7 - 18 December 2009. The e-Agriculture Community is hosting a global online forum about “The Role of ICT in Agricultural Value Chains”. The forum will discuss the key opportunities and challenges of ICT interventions in agricultural value chains with a special focus on the most beneficial interventions in rural areas.
It is an opportunity for knowledge sharing on good practices, presenting expectations of future challenges and outcomes, and considering the critical role of policy makers, rural service providers, and the agricultural community at large.
Through the use of experienced facilitators and selected subject matter experts, we will develop focused discussion topics in order to achieve beneficial outcomes from the forum. We look forward to your inputs! The outcomes of this forum will be disseminated through a policy brief written for the e-Agriculture Community and used in upcoming face-to-face meetings.
Register on the e-Agriculture platform, if you haven’t already done so.
7 December 2009 - 11 December 2009. Hyderabad, India. APAARI-GFAR-FAO-ICRISAT. The objective of this event is to identify and define concrete areas of action that address emerging challenges, and exploit opportunities for information and communication technologies (ICT) in support of Agricultural Research for Development.
The outcomes of these action agendas will be linked to major development goals in agriculture, highlighting the specific role/contribution to be made by information and communication management, bringing together all appropriate categories of actors. They will feed into the GCARD2010 process of global consultations.
Key Questions
What new strategies and policies are needed to enhance and sustain adoption of ICM that contributes through ARD and agricultural development, especially of resource poor farmers and other actors in market and value-addition chains?
What needs to be done to make content available, accessible, applicable, and appropriated/used effectively by at all levels and among all actors in ARD?
How can be ICM capacities in ARD be developed sustainably across all the dimensions of enabling environment, institutions and individuals?
4 December 2009 R4D . As part of its communications strategy, the DFID-funded Research Into Use Programme (RIU) has launched an on-line television channel – RIUtv. One way of sharing research into use lessons is to identify compelling stories and present these in a way that policy makers and practitioners can readily see the benefits.
The RIUtv network involves sub-contract local cameramen and staff in each of RIU's African Country Programmes to enable them to make their own films. RIU will also place success stories with a wide range of national and international media - print, radio, television and web.
Andy Hall, Head of the Central Research Team, Research into Use, explains the programmes approach to research.
RIUtv correspondent, Nik Wood, explains the background to Research into Use, which has launched its own online TV station.
Patrick Opondo operates as a 3V Vet in the town of Dokolo, Uganda. Here he explains how his business is growing as part of a programme aimed at helping young vets to set up in private business. Patricks work also sees him involved in a project, backed by Research into Use, whereby cattle are sprayed against tsetse flies that spread the deadly sleeping sickness disease.
Prof John David Kibasa, Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Makerere University in Uganda, explains how the university curriculum has been changed to teach young vets entrepreneurial skills as they prepare to operate in their communities.
4 November 2009.Wageningen, Cliff Schmidt from Literacy Bridge presented the 'talking-book' (aka 'chatterbox'), a device that generated a lot of interest among the participants of the ICT Observatory 2009.
This device is designed to allow people in remote rural areas to get access to knowledge and improve literacy: basically, all that a computer can do, but without having a display. It can speak multiple languages and can play content on different topics, such as agriculture and health. It also allow recording onto it, so that users can create and document their own knowledge. Last but not least, it allow exchange of digital content when connected with another 'chatterbox'. The content is produced locally. This device is not a prototype but has been deployed on the field for one year now and it is currently produced for sale to governments and NGOs.
Background: The Talking Book pilot project began in early 2009 and focused on spreading health and agriculture information in a remote village in Ghana in the Upper West Region of Ghana.
Literacy bridge began by collaborating with local experts in agriculture, health, and education to produce content for Talking Books. Experts included officials from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ghana Education Service, and Ghana Health Service. In January, we delivered 21 Talking Books to the small village of Ving Ving. The devices were managed by a group of local leaders who were given two hours of training by a local Literacy Bridge volunteer.
Results. Six months later, Literacy bridge conducted 25 in-depth interviews to study the impact, usability, usage patterns, and response to various forms of audio content. Impact on Learning and Behavior Change. Of the users who were interviewed, 100 percent described learning valuable information from device recordings. Nearly every user had already seen improved results from applying what they had learned.
Examples of agriculture guidance that resulted in an observed behavior change include:
Keep animals in a confined space and use droppings as manure to make soil more fertile.
Plant in rows instead of mounds for most efficient use of soil and moisture retention.
Use a tie ridge pattern to reduce soil erosion from heavy rains.
