The Digital Agri Hub run by the Wageningen University and Research (WUR) has been nominated as a potential candidate awardee for the UN / ITU WSIS 2024 prize in the Category 13 - AL C7 E-agriculture.
The Hub offers free access to a dashboard with over 1200 digital solutions for agriculture in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and to digital communities hosted on community platforms.
The winners of the WSIS 2024 prizes will be selected based on the result of a public voting process.
How to vote:
Only registered members of the WSIS Stocktaking Platform (STK) with requested complete information may vote for/appreciate a project. The information should contain organization details: name, type, country and user details: username and e-mail.
Members may only vote for one project in each category
Voters are encouraged but not required to cast votes for one project in each of categories.
Digital technologies and solutions are increasingly important in
revolutionizing agriculture food systems in low- and middle-income countries
(LMICs). The drive towards promoting digitalization for agriculture (D4Ag)
among small-scale producers in LMICs is relentless. Therefore, it is crucial to
take a factual, objective, and measured approach to identify and possibly
overcome potential stereotypes.
On Monday 17 April, the Digital Agri Hub is
launching the 4th of a series of e-conversations on what it considers as
potential clichés in the D4Ag domain. The exchanges are hosted on the Digitalisation
for Agriculture or D4Ag dgroup which you are welcome to join.
The outcome of the exchanges may lead to a more objective, prudent and
realistic attitude on how to approach and present gender inclusion in D4Ag
projects in LMICs. It can also open new avenues which could help solving issues
that are at the basis of potential stereotypes.
The 3rd e-conversation on whether “smart farming is raising justifiable
expectations” has come to an end, and its summary is now available on the D4Ag dgroup’s wiki (login
required) or on The Hub
events’ page.
The forthcoming e-conversation Starting on Monday 17 April, 2023, will
address the following question: “Is gender inclusion in the framework of
D4Ag projects a genuine need based on objective assessments, or an
indispensable component to satisfy donors’ expectations?”
Each e-conversation topic is well framed via an initial message posted
on the D4Ag group to kickstart the reflections. The subsequent topic will be
launched once the exchanges about the preceding one are completed, and so on.
Summaries of the exchanges are shared.
Over the past three weeks, the Digital Agri Hub
with the support of the Dgroups Foundation,
has been hosting an online dialogue
to identify capacity opportunities, gaps, priority needs and best-bet
learning solutions for people and organizations working with digital
agriculture.
Specifically, at the dialogue kick-off webinar
and in the subsequent email-based exchanges, dialogue’s participants have been
pinning down the perceived capacity needs of three stakeholder groups - implementers
(extension services, farmers organisations, NGOs, etc.); enablers
(policy makers, government and international organisations, etc.); and D4Ag
service / solution providers (organisations or individuals providing
services in the domain of digitalisation for agriculture, including innovations
and data infrastructure).
Are you curious to know what
emerged from this dialogue? Do you want to know more and add your voice and
ideas to the dialogue outcomes and results?
Join us for the D4Ag dialogue closing webinar on 15 December and contribute to shape and deliver digital agriculture
capacities for the future!
Promotional video for the report “Landscaping the Agritech Ecosystem for Smallholder Farmers in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Based on the review of 131 digital agriculture tools, this report, prepared by GSMA and IDB Lab, provides a market mapping and landscape analysis of the most prominent cases of digital disruption. It highlights some of the major trends observed in five digital agriculture use cases, identifies opportunities for digital interventions, and concludes with recommendations for future engagement that could deliver long-term, sustainable economic and social benefits for smallholder farmers.
Unmanned aerial vehicles have the potential to empower indigenous communities to become equal partners in the efforts to safeguard their territories and natural resources.
Throughout the Americas, indigenous forest communities’ territories face intensifying threats, as global demand increases for land and forest resources. Non-indigenous settlers and loggers illegally enter indigenous territories to poach valuable timber or to burn and clear large swaths of forest. Emerging technologies, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – also known as drones – offer an unprecedented opportunity to empower communities to defend their territories and natural resources. UAV technology allows them to monitor their land in real time, obtain visual evidence of any trespass, and make claims based on this evidence.
Some of Panama’s indigenous communities already make use of UAVs to protect the rainforest. Nearly 70% of Panama’s remaining intact rainforest is governed by indigenous peoples. Indigenous communities see the forest as part of their culture and heritage, respecting and understanding its value and safeguarding it for future generations. Newcomers to the area tend to see the rainforest as something to be exploited in the short-term, particularly for felling valuable old-growth hardwoods and clearing forested areas for cattle ranching.
