A model for developing ICT based services for agriculture extension
Pakistan’s current and potential agricultural land is under enormous pressure to grow more from existing land areas because of: population growth, lack of arable land (it has been estimated that every day approximately 500 acres of farmland is taken out of agriculture in Pakistan) and the shrinking size of land holdings per family. Of the 6.6...
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Developing a global agricultural research archive
Worldwide concern about the issues of food security and climate change is at an all time high. It is widely accepted that the most vulnerable communities, those in the tropical regions of the developing world, will be hit hardest. Investment in international agricultural research is being increased to meet these threats and technological innovation...
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Direct2Farm
Agriculture is particularly important in India, contributing over 20 per cent of its GDP. The country ranks second worldwide in terms of farming output.
There are fears that the population will increase more quickly than farmers’ ability to grow food, so we need to support farmers to grow more crops and lose less to pests and diseases. This ...
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Everything you always wanted to know about cotton…
Cotton is grown in over 90 countries by around 30 million farmers worldwide. It is often grown in semi-arid, water-scarce areas in many of the world’s developing countries. Many of the farmers who are dependant upon cotton are smallholders. It is produced as a cash crop and provides them with the opportunity to improve the livelihoods of thei...
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Fishing for information in the global aquaculture community
Poverty, food security and malnutrition are some of the key problems faced by much of sub-Saharan Africa’s population. Much hard work has been put in to the development of land based food production to counter all three of these issues with various successes along the way. However, water based food production – or aquaculture – is...
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Getting China's farmers online
Rural China has made great strides to overcome poverty in the last few decades. Rural areas have however lagged behind the more prosperous urban communities; previous research has shown that western China has some of the country’s least developed communities. In a bid to rectify this situation, these communities are now high priority on...
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Implementing ICT solutions for Pakistan's farmers
A huge number of people throughout South Asia are involved in agriculture, however many are not benefiting from it in the ways that they could. In India for example, around 35% of its agricultural produce is wasted due to supply chain issues. And, whilst nearly half of Pakistan’s population is employed in agriculture, it is still a net import...
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Making access to information a priority in the developing world
The Compendium Programme, co-ordinated by CABI, has been responsible for creating a collection of interactive electronic information storage and sharing facilities each specific to a particular subject area. So far, there are compendia covering aquaculture; animal health and production; crop protection; and forestry. The compendia have been compile...
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R4D (Research for Development)
The UK Department for International Development (DFID) supports many programmes and projects that aim to improve access to knowledge as a means of furthering sustainable development. In 2005, DFID’s new Research Framework Strategy raised the profile of knowledge management and the communication of research results, stressing the need for bett...
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Supporting the development of KAINet - Kenya's Agricultural Information Network
Many countries in central and eastern Africa suffer from poverty and food security issues. With many people relying on it for their income, agriculture is seen as the “engine of development”, so a vast amount of research, by a variety of development organisations, has been carried out in this area. Historically knowledge between r...
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Systematic Review - trade and food security
With 850 million people facing hunger on a daily basis, understanding the issues which influence access to food is critical. Trade liberalization, the removal of barriers to imports and exports, is one practice that many believe strongly influences food security.
Trade liberalization is being implemented as a policy to promote food security both l...
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