improve ICTforAg
As mentioned in Sabeen Dhanani’s initial post in this series, How Can Sensor Technologies and Precision Farming Improve Agriculture?, technology is the easiest...
How Can Sensor Technologies and Precision Farming Improve Agriculture?
The use of precise, granular data collected via remote and ground sensors has tremendous potential to improve agriculture outcomes. In the industrialized world...
Big Data Needs to be Open Data
Big data. We hear about it regularly, but for someone who is a bit of a techno-slug, who moves at a slow pace of adoption, I wonder sometimes just where all this...
How Smallholder Farmers Can Bank From the Farm With Digital Financial Services
Pioneered by mobile payment companies like Kenya’s M-PESA, digital financial services (DFS) offer banks and other financial providers the ultimate promise to...
Crowdsourcing Food Security Status From South Sudan Satellite Imagery
The FEWS NET early warning system educates decision-makers who are responsible for creating and funding humanitarian response plans, and in December 2015, FEWS...
4 Secrets to ICTforAg Social and Behavior Change Communication
Most ICTforAg projects have specific behavior change goals. For example, the goal may be for farmers to change their practices to improve soil quality. Or for farmers...
Congratulations to Bhutan! Now a Global ICTforAg Leader
With the recent publication of its e-RNR (renewable natural resources) masterplan, the tiny Himalayan country of Bhutan has joined an exclusive club of only a handful...
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