Panama’s indigenous communities began using UAVs in 2015 with the support of the Rainforest Foundation US and Tushevs Aerials. Tushevs Aerials is a small organisation that designs and builds UAVs and processes data into maps or digital 3D models. It provides training in any aspect of UAV construction, operation, and data use. Since the beginning of this project UAVs have successfully been used to document illegitimate land occupancy and illegal land occupancy and illegal logging by non-indigenous groups.
Armed settlers
The rampant deforestation in the Darien region of Panama perfectly illustrates this dynamic. Islands of rainforest have managed to resist outside pressure from settlers, thanks to the indigenous communities that inhabit and protect them. With the use of a custom-built fixed wing UAV, the Emberá peoples – near the community of Puerto Indio – could spot and survey over 200 hectares of converted forest that has been illegally occupied by cattle ranchers. The communities’ leaders were stunned to witness the extent of the damage. Prior to seeing the aerial imagery, they had thought that there were only about 50 hectares destroyed by illegal ranching.
The occupation and conversion of forested areas occurred several kilometres away from where the indigenous community lives. But because of tensions with the settlers, who are often armed and confrontational, they had not been able to enter the area and document the illegal ranching practices. Using the UAV allowed them to quickly and safely gather data that evidenced the trespass of their territories.
Tino Quintana, the cacique or traditional chief of the 440,000 hectares’ traditional territory, took the lead on presenting the results of the UAV survey to members of several other Emberá communities. These communities are now working together by using aerial imagery documentation to register official complaints with the regional authorities. The government has promised to remove the settlers, and the Emberá communities plan to reforest the area.
Documenting evidence
Governments are often faced with resource shortages, and are frequently unable to respond to all requests for intervention. Spatially explicit UAV documentation of illegal logging and land occupancy helps government agencies prioritise their efforts, ensuring that a week-long field inspection will collect enough evidence to justify government intervention.
This experience generated further interest in UAV technology among indigenous communities in eastern Panama, inspiring other leaders to ask for UAV support. The Emberá and Wounaan General Congress, which oversees thousands of hectares of rainforest across 27 distinct territories, was given a DJI Phantom 3 Professional quadcopter by the Rainforest Foundation in November 2015. Wounaan leaders flew this UAV within the district of Platanares on the Pacific coast of Panama. The geo-referenced images proved that 10 hectares had recently been burned for cattle grazing in the middle of their territory.
Diogracio Puchicama, a Wounaan indigenous leader, who has been threatened by illegal loggers and settlers for several years, because of his efforts to protect 20,000 hectares of rainforest along the Pacific coast, submitted the UAV-generated documentation to the environmental authorities. Impressed by the accurate geo-referencing of the images documenting forest destruction, the Ministry of Environment promised to be more present in the area and enforce the law.
In late January 2016, Diogracio reported that the authorities had been patrolling the district of Platanares constantly, and that most of the settlers had been at least temporarily removed. ‘I have been denouncing illegal loggers in Platanares for over five years, and the authorities have done nothing, not moved a finger,’ Diogracio Puchicama noted. ‘Now, after they have realised that we have the drone, they are doing their job and enforcing the law. It’s a good sign.’
Protection of indigenous rights
Emberá and Wounaan communities are planning in partnership with the Rainforest Foundation US and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations to fly UAVs in at least six more indigenous communities in Panama. They will use the imagery to raise awareness among local communities of the ongoing illegal and un-monitored forest destruction within their traditional territories and the need to document and denounce this destruction to the authorities. They will also use the aerial photographs to help Panamanians understand how important forests are, and the essential role that indigenous peoples have played in keeping them intact.
The experience from Panama illustrates that UAVs have the potential to alter the power balance in favour of indigenous communities’ own ability to protect, monitor, and report on their lands, territories, and natural resources. This technology empowers indigenous people to play an active role in safeguarding their lands and to become equal partners – rather than just beneficiaries – to government and civil society agencies, which are involved in conservation and rights’ protection.
Indigenous peoples’ communities, organisations, and their civil society partners in the region and beyond are now very interested in adopting UAVs for conservation or for the protection of indigenous rights and territories. There are further discussions with the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests regarding the use of UAVs in Central America and with an indigenous network in Bolivia. Indigenous communities in Guyana and Indonesia are already using UAVs for land mapping. Also in Africa the Shompole Maasai community in Kenya and a forester in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are interested in using the technology. This shows that the interest in UAVs is growing all around the globe for monitoring illegal land use in indigenous territory.