Clean animal pens everyday to prevent disease.
Because this pilot was a feasibility study, Literacy Bridge did not take baseline data or compare against a control group. However, many farmers performed their own experiments to test the new guidance, essentially creating their own control group of crops. They used their old methods in some sections and the new methods in others to observe the difference. The pictures to the right show an example where a farmer planted corn using traditional methods in one section (top) and then planted the same crop at the same time using guidance from the Talking Book in an adjacent section (bottom).
23, 24, 25 November 2009. Ouagadougou. The forum ‘The marketing of agricultural products through ICT’ aimed to increase the impact of the lessons learned and build the national network for ICT and development in Burkina Faso. The event was organised by Burkina NTIC, in particular its ICT cluster Agriculture.The typical method of collecting market price information in Burkina Faso.
The organisers collected best practice examples of marketing agricultural products through ICT, to understand where the opportunities are and to draw lessons for the future. Best practices will be gathered from Burkina Faso and neighbouring countries.
Hereunder is a training videos by TV Koodo, introducing the agricultural market information systems launched by Burkina NTIC and IICD.
TV Koodo chooses puppet tv presenters as carriers of the instructional message. This choice demonstrates the significance of efforts to make e-/m- learning technologies more accessible and more responsive to the needs and educational backgrounds of African users. The coupling of learning technologies with ICT services geared towards enabling market transactions, could hold the key to the adoption, the popularity and the value derived from market services.
Here is an example how small videos can be used to disseminate new technologies among farmers:
Related:
12 and 13 October. Frankfurt. International LitCam Conference„Literacy and Media“. This year the 4th International LitCam Conference talked about literacy and the importance of the Internet and other electronic means of communications.
During the first conference day, organisations from Nigeria, India, Ireland and Afghanistan presented their projects combining Literacy with media. And there was a panel discussion “Hollywood, Bollywood, Nollywood and the Telenovelas – their impact on literacy”. See: Programme (Download)
Background: LitCam was launched by the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2006, in partnership with the Bundesverband Alphabetisierung und Grundbildung e.V. and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning. On a national and international level, LitCam provides a platform for organisations involved in literacy campaigns, in basic and media education.
For this, the search engine "Literacy Project" www.google.com/literacy was set up together with Google. The "Literacy Project" supports all those worldwide with an interest in literacy in targeting their search for relevant information.
Mr. François Stepman is Communication Expert for the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa. He gives an idea of the popularity of ACP agriculture, by presenting some statistics on the number of videos existing on Youtube on this particular topic. Judging by the figures offered by Youtube, the conclusion of our interviewee is that there is a long ways to go towards making agriculture ’sexy’. (Briefing “ACP Rural Development: why Media matters?”: interviews of participantspost of 05/11)
He was interviewed during the ACP/EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) international seminar on the "Role of the media in agricultural development in ACP countries” (Central, East, Southern and West Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific). The seminar was held in Brussels, Belgium from 12 to 16 October 2009.
A search on key tags reveals following figures:
Total YouTube videos: 2,9 billion
Total videos on American portals: 9,5 billion
70 % of the watchers are American
50 % is under 20 age
70% of the online population watches 73 minutes online video/month
How well is African agriculture represented...?
300.000 videos are about Africa
1.560 are about Africa + agriculture
CGIAR has 49 videos
CTA 22 vides
FARA uses blip.tv with presently some 50 video interviews on line.
Video website YouTube revealed on 9th October it had passed a new milestone by serving up over 1 billion video streams a day. The news comes three years to the day that Google bought the hugely popular site for £1bn, at a time when it was only serving 100 million streams a day. According to YouTube statistics the site now provides 42 million video streams every hour or 700,000 every minute. To celebrate the landmark figure the YouTube logo has been altered to reflect the number of videos being watched each day.
Hereunder follows an overview of some powerful YouTube videos which can be used for extension purposes.Click on the title on the video to watch it on You Tube.
How to Feed the Hungry in Africa (bill mollison) Bill Mollison surveys some of the permaculture projects he helped to establish in Africa. Features include: (a) a grade school with a schoolyard garden that produces food for the children's lunches and provides a tool for teaching the techniques to the students, most of whom come from farming families. (b) an african plant guild (c) compost pile and beekeeping
Hope is a precious thing Take a look inside a Ugandan school where Caritas is helping to teach students sustainable farming practices.
