Tag Archives: food
Open Data + Agriculture Can Transform How Farmers Respond to Looming Crises
April 26, 2013 In Uganda, a team used the Ureport system to gather real-time data and track the spread of banana bacterial wilt. STORY HIGHLIGHTS Open data combined with agricultural knowledge, remote sensing, and mapping can support advice and early warnings for farmers. That information can be critical to protecting crops from pests and extreme weather, increasing yields, monitoring water supplies, and anticipating changes brought on by climate change. The G8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture will explore opportunities for open data and knowledge sharing, particularly in Africa. Across Uganda’s banana plantations, a devastating infection has been attacking the fruit, killing off entire crops and threatening food security. There are prevention methods to keep banana bacterial wilt (BBW) at bay, but the government faced a challenge: how to pinpoint the most vulnerable regions of the country and get prevention and treatment information into the hands of growers. A team from the World Bank found an answer in open data built and spread by ICTs – information and communication technologies. The project tapped into a system called Ureport – a network of 190,000+ volunteers across Uganda who use mobile technology to report on various issues of interest to UNICEF. Within days, the team was able to leverage Ureport to raise awareness, visualize the spread of the bacteria, and disseminate symptom descriptions and treatment options. More than 52,000 U-reporters either provided information about BBW, requested information, or both via SMS over the five days this spring. “What Ureport made possible was not only information dissemination or data gathering, but a nationwide conversation focused on a critical issue for Ugandans,” Lyudmila Bujoreanu, a World Bank ICT policy specialist, writes in a blog post describing the quick response in Uganda. It also provided an example of fast data collection through ICTs that can help decision makers visualize crises as they develop and show them where and how best to respond. Similar data has been feeding into open data collections that today are using history, scientific knowledge, mapping, remote sensing, and real-time data collection to inform decisions and provide agriculture advice and warnings around the globe. Exploring open data opportunities for agriculture On April 29-30, the G8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture will bring together U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development Rachel Kyte, and experts in the field to explore more opportunities for open data and knowledge sharing that can help farmers and governments in Africa and around the globe protect their crops from pests and extreme weather, increase their yields, monitor water supplies, and anticipate changes brought on by climate change. “We are already seeing the immense benefits of open data across the globe, but no more so than in Africa, and, specifically, agriculture data provides some of the most promise,” said Chris Vein, senior manager for ICT at the World Bank. “Imagine creating the ability for farmers to use open data to understand what crops grow best where, or what prices can be expected after harvest, or how best to solve weather, blight or other challenges to yield. Open data combined with other tools such as cellular phones can do just that,” Vein said. “Through the World Bank’s Open Development work, we are helping countries understand the potential value of their data, unlock that value by letting entrepreneurs inside and outside government use it, and create the tools necessary to empower citizens.” The expansion of open data on global agriculture is being built, in part, around a global strategy led by the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and other foundations and organizations. The strategy, which aims to improve agricultural and rural statistics, starts with a minimum set of core data that countries will collect to meet current and emerging demands and improve agricultural sustainability. Country-level agricultural data collection practices and standards are still developing in many regions. For example, just two of 44 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are considered to have high standards in data collection, according to the FAO. Organizations such as the Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building (TFSCB) and the African Development Bank are working now to build up that capacity by improving national statistical systems and creating information technology platforms for African countries to convert or store their data for future access. Other groups are putting open agriculture data to use in analyses and visualizations, often using geographic information systems, that can help practitioners target areas in need. For example: The Agriculture Market Information System, created by the G20 and supported by the World Bank, uses open data to monitor and analyze key markets for wheat, maize, rice and soybeans. Its information helped inform responses and decisions during the 2012 drought. Members of the agriculture research consortium CGIAR, supported by the Bank, also host a trove of open data, maps, and data visualizations. The Arab Spatial Development and Food Security Atlas, for example, maps land degradation, irrigated land, crop value, and other data across the Arab region. The Food Security Portal tracks price volatility, and HarvestChoice maps a series of agriculture indicators. The World Bank’s Open Data Initiative provides access to the Bank’s vast and constantly growing datasets of key development indicators and visualizations, including data relevant to agriculture, such as changes in rainfall and climate change risk. The conference will be streamed live online April 29 and 30 through the G8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture website and on the World Bank’s ICT site. Continue reading