About the authors:
Nina Kantcheva Tushev (nina.kant@gmail.com) is co-founder of Tushevs Aerials and indigenous peoples’ rights advisor at the UNDP. Tom Bewick (tombewick@rffny.org) is program manager at the Rainforest Foundation US. And Cameron Ellis (jamescameronellis@gmail.com) is principal at Groundtruth Geographics.
Related Links:
Video that demonstrates how Dayaks in Indonesia make use of UAVs. https://goo.gl/u8Bv2v
Article and video outlining a training in the use of UAVs with indigenous communities in Peru. https://goo.gl/jhoMFJ
ICTs are helping millions of smallholder family farmers in developing countries gain better access to information, tools and technology that can transform their livelihoods. Indeed, ICTs help family farmers sell and market their produce, boost their ability to cope with dwindling access to water, land and soil nutrients, and deal with the extreme climate events, pests and diseases that affect their crops. If more of these ICT solutions are tailored to the needs of smallholder family farmers and put within their reach – especially the women farmers who form the bulk of this group – then their agriculture can rapidly move from being a subsistence activity to a successful and sustainable business.
Accessing markets through cooperation
Agriculture is becoming more market oriented globally. Individual family farmers, however, are finding it increasingly difficult to participate in markets – not only in national and international markets, but even in local ones. Smallholder farmers have small amounts of farm produce to market but often do not have access to systems of communication, finance and transport. If they could somehow aggregate their produce and collectively synchronise their production and marketing systems, then they would be able to enter these markets more easily as a collective.
ICTs can help smallholder farmers improve their production systems so they can fetch better prices, avoid gluts and have the critical mass to grow market-led crops. Conventionally, this is done by cooperatives and farmer organisations, which bring together farmers. These organisations help reduce weaknesses in the value chain. In most developing countries, however, these organisations are weak and often face constraints in planning and monitoring production systems and setting up logistics for an efficient marketing system.
Some cooperatives have tried to overcome these constraints by even taking control of the land of participating farmers. This approach, however, diminishes the opportunity for family farmers to participate in the decision-making processes that impact their livelihoods, and so ultimately this approach has failed.
ICTs now provide the potential to overcome these constraints. They can help smallholder family farmers coordinate their planning and monitoring of production and marketing systems by virtually aggregating data, without cooperatives having to take over the land or do the decision making for their farms. Access to credit, financial and insurance services for smallholder family farmers has been a major constraint to improving their farming and incomes. With the increasing availability of mobile phones and the internet, smallholder farmers can now access financial services much more easily.
ICTs also allow family farmers to see their farm processes from many different viewpoints, and this enables them to make more sound economic and environmental decisions. At the same time, access to ICTs and information increases their technological literacy. A farmers’ organisation that uses ICTs can now support individual farmers by suggesting what crops they should grow, and where, when and how to market them with these ICT-run systems. These systems can also help farmers organise and plan inputs for their farms. Connectivity also gives smallholders easy access to knowledge-based services that help farmers to solve farming problems.
Precision technology and land rights
Cloud-based data, application services and the wide availability of smartphones and ‘phablets’ have made precision technology – such as mapping systems with high resolution and three-dimensional maps – more widely available to these farmers. Once the privilege of large farms, smallholders can now use these tools too to measure soil moisture and nutrients, for example, or environmental carbon dioxide.
The sensors used to make these measurements can be linked to GPS systems and incorporated into sensor networks that can help farmers monitor the well-being of their crops at a micro level. The use of drones and digital cameras are enabling farmers to use very low-cost remote sensing to monitor their crops. With close monitoring, farmers can use water and soil nutrients more effectively and sustainably. This, in turn, improves the resilience of their farming system.
Many smallholder farmers have difficulty securing their rights to land and other resources. Many family farms have tenancy agreements. But they keep poor records of allotment, ownership and tenancy. Cadastral surveys containing maps and records can now be made, managed and publicly accessed more easily at a lower cost using geographical information systems in the public domain. As a result, farmers can obtain the proper records for their farms and use them to get mortgages, bank loans and compensation. When records become available in the public domain, farmers’ rights to land and other resources such as water become more secure.
A new paradigm for farming
Like society in general, ICTs are ushering in a new paradigm for farming and agriculture. The flow and use of information and knowledge in this paradigm resembles that of a network and therefore calls for new forms of collaboration and partnership.