Senegal Agriculture Project In an effort to stave off malnutrition and help provide food security for villagers in Senegal, Africa, Operation Blessing has launched an agriculture project that is transforming 20 acres of land into a fertile farm. It will also become a training facility where Senegalese from all over the country will be instructed in efficient agricultural methods they can take back to their communities to start similar farms.
Agriculture Training Agriculture team teaches local villagers how to produce nutritious crops
Farming for a Future. Alex James, farmer and former Blur band member, travels to Burkina Faso, West Africa with Christian Aid to find out about radical farming techniques developed there to counter the harsh effects of climate change.
Promoting sustainable agriculture in Nigeria: The PROSAB story This video-zine tells the success story of IITA's PROSAB project - Promoting Sustainable Agriculture in Borno State - a collaboration between IITA and the state government in Northern Nigeria.
Ifijenia Kamtaza - Soya Farmer, Malawi Armed with the new agriculture techniques she learned from local staff of the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative, Ifijenia Kamtaza, a Malawian soya farmer, is not only improving her harvest and turning more profit - she's helping her whole family. With the money she has earned in the last year, Ifijenia will be able to send her daughter to boarding school and make improvements to her home.
Ghana Rainy Season 2 Agriculture is crucially important for most people in rural Africa. This video shows a number of the farming steps taken to grow yams, cassava and maize in northern Ghana. You can even watch EWB volunteer Nick Jiminez struggle to be a farmer.
Taking The Heat Part 1 Canadian Foodgrains Bank video: African agriculture and climate change
Why NERICA? - Pourquoi NERICA? The New Rice for Africa (NERICA) is bringing hope to millions of poor people in Africa. This music video explains it all !
Wala Village 5-day stay in Wala Village, Tolon district, northern Ghana.
Bee Keeping and Sunflower Production FARM-Africa works with poor African farmers, helping them to produce more food for their families. We want to make sure future generations don't have to depend on handouts of aid.
Increasing Cassava Production FARM-Africa works with poor African farmers, helping them to produce more food for their families. We want to make sure future generations don't have to depend on handouts of aid
Sweet Potato Project FARM-Africa works with poor African farmers, helping them to produce more food for their families. We want to make sure future generations don't have to depend on handouts of aid
Programme hatching for improved indigenous chickens FARM-Africa works with poor African farmers, helping them to produce more food for their families. We want to make sure future generations don't have to depend on handouts of aid.
Bean Rot Control and Management Food Security agriculture MATF Farmers sustainability environment Africa grassroots outreach nonprofit food crisis
Grains and Legumes Nestlé implemented a sustainable agriculture strategy to target specific priorities in Central and West Africa.
Millions Fed: Combating Cassava Mosaic Disease Cassava has long been a staple crop in Africa, used for both food and income by most poor farmers. Learn how farmers and scientists have worked together to bring it back from the brink of destruction.
Farming in the sand and going solar Day four: When the desert swallows your farm how do you grow? And how can a light bulb change a family's life? Mary Griffin reports from West Africa.
Sunflower pressing This video shows Fred Mweetwa explain on how to grow sunflowers and the conditions necessary to do so.
Drip Irrigation Improves Africa Food Production Farmers across West Africa are improving food production with a low-cost, low-tech method of irrigation that uses gravity to deliver water right where plants need it.
Mobile phone vital for Cameroon farmers African agriculture is said to have undergone many metamorphoses but the penetration of the mobile phone in that sector is certainly the most revolutionary step ever.
Money From Honey Polish agriculturalist and beekeeper Stanislaw Gebala came to Africa seven years ago to teach beekeeping to rural farmers.
Cleaning Beans Masotho woman cleaning beans by pouring them into the wind
South African Farmer on Biotech Corn A South African small-holder grower, her life was changed when she adopted farming innovations never used before in her community.
Mozambique: Fighting climate change 19 year old Elisa attends an agricultural school in Mumemo, Mozambique; where young people are taught about sustainable agriculture and how to care for the environment
Ox-plough demonstration in Barlonyo, Northern Uganda Example of bottom-up development project by Action Aid Uganda. Ox-ploughs and oxen are distributed to small-holder farmers, therefore increasing the speed and efficiency with which they can plough the land. The end result is an increase in food production
Maize Innovation in Rwanda: Increasing farmers' livelihoods Maize innovation Platform celebrates its first birthday in Rwanda's Eastern province. Maize is an important staple crop in Rwanda with the potential for export if production can be significantly increased.
The World Bank - Climate Change - Niger The desert has been creeping into West Africa's Sahel for the last 30 years. Declining rainfall and overuse has taxed the land and brought drought and famine.
