OUTLINE 1. Challenges in agriculture and the need of innovations 2. E-agriculture 3. FAO-ITU E-agriculture strategy guide 4. E-agriculture and smallholder famers in Europe and Central Asia; gender aspects 5. Mapping the need of e-agriculture strategies in Europe and Central Asia 6. Conclusions
Source: UNEP 2011
CHALLENGES IN AGRICULTURE: 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 researchextension linkages and creation of an innovation ecosystem.
CHALLENGES IN AGRICULTURE: Crop Yield decline Arable land Arable Land available for Food Production And more: Why new technologies in agriculture? Limited Water resources- 40% less by 2050 Biofuels Demands of emerging economies Climate change
CHALLENGES IN AGRICULTURE: 75% of the world s poor are rural and most are involved in farming. 90 % of all farms worldwide are family farms Smallholders provide up to 80 percent of the food supply in Asian and sub-saharan Africa and consist 40-45% of EU farm structure. 47% of the labour force in agriculture are women In the 21st century, agriculture remains fundamental for poverty reduction, economic growth and environmental sustainability
SMALL AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS IN EU
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? Change Of Agricultural Practices Change Of Policies Change In Agricultural Innovation And Knowledge Systems
E-AGRICULTURE
E-AGRICULTURE
ICTs have a role to play in improving farmers livelihoods and in the fight against hunger and malnutrition Solution-oriented and demand-driven Technologies alone are not enough Upscaling of innovations E-AGRICULTURE Strategies, markets, legislation
FAO INFORMATION MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES AIMS coordinating Agricultural Information Management Standards Agrovoc thesaurus Agricultural metadata set Linked open data- CIARD Agris, AGORA 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) ICTs for Sustainable Production Intensification Innovation Lab
G20, MEETING IN ANTALYA, 2015 Recommendation 4: Promoting ICTs for agricultural development in International fora G20 members, through their engagement in the World Summit on the Information Society events can consider to: 1. Emphasize agriculture as a key component of the digital economy, and continue to support effective dialogue on the transformational role of ICTs in agriculture, including through concrete actions that foster reliable, inclusive and affordable connectivity in rural arears and integrate ICTs in agricultural and rural development policies and institutions to support food security and hunger eradication.
WHY E-AGRICULTURE STRATEGIES? Many diverse, small scale e-agriculture applications, unable to communicate and share data Duplication of efforts, leading to waste and inability to integrate solutions Difficult for decision makers to understand the current agriculture situation, for policy and planning 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 development, etc.) can be better dealt with at national level Can mainstream issues related to access of smallholder producers and gender
WHY AN E-AGRICULTURE STRATEGY GUIDE Agriculture Policy Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) Ministry / Regulator of IT/ Telecom IT Policy DoA/ NARS National e-agriculture Strategy Telecom Service Providers A guiding document to develop a national e- Agriculture Strategy e-agriculture Strategy Guide
FAO REU E-AGRICULTURE ACTIVITIES IN 2015 First regional workshop on National e-agriculture strategies CONCLUSIONS Potential of ICTs is huge National e-agriculture strategies are needed Regional integration is a trigger for boosting ICT innovations and strategy development More attention shall be paid to smallholders, family farmers men and women Knowledge networks (Agroweb, VERCON, e-agriculture) can be instrumental for CD hubs and as entry points for e-ag strategy 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 Expert consultation, 7-9 December 2016, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan Agricultural research Agricultural and rural extension systems
Development constraints of Smallholders & family farmers in Europe & Central Asia. Lack of statistical data Experience low access to loans. funds, resources & farm inputs Lack of knowledge and Low income Poor infrastructure (sanitation) Migration (push & pull factors) Increase awareness for group presence. The wider imbalance profit making gap between the farmer, middle men & banks. Lack of adequate support in agriculture education. Opportunities & Threats of Smallholders in Using ICT. Enable transparent market information. Decrease the time and & cost for obtaining weather information. Opportunity to optimize production Threats: Data validity, security and speculation Recommendations to improve the ICT Opportunities. Access to financial resources One shop window of permission documents. Understanding and observing farmers (complex decision making in family farming). Multi stakeholder for ICT including universities. Connecting farmers directly to consumers. Concrete actions to be taken after the expert consultations. Update and refine the strategies. Strengthen networking. Create agro market sites. Conduct an analysis of farmer behavior for all attending member countries & share results to the e-agriculture common platform.
TRIPLE DIVIDE: DIGITAL, RURAL & GENDER Barriers: Cultural, Social, Time, Financial & Control & education. Challenges: Content (harmonized to suit local context), Gender & diversity, Access to infrastructure, Participation (inclusiveness), right technology to the right users, sustainability (Social, Economic & Environment), Solutions: Partnership, Sex disaggregated data, right to information & open public access, public private partnerships, user driven
4+1 subregions of the Europe and Central Asia region have been set up Status of Implementation of e-agriculture in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia: insights from selected countries in the region
COUNTRY PROFILES Textual description, data table, diagrams Textual description Agricultural characteristics Highlighted indicators Strategy development status Remarks, recommendations Data table 14 type of indicators For regional comparison and diagrams used even more indicators (xls link) It is planned to annually update this regional indicator database and publish on AgroWebCEE, http://www.agrowebcee.net/awhu/e-agriculture-strategy/ Status of Implementation of e-agriculture in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia: insights from
INDICATORS (29) Key indicators (8) World Bank: Population, GDP per capita, Agriculture, value added (% of GDP) FAO: Labor force in agriculture %, Land use % Information and communication technologies key indicators (8) ITU: Mobile phone subscriptions/100 pop, Individuals using Internet %, Households with Internet access at home, Fixed broadband Internet subs, Mobile broadband subs, ICT environment / government (5) ICT environment / business (8) WEF Government Online Service Index, Importance of ICTs to government vision, WEF Network Readiness Index WS Participant Rank by WEF NRI Index Status of Implementation of e-agriculture in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia: insights from selected countries in the region
KEY INDICATORS
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES KEY INDICATORS
ICT ENVIRONMENT / GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS
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 Early adoption Established enabling environment for e-agriculture Experimentation Strengthening infrastructure, make the case for e- Agriculture Emerging ICT environment
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