Mobile Phones and Apps Making a Difference in the Lives of Poor Farmers

The Worldbank states that ICTs make a difference to small scale farmers:

“A farmers’ organization in Western Kenya uses mobile phones to access a digital marketplace and bypass middlemen. Now trading directly with exporters, the group is seeing dramatic increases in income. New mobile applications are also being used to provide timely information about disease outbreaks to farmers in Eastern Africa, so they can prepare and prevent the pests from affecting their livestock.

Understanding and addressing global agriculture developments—both positive and negative—are critical to improving smallholder livelihoods. These are just two examples of how the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) can improve smallholder farmers’ income and increase agricultural productivity. Expanded and increasingly affordable connectivity and tools, especially mobile phones, as well as advances in data storage and open access, have made ICT relevant to agriculture.”

Have a look at the Worldbank news-item.

 

Grimmepreisnominierung

Der Dokumentarfilm HUNGER, der mit Unterstützung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH (ehemals GTZ) von der EIKON-Gruppe produziert wurde, ist für den 47. Grimme-Preis in der Kategorie Information und Unterhaltung nominiert worden. HUNGER von Marcus Vetter und Karin Steinberger erzählt, wie Menschen, Gruppen und Organisationen darum ringen, eine der schlimmsten sozialen, politischen und ökonomischen Tragödien unserer Tage zu lösen: den Hunger in der Welt. In fünf Ländern, oft jenseits der Grenzen von Zivilisation und menschenwürdiger Existenz, stellen der Autor und Regisseur Marcus Vetter und die Journalistin Karin Steinberger die Frage, warum bisher viele Konzepte von Entwicklungspolitik versagt haben.

Marcus Vetter hat für seine Dokumentationen bereits zahlreiche Preise (u. a. Deutscher Fernsehpreis, Grimme-Preis) erhalten. Karin Steinberger arbeitet für die Süddeutsche Zeitung und wurde für ihre Reportagen mehrfach ausgezeichnet, darunter mit dem Medienpreis für Menschenrechte.
Hunger ist eine Produktion der EIKON Südwest im Auftrag des SWR.

Buch: Marcus Vetter und Karin Steinberger
Regie: Marcus Vetter
Kamera: Thomas Mauch, Marcus Vetter
Schnitt: Saskia Metten
Musik: Peter Scherer
Produktion: EIKON Südwest, Ernst Ludwig Ganzert, Ulli Pfau
Redaktion: Gudrun Hanke-El Ghomri, Peter Latzel
Erstausstrahlung: Montag, 25.10.2010., 22.45 Uhr
Sendelänge: 89 Min.

Hintergrund: www.swr.de/hunger

Fachinformationen zum Film: rural.development@giz.de

Future of Agriculture – the documents

Plenum:

Prof. Dr. Joachim von Braun: The Future of Agriculture
Dr. Shenggen Fan: Investing in Agriculture and Social Protection for Halving Hunger and Poverty
Dr. Sebastien Treyer: Scenarios and challenges for feeding the world in 2050
Prof. Erik Millstone: A view from the UK: predictions, foresight or policy choices – and the Global Food and Farming Futures Project
Dr. Juan Gonzalez-Valero: Working towards a vision for a sustainable production system
Dr. Monika Zurek: Views from the Agricultural Development Program of the B&M Gates Foundation

Windows to the regions: Brasil, Laos, Vietnam, Kenya, Chad

Theme 1: Partnership farming – linking smallholders to commodity markets

Idsert Jelsma: The NESP Ophir Project:A smallholder success story from West Sumatra, Indonesia
Martina Fleckenstein: Linking Smallholders to Commodity Markets – Role of Certification & Standard
Yotsawin Kukeawkasem: Partnership Farming: Towards Sustainability of Oil Palm Smallholders in Thailand
Ron Pal: Partnership Farming – Linking smallholders to booming commodity markets
Thomas Breuer: Partnership farming – linking smallholders to commodity markets

Theme 2: New Technologies for Agriculture in 2050: Vertical Farming
Agrotechnological Innovations and Smart Foods

Evi Gruber/Andreas Blüthner: SAFO Strategic Alliance for the Fortification of Oils and other Staple Foods
Prof. Joachim Sauerborn: Skyfarming: Multi-story crop production to improve food-security?
Prof. Dr. – Ing.Till Meinel: New technologies in Agricultural Engineering

Theme 3: Efficiency – coping with scarcity of natural resources in agriculture

Dr. Joachim Lammel: New technologies in Agricultural Engineering
Dr. Felix Prinz zu Löwenstein: Efficiency coping with scarcity of natural resources in Agriculture
Dr. Ferdinand Schmitt: Efficiency of Livestock

Theme 4: The commons and their governance as paradigm for the 21st century

Jutta Schmitz: Governing CPRs
Silke Helfrich: The Commons –  a framework for agricultural practices & policies?

Photographs of the event can be found on flickr.

The Future of Agriculture – Scenarios, Concepts, Visions

A world in balance: a sustainably intensified agriculture to provide enough food for all and preserve natural resources

This symposium in August 2010 will present current initiatives to describe potential scenarios and concepts of tomorrow’s agriculture. It will bring together international experts, private-sector representatives, decision-makers, opinion leaders with GTZ staff from a broad range of countries to reflect on the shape of the agricultural sector by 2050.

Key issues under discussion will be, among others:

• Multifunctionality: What services should be provided by the agricultural sector to society, e.g. production of food, feed and fuel, environmental services, preserving cultural heritage and who is paying for it
• Income generation: Under which conditions can the agricultural sector be an engine of economic growth and provide jobs especially for poor people to future generations?
• Finding the right scale: Will the world’s food supply be produced on small-scale farms with low input use such as fertilizer, pesticides and agricultural machinery, or will the farmers of the future be highly qualified professionals applying large-scale production systems with an array of high-tech instruments and capital input?
• Rural vs. urban: What will be the dominant migration patterns? Will ever fewer people in rural areas produce the bulk of food staple crops while at the same time peri-urban agriculture is supplying the fresh produce market?
• The functional divide: Will arid areas of the globe be used to power solar plants and agricultural production will be concentrated in fertile regions of the planet?
• Technology: New themes such as vertical agriculture, in-vitro meat production, functional food or cloning are coming more and more into the debate. New ways of communication impact the way agricultural products are produced and marketed.

We look forward to sharing and discussing the future of agriculture with you. Your participation is most welcome and we hope to see you in Königstein, Germany, in August 2010.

25. – 26. August 2010
Communication  and Training Center Königstein near Frankurt
Oliver Hanschke
Email: future-of-agriculture@gtz.de
Tel: +49 6196 793293