Pump Aid: The Elephant Pump Pump Aid's Elephant Pump was developed and tested in Zimbabwe by Pump Aid and is based on a 2000 year old Chinese rope-and-washer design. It is cheap, simple and durable. It can be easily constructed from materials available locally and can be maintained by local communities. This clip shows footage of a pump being built and describes the process by which the pump is constructed.
Conference Theme"Harnessing the rapid growth of fibre infrastructure for Social Economic Development."
There will be a preliminary meeting on the 1st November, 2009 ushering the OA conference, and will focus on Regional Research Education Networks (RRENs) , by bringing together key players in West and Central African Universities and other participants who may share their experience in forming RRENs; it is expected that this meeting will lead to the formation of the West and Central African Research Education Network (WACREN).
Authors are invited to submit extended abstracts and original papers. Articles should be tutorial in nature and should be written in a style comprehensible to readers outside the specialty of the article. Articles should be submitted in any popular word processor format here Important dates. Submissions are due on: 15th September, 2009
Related: Study on how to Enhance e-Infrastructure Uptake and Use in Different Fields of Science The University of Chicago/National Opinion Research Center, the Oxford Internet Institute, the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland and Empirica Communication and Technology Research (Germany) collaborate on a study that will propose strategies to enhance e-Infrastructure uptake and use in different fields of science. The work is done on behalf of the European Commission, Directorate General Information Society and Media (DG INFSO).
15th of July 2009.An update edition of infonet-biovision is now online.http://www.infonet-biovision.org/ is a web-based information tool offering trainers, extension workers and farmers mainly in Africa a quick access to up-to-date and locally relevant information in order to optimise their livelihoods in a safe, effective, and ecologically sound way.
The information presented is specifically relevant for the african continent and its inhabitants, many examples and case studies are from Kenya or East African countries, but can be useful for other tropical countries as well. The topics presented on infonet like crop managment, diseases, pests and environmenally sound technologies are focused on the ecology and the species that are prevalent in East Africa.
Hereunder follows an interview with Gladys Nyambura who gives trainings to farmers about the use of Infonet in Kenya. She tells about the difficulties for farmers to access information on CDroms and on Internet. But once they are able to do this http://www.infonet-biovision.org/ is recognized as a unique and very rich source of information.
16th of July 2009. Interview with Mark Davies, Esoko and Founder of Busyinternet, Accra, Ghana after the panel Discussion on: Public private partnership in m-agriculture at the end of the second day of the IAALD Africa Chapter Conference.
Mark explains how social groups can be created around a value chain or a specific commodity - similar as social groups on Facebook.
He recognizes that this has yet not be tried out but he expects this will be the future as long a this can be done in a very cheap way. This can initially been driven by companies like Unilever of Nestle because they have their networks and need to be able to communicate more quickly and more effectively with the small distributers. This is presently very expensive. Using the mobile for data exchange is an obvious solution.
"The value change we think of is probably more around successful commercial businesses to start with"
21st-22nd May 2009. The Tertiary Agricultural Education (TAE) Registrar's Seminar was held in South Africa. ITOCA announced the launch of the portal for Tertiary Agricultural Education (TAE) in Africa. The portal was developed through funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The portal data is available on the public domain. Though still in its infancy, the portal’s online interactive database gives vital data to enable the tracking of human capital development in the tertiary agricultural education sector in Africa.
The portal will among other data give contact information of all tertiary institutions offering qualifications in agriculture and related sciences in Africa; enrollment and graduate statistics in every discipline by institutions; staffing levels and qualifications; curriculum updating information; cost involved in producing a graduate and much more.
This portal will give funders, aid agencies and other potential developmental partners vital information for possible investment opportunities in the region pertaining to agricultural education and training in Africa so as to help build capacities. Researchers, students, information specialists and anyone with an interest in agriculture education and training in Africa will also benefit from the portal.
"There are today more than half of the population living with less than 3$ a day, and lacking all kind of services (health, education, government...). The incredible growth of the mobile penetration rate last few years is providing a new hope. The potential of simple ICT services on mobiles to improve people's income has indeed been largely demonstrated. The aim of this workshop is to explore how to leverage these success stories and create an enabling environment that would drive the appearance of numerous services all over the Developing World."
The following topics were of particular interest:
Analysis of use-cases / real-world projects on use of mobile phones in development projects, use of the Web in development projects, deployment of public services using mobile devices in developing countries.
Strengths and weaknesses of SMS technology vs mobile Web vs voice technology
Regional differences in Asia/Africa/Central Europe/Middle East/South America/etc.
