I participated in a very informative event this week in Washington DC where a researcher was sharing his experience on “Weather-Index based Crop Insurance for Smallholder Farmers in Ethiopia”. As I listened to the discussion as an agricultural information specialist, my concern was what is the role of mobile technologies in this? According to the [...]

The main obstacle to food security (the availability, access, and utilization of food) in most agricultural-based developing economies is lack of human, technical and institutional capacity  to produce and distribute the food. In this post, I bring together two arguments as the basis for addressing the challenge of capacity building in agriculture through the emerging [...]

AGRONET, a National Agricultural Information and Communication Network was developed with the goal to connect small producers in Colombia and reduce the digital divide through public private partnerships and growing broadband penetration in rural municipalities. A Government of Colombia’s initiative under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in collaboration with the United Nations Food and [...]

Initiated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM)’s Regional Office for Southern Africa and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2009, the Ripfumelo (“believe” in xiTsonga language) program is designed to reduce HIV vulnerability among farm workers in South Africa’s Limpopo and Mpumalanga [...]

Let’s imagine the state of the global food security in the next 3-5 years, if rural women decide to back out of agriculture and food production today? Secondly, let’s visualize how access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) by rural women could reverse the negative impacts that this could make on the globe – that [...]

Agriculture professionals will converge at the Headquarters of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) next week in Rome for the 2nd Global Agricultural Knowledge Share Fair. As I write this, it is days away from kick-off of the 4-day event in Rome from the 26-29 September. With all the excitements that ShareFair brings, participants [...]

Food security in the Horn of Africa hinges on greater investment in ICT infrastructure and capacity building. In large part, this will depend on the transfer of technology. But experts note that even a modest increase in technology transfer and information, through the agriculture value chain, could improve yields, distribution and ultimately strengthen food security. [...]

Climate change is already posing challenges to agricultural productivity worldwide, and the sector is likely to encounter severe water woes as this intensifies. However, water management, which is crucial for sustainable agriculture, improved rural livelihoods and food security, has not yet been sufficiently harnessed and employed across Sub-Saharan Africa. Consequently, immense opportunities for growth and [...]