ICTs have huge potential to provide knowledge-based services to farmers and others earning their livelihoods in activities related to agriculture, such as agri-businesses, agro-industries and financial services. In the near future, these services will be provided largely by micro, small and medium enterprises to farmers in villages and entrepreneurs who operate in local, national and even international markets. Governments and the public sector in most countries are now the major generators, managers and disseminators of organised data and information related to agriculture.
Governments are also responsible for agricultural development, research, innovation and extension. New forms of collaboration and partnerships are now needed between the public and private sectors to adapt to changing circumstances in the agricultural sector – changes in which governments and the public sector provide data and information, while the private sector provides the knowledge services.
Much of the data in the future will be generated and shared by communities. For farming and agriculture, this will occur through agricultural communities that contribute to agricultural commodity chains in terms of input, farming, processing, marketing and consumption. Fields and farms, and all the related processes, will generate huge sets of data – ‘big’ data that will need to be processed instantaneously.
Individual farmers are being given the ability to create and manage sophisticated information and knowledge thanks to low-cost connectivity, massive computing power accessible through cloud computing with shareable tools, applications and intelligently linked content and data. This ‘democratisation’ of science will draw farmers into agricultural research, innovation and development processes. This could transform the entire structure of agricultural research and innovation systems, especially for smallholder family farmers, whose specific needs seem to have been ignored by current technological innovations.
There are now a large number of ICTs within reach of family farmers that would help them to improve their farming practices. Technological trends indicate that many more innovations are in the making as well. However, their availability is still too widely dispersed. Individual technologies and tools are not integrated yet in ways that would help smallholder family farmers improve their farming practices.
For example, there are applications that enable farmers to do online banking but which are not linked to farmers’ needs, such as credits through mortgages and crop insurance. To make ICTs even more widely available, institutions, their policies, the governance of information flows and the way they organise their work all need to undergo major transformation.
This new paradigm calls for new policies, and new regulatory mechanisms and laws. Old institutions need to be revamped; new institutions and organisations need to be established; and government work processes need to be restructured. The main concern of governments should be to provide not only data and information but also the infrastructure and investment that promote new capacities and the integration of information systems and services.
Social-media has been called many things -- and now it's being described as a 'life-changing' experience for people living in rural parts of the Pacific.
Increasingly, social media, and the internet in general, is being used to drive agricultural development - with some dramatic impacts.
Speakers: Michael Hailu, director of Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA); Giacomo Rambaldi, Sr Programme Coordinator, ICTs (CTA, Web2forDev) and Faumuina Felolini Tafunai, Media Specialist (WIBDI).
by Catherine Graue
Source: Pacific Beat | Duration: 5min 42sec
Nuku’alofa, 17 June 2015 - A new report has highlighted the impacts of improved access to telecommunications infrastructure and services now being seen across the South Pacific and potential for greater information communications technology (ICT)-enabled development across the region. Click on View more news below to read the full media release, and access the report.
Economic and Social Impact of ICT in the Pacific, launched today in the Tongan capital Nuku’alofa as part of a meeting of Pacific region ICT ministers, examines the economic and social impact of the rapid rise in internet bandwidth, mobile phone usage and telecommunications market liberalisation that has been underway throughout the Pacific Islands region in the past decade. The report includes case studies of the impacts in Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu, plus a comparative analysis of lessons learned in recent years, and identifies key opportunities for investment and support for the future.
Launched by Tongan Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Responsible for Information Communications Technology, the Honourable Siaosi Sovaleni, the report’s research was commissioned by the Pacific Region Infrastructure Facility (PRIF), which is financed by the Asian Development Bank, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and whose membership also includes the European Investment Bank, European Union, Japan International Cooperation Agency, and the World Bank Group.
This past decade has seen an extraordinary increase in access to mobile phone services in the region, including to some of the Pacific’s most remote areas and islands, as significantly improved market conditions have encouraged investment by the private sector and existing operators.
“Here in Tonga, where we landed a submarine cable financed by the Asian Development Bank and World Bank in August 2013, we have seen greatly improved access to high-speed Internet (particularly mobile) and falling prices,” said Deputy Prime Minister Sovaleni.
“Yet this report is not just about the technologies themselves; it’s about the impact they are having on our communities and economies, enabling us to leapfrog over more traditional, outdated and expensive systems of the past, and transform our lives.”
The High Commissioner for Australia, Brett Aldam, said Australia was pleased to be co-financing the ICT study through its support for the PRIF, because “Australia recognised the critical need to modernise communications in the Pacific in order to generate increased economic growth and social development.”
