The agricultural sector is among the foremost priority for the post-Paris climate action in developing countries.
The challenge is to increase the efficiency of agricultural production while ensuring the preservation and sustainable use of natural resources.
The Food and Agriculture Organization has now released the much-anticipated Compendium of Indicators for Nutrition-sensitive Agriculture, designed to assist officers responsible for designing nutrition-sensitive food and agriculture investments in selecting appropriate indicators to monitor if these investments are having an impact on nutrition and through which pathways.
The explosive growth in the availability of mobile phones around the continent is increasingly leading many businesses to explore how these devices should be used efficiently to expand their revenue base.
And for most of these businesses, having an innovative mobile messaging web platform is a crucial business tool for them.
Enter Farmerline's Mergdata; an award winning web and mobile platform that improves real-time information access, dissemination, data collection and analytics for these businesses.
This September, Farmerline was selected, by The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), as one of the top 20 innovations benefiting smallholder farmers.The CTA Top 20 Innovations that were selected from among the 251 submissions that had been received from 49 countries showcase the ingenuity of numerous stakeholders who are innovating and by their collective efforts are making a difference in the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and their families of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States.
In spite of abundant modern technologies and ICTs available for use in increasing information access and agricultural productivity, most Ghanaian smallholder farmers who constitute the majority in the agricultural sector do not have access to these new innovations. The result has been a failure to produce enough food for the nation and improving the lives of farmers.
Demand for the farmers' crops keep increasing. Yet supply remains low. Prices of crops in urban areas have gone up. Yet farmers in the rural part have very little income to show for it.
This plight of the smallholder farmer, which is evident from the fact that even though what they grow is the backbone of the country’s economy, they earn an income which is mostly less than the salary of people with white-collar jobs.
Smallholder farmers make up 60% of Ghana’s working population. They provide a large portion of the food consumed in the country, yet many struggle to make a good living. A major problem they face is accessing information about farming and about trends along other parts of the value chain, such as market prices.
IIASA is now accepting applications for our Summer 2017 Science Communication Fellowship.
The fellowship begins on 24 May and ends on 31 August 2017. The fellowship covers the cost of travel to Vienna from the awardee’s home, and a modest stipend to offset living expenses during the period of the fellowship.
The countries of the southern Mediterranean face great challenges.
Out-migration to cities and to Europe has become a major force, and the pressure is being felt primarily by women and young people from rural areas.