Challenges of integrating ICTs in rural communities
Usability and Human-Computer Interfaces (HCI) challenges of mobile browser and mobile content for population without technological background and prior computer experience
Challenges and potential solutions against illiteracy
Usage of mobile technologies in emergency responses in rural areas
Analysis on the way the mobile phones and/or the Web could improve people's lives in Developing Countries (education, healthcare, etc.)
Role of voice and multimodal technologies/applications
Challenges of developing and deploying numerous ICT services to rural communities
Comparison between different potential platforms to support ICT's deployment (mobile phones, low-cost laptop, telecenters, and so on)
Opportunity and challenges of ICTs in social/human development
Challenges of sustainability, scalability and replicability
Challenges and opportunity of integrating mobile phones in specific domains: eGovernment projects (mGovernment), e-health projects, disaster management,....
In response to the demands of scholars in this digital age, a new service is now being offered by the Consultative Group on International Research (CGIAR) Virtual Library. Researchers seeking to avail of instant agricultural information, specially those pertaining to CGIAR research outputs, may now use the services of the CGIAR Virtual Library (GGVL) via a social networking tool: Skype. This is envisioned to provide services required for the 21st century and to realize better awareness and usability of the CGVL as a primary information resource for agricultural scientists the world over.
With the Skype name CGVLibrary, users, on demand, will receive instant assistance from libraries of the various agricultural centers. Currently information providers from the Bioversity (Rome), International Potato Center (CIP, Lima, Peru), International Rice Research Institute (IRRI, Los Banos, Philippines), International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT, Hyderabad, India), International Water Management Institute (IWMI, Sri Lanka), International Center for Research on Agroforestry (ICRAF, Nairobi, Kenya), Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR, Indonesia), International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA, Aleppo Syria), and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI , Washington, D. C.) are testing and taking turns in looking after site. Live service through Skype is available 16 hours a day (2:00 AM – 6:00 PM GMT) with the collaboration of 9 centers mentioned above. Reference:IRRI Library11/01/2009
26/01/2009 Agriculture Resources (AgricultureResources.info) is a Subject Tracer™ Information Blog developed and created by the Virtual Private Library™. It is designed to bring together the latest resources and sources on an ongoing basis from the Internet for agriculture resources. [Download Agriculture Resources White Paper Link Compilation]
Related: Useful book: the Preservation of Web Resources. One of the goals of PoWR is to make current trends in digital preservation meaningful and relevant to information professionals with the day-to-day responsibility for looking after web resources. This Handbook is one of the outputs from the JISC-funded PoWR (Preservation Of Web Resources) project. You can download the handbook here
13 to 17 July London, United Kingdom. The University of London and the Commonwealth of Learning hosted the fifth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF5). The conference brought together practitioners, researchers and policymakers, allowing them to share their experiences and expertise. No fewer than 700 delegates, including heads of key parastatals of the Federal Ministry of Education, attended the biennial meeting, organised by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL).
PCF5 aims to facilitate a dialogue that goes beyond coming together for five days in London. To help with this task, an online discussion forum on Googlegroups has been launched. You can read past contributions and subscribe to the mailing list by accessing the PCF5 Googlegroups site. WikEducator offers PDFs of most Forum papers and will also host session reports. Furthermore, around 50 contributors have posted ideas, abstracts or paper drafts as Wiki content. You can visit the PCF5 Wiki site by going to www.wikiEducator.org/pcf5.