Sanjivi Rajasingham, Director of the Pacific Region Infrastructure Facility (PRIF), said the report would help Pacific governments, telecoms operators, regulators and the private sector to identify opportunities for investment in technology-enabled services. This includes a list of 10 specific ‘intervention points’, which include the further strengthening of international connectivity through submarine cables, new pricing structures and competition, to the use of e-government and applications designed to boost tourism and exports, small industries, and innovative job creation.
“As the Pacific has gained access to significantly improved technology, better access, far cheaper mobile phones, calls, text and data, the pace of change in the Pacific has been extraordinary,” said Natasha Beschorner, Senior ICT Policy Specialist at The World Bank and Lead Coordinator of the PRIF ICT Sector Working Group, who introduced the report’s key findings.
“The changes have been widespread across sectors including agriculture, fisheries, tourism, education, health and financial services. “Importantly, this reportshows the opportunities that are now possible in the Pacific, and makes recommendations for governments, policy-makers and the private sector to answer the question, ‘Where to next?’
Changes already seen in the Pacific, which have been highlighted in the Economic and Social Impact of ICT in the Pacific report, include:
Mobile coverage across Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu has jumped from less than half of the population in 2005 to 93% of the population in 2014.
The cost of mobile calls declined by one third between 2005 and 2014.
The percentage of cell phones in Pacific households rose from 49% in 2007 to 93% in 2014.
International internet bandwidth jumped over 1500% between 2007 and 2014, rising from less than 100 Megabits per second to over 1 Gigabits per second (excluding Fiji, which was already connected to a submarine cable in 2000).
Recommendations for governments, policy-makers and development partners for the coming years that are in the report include:
Strengthening of government and regulatory agencies to ensure that access to communications technology remains competitive, fairly-priced and accessible to all.
Development of basic digital literacy amongst the general public.
Putting the Pacific online: Support for increased communications technology use by governments to deliver services directly to citizens and business.
Support for applications such as online health, education, trade facilitation services
Investments in information communications technology skills – including government-industry partnerships – to build employment opportunities that are now possible with the increased availability of affordable broadband internet.
The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) has been honoured in the prestigious 2015 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Project Prizes. The Centre won the e-agriculture category for its youth and ICT programme – Agriculture, Rural Development and Youth in the Information Society (ARDYIS). The prize was presented in Geneva, Switzerland, during the WSIS Forum 2015, the biggest international event in the ICT for Development calendar. CTA’s ARDYIS entry was proclaimed winner of the e-agriculture category at the prize-giving ceremony on May 26, following a round of online voting and a review by a panel of experts.
The prize marks the third time that CTA has won a WSIS award.
Jointly with the FLMMA network in 2007 CTA won the WSIS award in the domain of e-culture for its activities in the domain of Participatory 3D Modelling in Fiji.
Each year, a series of WSIS Project Prizes recognises initiatives that help to further the goals of bridging the global digital divide and ensuring wider distribution of the benefits that can be generated by information and communications technology (ICT). Launched by the United Nations in 2011, the awards span 18 categories and offer a platform to showcase success stories and models that can be easily replicated.
The CTA ARDYIS programme, a group of initiatives aimed at 18 to 35-year-olds living in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, seeks to connect young people with ICTs and promote their use for agricultural development and enterprise. Key activities include the Youth in Agriculture Blog Competition (YoBloCo Awards), which has so far attracted nearly 300 agricultural blogs, and the AgriHack Talent contest, which supports the development of ICTs, mobile apps and entrepreneurship in agriculture.
An important feature of the ARDYIS programme is the wide range of activities it uses to raise awareness among young people of the potential for ICTs in agriculture. These include e-debates, workshops, information dissemination and support in developing agricultural ICT applications and other entrepreneurial initiatives.
“ARDYIS is an incredibly dynamic project which has opened opportunities for ACP youth in agriculture through ICTs, and strengthened their capacities in using these tools,” said CTA Director Michael Hailu. “So far, the project has reached young people in more than 40 ACP countries and it has supported the development of dozens of ICT prototypes, targeting different segments of agricultural value chains.”
Receiving the award on behalf of CTA at the WSIS ceremony was Ken Lohento, Programme Coordinator, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).
“We are very proud of this prize,” said Lohento, who is leading the ARDYIS programme. “the prize also belongs to all the youth who have been participating in the ARDYIS network and who support us with their ideas and contributions. We thank all the people who voted for us from many countries around the world and the ARDYIS Advisory Committee for its support. CTA will continue to work hard to encourage and support greater youth engagement in ICTs for agriculture.”
