ICTs in agriculture: global view ICT in Agribusiness conference, 23-24 November, Skopje, Macedonia Nevena Alexandrova-Stefanova, Agricultural innovation systems and knowledge sharing officer, FAO nevena.alexandrova@fao.org
Source: UNEP 2011
Challenges in agriculture: 75% of the world s poor are rural and most are involved in farming. In the 21st century, agriculture remains fundamental for poverty reduction, economic growth and environmental sustainability agricultural production will need to increase by 60% worldwide and double in the developing countries by 2050 80 percent of the global food production increase towards the year 2050 should come from yield increases based on the advancement of agricultural research, its application and transmission to farmers through effective research-extension linkages and creation of an innovation ecosystem.
Challenges in agriculture: Crop Yield decline Arable land Arable Land available for Food Production And more: Limited Water resources Biofuels Demands of emerging economies Climate change Why new technologies in agriculture?
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture 1. End hunger by 2030 2. End all forms of malnutrition by 2030 3. Double the agricultural production and income of small-scale producers by 2030 4. Make production systems sustainable by 2030 5. Maintain genetic resources by 2020 - increased investments in research and international cooperation - prevent trade restrictions - food commodity markets
How to produce more with less? Increase of the agricultural area expansion Increase of yield Decrease food waste Change practices and policies
E-Agriculture ICTs have a role to play in improving farmers livelihoods and in the fight against hunger and malnutrition Solution-oriented and demanddriven Technologies alone are not enough Upscaling of innovations Strategies, markets, legislation
E-Agriculture
FAO information management activities AIMS coordinating Agricultural Information Management Standards Agrovoc thesaurus Agricultural metadata set Linked open data Agris, etc imark -Free e-learning courses on Information Management and Knowledge Sharing Good practices at FAO: Experience capitalization for continuous learning E-Agriculture Community of Practice (e-agriculture.org)
Why e-agriculture strategies? Many diverse, small scale e-agriculture applications, unable to communicate and share data Barriers to scale up to support a larger user base Difficult for decision makers to understand the current agriculture situation, for policy and planning Duplication of efforts, leading to waste and inability to integrate solutions Guidance for national strategy Development
National context for e-agriculture development Strengthening e- Agriculture enabling environment, create foundations Developing and Building up Established ICT environment Scaling up Mainstreaming Scaling-up and integration, costeffectiveness, policies for privacy, security and innovation Emerging enabling environment for e- Agriculture Established enabling environment for e- Agriculture Strengthening infrastructure, make the case for e-agriculture Early adoption Experimentation Emerging ICT environment
Why a national strategy Force to consider ICT as a strategic tool to transform/reform the Agriculture sector Set the vision of what changes should be achieved by e-agriculture Used as an overarching framework to guide all e-agriculture efforts in the country and align stakeholders Build country enabling environment Ensure government leadership and ownership
Why a national strategy Ensure short versus long term balance Communicaton tool for stakeholders, funding agencies, partners, etc. Prioritize and maximize return on (limited) investments Move to national deployments rather than pilots Many issues (standards, legislations, evidence, infrastructure, capacity building, etc.) can be better dealt with at national level
Why an e-agriculture Strategy Guide Agriculture Policy Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) DoA/ NARS National e- Agriculture Strategy Ministry / Regulator of IT/ Telecom Telecom Service Providers IT Policy A guiding document to develop a national e- Agriculture Strategy e-agriculture Strategy Guide
Establish the governance How to manage the vision development process Agriculture Leadership Steering committee Subject matter experts e-agriculture Strategy Team Broad stakeholder environment
Approach to Develop a National e-agriculture Strategy National Agriculture Master plan ICT sector leverage opportunity Leveraging inter-sector developme nts Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 e-agriculture Vision Action Plan Monitoring & Evaluation The final outcome is a National Strategy on e- Agriculture comprising of three parts. National e- Agriculture Strategy
How e-agriculture will support selected agriculture goals Agriculture Goals & Challenges E-Agriculture Outcomes Source: World Bank (2011) (adapted)
FAO REU e-agriculture activities in 2015 Workshop on National e-agriculture strategies Conclusions: Potential of ICTs is huge National e-agriculture strategies are needed EU integration is a trigger for boosting ICT innovations and strategy development More attention shall be paid to smallholders and family farmers and gender More advocacy is needed Regional Good Practice Database http://www.agrowebcee.net/awhu/eagriculture-strategy/
FAO REU e-agriculture activities in 2016 Publication on the e-agriculture status of the region Expert consultation, 22-24 June, Hungary e-government aspects smallholders and family farmers gender Population GDP per capita (USD) Agriculture, value added (% of GDP) Labor force in agriculture % Land use % Mobile phone subscriptions/100 pop Individuals using Internet % Households with Internet access at home % Fixed broadband Internet subs % Mobile broadband subs % Government Online Service Index Importance of ICTs to government vision WEF Network Readiness Index 2 108 434 5 370.698 10.231 17.3 50.238 106.2 61.2 61.9 15.7 38.3 0.244 4.883 4.416 WS Participant Rank by WEF NRI index 3
Not all technological solutions are innovations
Farmers needs and capacities are core; partnership for sustainability
If acceptance and access issues are not resolved Instead of :
Prioritizing e-agriculture at country level is needed Resources, responsibilities, capacity development, delivery systems Solution offered by FAO:
Thank you! E-mail: nevena.alexandrova@fao.org