Overview of the (African) Papers on PCF5 Theme "Livelihoods" related to agriculture:
Climate change and water issues: Tech‐MODE tools for strengthening community responses in Kenya - N. Kahiu, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya S. Lim, Environmental consultant, United Kingdom S. Makhanu, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya E. Nyukuri, African Centre for Technology and Science, Kenya J. van Mossel, Environmental consultant, Canada
Blended learning approaches in agriculture and natural resources management - Jan Beniest World Agroforestry Centre
Enhancing the common information space for Open and Distance Learning and animal and fisheries production - Dr Ajit Maru, National Agriculture Research Systems (NARS) Programmer, Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) Secretariat, F.A.O., Rome, Italy
New approaches to strengthening human and institutional capacity for improving rural livelihoods in Africa - Ralph Von Kaufmann - Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA)
Radio and the pedagogy of intellectual engagement among cattle farmers - Haaveshe Nekongo‐Nielsen University of Namibia
South‐South‐South collaboration: using Dgroups to develop ICT policy for Open and Distance Learning - Nancy George
Instructional media development for non‐formal distance learning: factors affecting the adoption of farming messages by poor rural men and women farmers - Mary Wamuyu Ngechu University of Nairobi
A radio scriptwriting competition: training African radio broadcasters to create and exchange programmes on climate change adaptation for farmers - Kevin Perkins Developing Countries Farm Radio Network
Using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Uganda international agricultural systems - Moses Tenywa Makerere University
Experiences in implementing the Strengthening Agricultural and Environmental Capacities through Distance Education (SAEC‐DE) project - Moses Tenywa Makerere University
Promoting access to agricultural information by women farmers: using information and communication technology in a livelihood project - Collins Kwabena Osei Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
Entrepreneural fingerling production for Lake Victoria fisheries - Jennipher Kere, Women in Fishing Industry Programme (WIFIP), Education and Development
Le programme de baccalauréat en sciences forestières de cinq ans permet aux étudiants et étudiantes d'acquérir des connaissances sur les aspects environnementaux, biologiques, socio-économiques et technologiques reliés à la foresterie. Il vise aussi à leur inculquer une vision de l'aménagement intégré des ressources. Il est également offert en régime coopératif, agréé nationalement.
Hereafter follows an interview with Virginie Levasseur of the Universite de Moncton, Nouveau-Brunswick
Professor Virginie Levasseur explained at the e-Learning Africa 2008 conference in Accra 29/05 why the online course is important for francophone Africa and how the University of Moncton is trying to identify a number of training centres in West Africa specialised in distance learning which could relay this distance course in Agro-Forestry for African development and Agro-Forestry experts.
The INFONET-BioVision Information Platform aims to strengthen sustainable development of farmers and rural communities in Africa by making information on key topics available through an internet platform and other creative solutions and dissemination strategies.
The information platform is used as a resource pool for disseminating information inside and outside the internet through active cooperation with partner organizations and local farmer- and women's groups and with information and communication technologies (ICTs).
The core concept of Infonet-BioVision is the database with its processed information and pre-defined structure which facilitates the rapid and easy incorporation of new data. As the needs of users with varying levels of knowledge and experience ought to be catered for, the platform around the database is conceived in such a way that the users can access its content through different entry points. These include databases on sustainable pest and crop management, animal, human and environment as well as training modules in these areas. Furthermore, it will be possible for the users to send feedback information to the project team-members regarding their experiences.
He explains how on the platform you can find local relevant and effective information with contributions of farmer groups, local experts and international scientists on:
organic agriculture and crop husbandry for food security
effective ecological prevention and control of plant-, human- and animal targeting pests and diseases
simple and environmentally safe technologies and approaches to improve your life and generate income while at the same time protecting the environment and the natural resources
Currently, there is a very low awareness of the benefits of eLearning among environmental institutions in Africa. Other sectors such as education, health, and development are more advanced in the application of eLearning and blended learning to support their training activities. The Educa series of eLearning conferences and the eLearning Africa series of conferences have little or no involvement by environmental organisations.
A seminar was therefore organised in Accra on 28th of May by UNEP in cooperation with ICWE as a pre-conference activity to the e-learning Africa 2008 conference.
It had the following objectives:
to increase awareness by environmental authorities on the cost-effectiveness of eLearning in their training, educational and awareness raising programmes;
to increase awareness of technology-supported learning and a new way of thinking about environmental education in universities and other learning institutions;
to strengthen institutional capacities in Africa to mainstream environment in university education across all academic disciplines, as well as long term knowledge competence development;
to enhance outreach of environmental education in Africa in the context of sustainable development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
Speakers and participants at the seminar included decision makers, eLearning experts, educators, environmental education programme managers, eLearning programme managers and information specialists working in international organisations, environment ministries, environmental protection agencies, universities, non-governmental organisations, research institutions and the private sector.
The seminar comprised of four sessions:
Keynote presentations by high-level representatives of environmental institutions in Africa and Europe.
Roundtable – Policy dialogue on capacity development challenges facing environmental authorities in designing and delivering eLearning.
Presentations on the application of eLearning in environmental programmes.
Implementing an eLearning programme – the way forward.
Hereafter folows an interview with Maria Eugenia Arreola of UNEP Nairobi about this seminar.
7 - 18 December 2009. The e-Agriculture Community is hosting a global online forum about “The Role of ICT in Agricultural Value Chains”. The forum will discuss the key opportunities and challenges of ICT interventions in agricultural value chains with a special focus on the most beneficial interventions in rural areas.