Rarotonga, Cook Islands, 14 April, 2015 – From 13 to 17 April 2015 the Cook Islands Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) is hosting a Web 2.0 and social media learning opportunity workshop and training. The event held at the MoA’s headquarters in Arorangi, is jointly supported by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), and the European-Union-funded Pacific Agriculture Policy Project (PAPP) (part of the Intra-ACP Agriculture Policy Project). The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) is the implementing agency for the European Union funded PAPP project.
Participants in the course posing together
with the Minister of Agriculture, Kiriau Turepu
Participants were drawn from government agencies, including ministries of the environment, agriculture, education and internal affairs, the police and the Seabed Minerals Authority, from the private sector and from civil-society and non-governmental organisations, including the Red Cross, the National Youth Council, national women’s group, and two youth organisations Rotaract, and organics. All were keen to learn how to make best use of online social media tools to generate and share information to achieve both personal development and organisational goals.
The Hon Minister of Agriculture, Kiriau Turepu, delivered the keynote address to more than 25 local participants. He acknowledged the partnership of CTA, SPC and the European Union for offering the opportunity to the Cook Islands to build capacity in information and communication technologies and social media.
“I am particularly pleased for the Ministry of Agriculture to take the lead in promoting social media to generate, manage and disseminate information in this ever-more-connected world we live in. The internet offers tools we can harness for the development of our people. The outer islands may have produce to sell and using the internet they can connect to consumers and markets in Rarotonga. We will be able to share and show new innovative ideas such as growing dragon fruits for example – I can show a friend in Penrhyn steps on growing these fruits using social media.
“As the first of this kind of workshop to be held here in the Cook Islands, we are expecting this group of participants to learn, and make use of the knowledge so that our people are better informed, more articulated in the affairs of development as far as agriculture is concerned.
“Today the speed with which information travels in our work places and the changing technologies that we have at our disposal is extraordinary and important to all of us. Whether it is Facebook, blogging, Twitter, photos you share, these are all extensions of individuals and their personalities. They help portray interests, views and help show people who they are. They offer a platform for you and I to be ourselves, to be creative, to be who we want to be and most importantly, have an audience for all to debate critical innovative ideas that are good and can grow for the future.”
Mr Emil Adams, PPPP Information Communication Management Officer, thanked Permanent Secretary, Dr Matairangi Purea, and MoA Director of Policy, Planning, Mr Patrick Arioka, for the planning and coordination that went into organising the workshop. The good turnout of local participants is testimony of the planning, interest and enthusiasm of stakeholders to release their officers to attend the Web2.0 and social media training.
“Social media tools allow continuous dialogue between groups of individuals to take place on the internet. This online dialogue contributes to a knowledge society where individuals continuously pull information as well contribute content, further enriching knowledge and available to other users. People are empowered when they freely express their opinions on social media, and attain a level of gratification when they get information they want when they want it,” said Mr Adams.
“Accessing the internet allows a farmer in a remote village to directly interact and feedback on government policies affecting rural livelihoods, tweet a photo of a pest outbreak back to researchers for identification and management, or post on Facebook photos of a rural development training.”
Workshop facilitator, Ms Anju Mangal, offered words of warning about the potential of social media, noting that, while it can open up a whole new horizon of possibilities that can improve lives, it can also destroy lives and upset social norms if used wrongly by unscrupulous individuals.
Ms Mangal said that online cyber security is of major concern to individuals and to organisations that want to protect their integrity. Social media policies supported by national infrastructure need to be robust to guide the use of these tools to achieve national goals. Above all, measures are needed to prevent compromising the integrity of government machinery.
In the Cook Islands broadband connection is available to more than 95% of the population, with mobile coverage reaching more than 99% of the population. On Rarotonga only, third-generation (3G) services are available to 11,000 plus mobile connections.
Agriculture currently contributes only 3.8% to GDP, but Mr Arioka expressed his confidence that this can be increased through the use of online tools supported by an enabling policy environment. The Ministry is currently developing a new Strategic Plan to help agriculture services support income streams, food consumption and self sufficiency. Healthy soils, healthy food will underpin the strength of the new Strategic Plan.
CTA, in partnership with SPC, has embarked on a series of regional Web2.0 and social media learning opportunity workshops to strengthen national capacity in the use of social media for agricultural development and climate-change adaptation. National workshops have been completed in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Vanuatu. A second national workshop for the Cook Islands is planned for September 2015.
Vlogging is an essential component of social networking. Are you interested in how to produce videos for educational, advocacy or development purposes? Here is the discussion list you should join: https://dgroups.org/cta/video4dev
The Web2forDev Community of Practice was created by CTA in 2006 in anticipation of the Web2forDev International Conference which CTA organised in September 2007 in partnership with FAO, GIZ , IFAD, APC, IICD and other development organisations.
As anticipated in the article published on PLA 59 in June 2009, “The Web2forDev story: towards a community of practice” the community has been steadily growing also as a follow-up of the Web 2.0 and Social Media Learning Opportunities regularly organised by CTA, so far in 37 countries.
Here are some stats about the latest growth of the Web2forDev community on various social media platforms:
Dgroups (En) (since 2006) :
# of members on 31/12/14: 3,874 in 110 countries
Growth over the year 2014: +46%
Dgroups (Fr) (since 2006) :
# of members on 31/12/14: 940 in 48 countries
LinkedIn (since July 2007) :
# of members on 31/12/14: 1,939
Growth over the year 2014: +20%
Facebook (since July 2007) :
Total Likes on 31/12/14: 4,060
Growth over the year 2014: +49%
Twitter (since August 2008) :
# of followers on 31/12/14: 2,926
Growth over the year 2014: +18%
The main portal is found at www.web2fordev.net and is available both in English and French.
Fifty years ago, some 5000 Saramaccan people of Suriname had to leave their traditional lands along the Suriname River due to the construction of a major dam. The wounds of this transmigration are still felt today. Meanwhile, the Saramaccans who live in the Upper Suriname River area face new challenges since their territorial rights are not yet officially recognized and road infrastructure to access the area is improving. Creating a 3D model of the area that tells the inside story of their traditions and land use can help them to overcome their sense of being misunderstood by decision-makers and rediscover their voice.
The 15 min video production “The enabling power of participatory 3D mapping among the Saramaccan People of Suriname” has been launched on October 9 at the 13th Caribbean Week of Agriculture in Paramaribo, Suriname. The launch occurred during the session “Maps as media in policy processes: Bringing the 3rd dimension to the negotiating table” in the presence of representatives from the Saramaccan community.
The launch was followed by reflections done by Saramaccan representatives Mr Godfried Adjako, one of the captains of the village of Kaajapati, and Ms Debora Linga who spent her infancy with her grandparents on their farm on the shores of the Brokopondo Reservoir and later on kept visiting them in Ginginston village along the banks of the Upper Suriname River.
Mr Godfried Adjako recalled that in the process of populating the 3D model the community, especially the youth, learned a lot from the elders. “The map now shows our life, the Earth we live on, the Earth we walk on, the Earth without which we cannot live.” “We can use the map to take decisions on where to locate future developments”, he added. Both men and women contributed to the map. “Women know a lot about the surrounding of the villages, while men who use to go hunting, know the most about far away areas.”
Mr Adjako stated that when developing the legend ahead of the mapping exercise, the community decided to omit sensitive and confidential information. Therefore the data contained in the model and currently being digitised by Tropenbos International Suriname (TBI) should be considered as publicly available.
The P3DM process has been a discovery journey for young Debora. “In the 60’s my grandparents had to resettle because their village had been submerged by the rising waters of the Brokopondo Reservoir. They resettled along the Upper Suriname River in a village called Ginginston where I grew up. I could not understand the reason why my grandfather kept on navigating a long way along the river to reach the shores of the lake where he was growing watermelon” she said. “I discovered the reason while chatting with an elder who explained to me that transmigrating families were welcome by Saramaccan villages uphill the lake, but were granted limited access to resources. In fact they were sort of borrowing the land from people who occupied it for generations. Thus they only had access to small farming areas. In Saramaccan this is how you feel: they were living on somebody else’s land.”
And the winner is… Node420, from Jamaica. The team’s ICT application, also called Node420, offers real-time weather analysis and automatic yield forecasts for farmers. The AgriHack Talent Caribbean contest, organised by CTA and partners, came to a close during the 13th Caribbean Week of Agriculture, held this week in Paramaribo, Suriname. The winning teams designed agricultural apps that can forecast crop yields, improve pest management and put farmers in touch with market outlets.
Second prize went to CropGuard, from Barbados, an app that seeks to enhance food security by helping farmers to protect their crops through pest diagnosis, monitoring and control. Third prize was awarded to UNICODE, from Suriname, with an application called Agri-Kari, designed to help farmers manage their land and sell their products.
More than 150 young ICT specialists took part in the AgriHack Talent Caribbean contest run by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and partners. The regional championship sought to develop innovative ICT applications that address key Caribbean agricultural challenges and drive agri-enterprise among young people. The ICT applications created by the first three prize-winners will now be developed and incubated, to promote their successful rollout in the region.
The eight regional finalists, drawn from the results of national contests in six Caribbean countries – Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago – spent the first four days of the 13th Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA) fine-tuning their applications before the winners were announced on Thursday October 9. The CWA has been held this week in in Paramaribo, Suriname and ends today (October 10).
All the finalists were given the opportunity to pitch their products to participants attending the CWA, before the regional winners were selected by an international jury.
The contest was based on the idea of a hackathon– a gathering that brings together computer programmers for a short period of time to develop an ICT application or platform that offers solutions for a specific challenge.
Partners in the AgriHack Talent Caribbean contest included the Caribbean Farmers’ Network (CaFAN), the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Connectimass, Suriname telecom operator Telesur, the Caribbean Open Institute and eight ICT innovation hubs.
“ICTs can strongly enhance family farming and the AgriHack Talent Caribbean initiative is supporting ICT innovations and entrepreneurship by youth in the Caribbean,” said CTA Director Michael Hailu. “There is an undisputed need to engage youth in agriculture. Encouraging young ICT innovators to develop services for agriculture contributes to this. It also contributes to improving the image of agriculture and offers opportunities to modernise the sector.”
A key ingredient in the mix has involved bringing together a broad range of expertise from the ICT, agriculture and business sectors, to help take products to the next level. In the run up to the regional finals, the ICT team members received technical support to develop their applications, as well as advice on how to draw up a business model, how to approach investors and how to pitch their idea to the judges and audience.
During the next six months, incubation and mentoring will be offered to the winning teams, who will be given technical and business support, including contact with potential investors and opportunities to promote their applications.
“This contest is about helping young people to sustain agriculture, developing exciting ICT applications that target key agricultural challenges in the Caribbean,” said Ken Lohento, ICT Programme Coordinator for CTA. “The agricultural sector offers substantial opportunities for young people, including those who can offer ICT services to support it. We hope that the AgriHack championship will also result in young people having more livelihood opportunities.”
Winning Jamaican team Node420 said its product sought to provide solutions for some of the most challenging difficulties faced by farmers. “Collecting the information they need can be a real problem for farmers, so we decided to design some hardware that could gather all sorts of data to help them with their cultivation, including planting, sowing and harvesting,” said Jason Scott, who was at the prize-giving with colleague Orane Edwards to collect first prize on behalf of the Node420 team from Jamaica.
The other two team members were: Simantha Hong and Jonathon Cooper. The young ICT developers, who won €5,000 euros plus six months of incubation, are supported by Jamaican ICT Hub SlashRoots, which won €3,000.
“Think of it as a very compact weather station,” said Scott. “It helps farmers to increase their yields, and to forecast how much they might be able to produce.”
Dubbed as the TwitterLady, Nawsheen Hosenally shares the story of her professional career and how skills acquired in mastering Web 2.0 and Social Media have played in a role in shaping it.
At present Nawsheen is working as CT4Ag Assistant at the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) in the Netherlands.
Husna Yagoub is from Sudan. She works at CTA as data assistant in the framework of the Knowledge Management & Communication Programme (KMC).
Likewise other CTA staff she has been following the Spring 2014 session of the online course "Innovative Collaboration for Development" run by UNITAR and co-funded by CTA. This is the first distance learning course she has ever attended.
Confronted with great challenges she has been perseverant and kept telling me that - while doing the course - she gained a lot in terms of self-confidence and that she is going to be much more effective on her work.
We decided to capture her thoughts on camera and it's worth listening to her story ...
Visit the Web2forDev Gateway for more information on face to face courses on Web 2.0 and Social Media.
Mr Simunza S. Muyangana is Director at Digital ICE Interactive Media Ltd and founder of BongoHive in Lusaka, Zambia. He is specialised in website development, new media technologies, and web 2.0 and social media training.
On 24-26 March, 2014 a 3-day write-shop took place at CTA in Wageningen in the Netherlands. The purpose of the event was to update the curriculum which is used by CTA and partner organisations to run "Web 2.0 and Social Media Learning Opportunities" in ACP countries. The participants in the write-shop agreed on the need to identify and document success stories resulting from the adoption of Web 20 and Social Media solutions.
In this short video he briefly recalls three success stories. Let's hear his story ...
To know more about Web 2.0 and Social Media Learning Opportunities visit our site www.web2fordev.net
CTA’s ARDYIS entry was proclaimed winner of the e-agriculture category at the prize-giving ceremony on May 26, following a round of online voting and a review by a panel of experts.