Indian Agriculture: A Big Bet
http://blogs.ft.com/…/#ixzz2QiqTM6du Apr 16, 2013 9:22am by Avantika Chilkoti Thinking of investing in India? There is one sector you may have overlooked: agriculture. With its growing population, rising income levels and growing middle class, India has attracted the usual investment suspects of retail, aviation and FMCGs . But although it may not be glamorous and it may be politically complicated, India’s agricultural sector is set to expand fast. A new report by McKinsey and the Confederation of Indian Industry has said that, while India’s GDP will more than triple between 2012 and 2030, food consumption will increase 4 per cent a year. That would take the value of India’s food sector from Rs11,000bn in 2010 to Rs22,500bn ($414bn) in 2030. While this might seem a huge challenge for a country struggling to feed its people, McKinsey see this demand as a winning investment opportunity. “The Indian farmers have invested in high value crops to match demand,” Barnik Chitran Maitra, a partner at McKinsey who co-authored the report, tells beyondbrics. “There has been a 12 per cent shift in consumer spending towards high value foods matched by production, volume and value growth. We have seen that whenever an opportunity presents itself Indian farmers rise to the challenge and meet it. “In the next five or ten years, this sector could be a driver of the India story, which is a story of inclusive growth,” Maitra says. “For a private investor, from within India or outside, there is an opportunity to invest in various parts of the value chain processes such as infrastructure or processing or at the farmgate or in large scale cold chains.” The authors also emphasise the importance of industry-farmer partnerships and public-private partnerships, allowing farmers to organise themselves into larger collectives with bargaining power and shared services, as well as setting up two quangos to oversee technological developments and soil issues. Another suggestion to improve the sector is to give food greater branding. Maitra says: “With a brand, a customer knows what he is consuming – its quality and freshness and safety dimensions. Two years ago, we did a survey asking consumers if they would prefer branded foods and 80 per cent said ‘yes’.” He gives the example of North America where farmers, producers and marketers have come together and branded bananas, realising how important that is to push sales. Globally, 60 per cent of bananas are now sold under a brand name. In some areas this is already happening. In Maharashtra, the Maharashtra State Grape Growers Association has branded grapes produced in the state for export. Overall, the numbers in Indian agriculture are hard to ignore. The expected rise in consumption would lead to growth in the value of agricultural output from Rs12,690bn ($233bn) in 2011 to Rs29,280bn ($540bn) in 2030, and growth in the processing industry from Rs1,100bn ($20bn) to Rs5,650bn ($104bn). The report suggests opening up the market to private sector companies: This would ensure global expertise and the latest technologies in all parts of the agriculture and food value chain. In particular, global food and agriculture companies could bring their experience in enabling emerging country agriculture transformations, provide their expertise in processing, branding and exports, and bring the requisite long-term private capital into the food and agriculture sector needed to achieve India’s potential. Take the example of Reliance Retail, which has distributed “banana kits” to farmers in Maharashtra including the newest fertilisers, pesticides and organic manures (click chart to enlarge). Govind Hariharan, executive director of the India, China, America Institute, tells beyondbrics that investment is the first step for the Indian food industry, before the report’s other suggestions can be implemented. “The appropriate infrastructure is really critical and that’s where the foreign investments will show up and have the greatest returns”, he said. “We have so much wastage in food products and all of those have to be removed before it becomes a really viable investment proposition. [The report] is jumping two steps ahead without having a platform to jump from.” The real opportunity will arise when the Indian market is integrated with its eastern neighbours. If the proposed highway from India to China is built through Myanmar, and if India’s ports are linked to southeast Asian countries, supply chain infrastructure within India will be needed to ensure the new routes translate into new trade. The McKinsey report may be bullish but Hariharan points out that agriculture in India is far from a simple investment: “Generally the politics involved with agriculture mean it isn’t the easiest thing to get into, for foreign companies in particular.” In a pre-election year, it won’t be easy to open the agricultural sector to foreign investment. But if productivity, accessibility and quality are to improve, it’s a crucial step. Continue reading
Northern Agricultural Dream Would Turn Into An Expensive Nightmare
LYNDON SCHNEIDERS From: The Australian April 17, 2013 THE rapidly growing Asian middle class provides the Australian agricultural sector with an opportunity for new markets, but these opportunities will be illusionary unless we get smart about how to improve the sustainability and productivity of Australian agriculture. The existing agricultural sector is in decline and in need of a massive dose of investment and innovation. This should be the real priority in the race to revive the sector and build new, lucrative markets. Yet once again too many otherwise intelligent people are talking up the prospects of throwing billions of public and private dollars into the money trap that is the northern Australia food-bowl mirage. This will be a mistake of epic proportions and will mean the ongoing neglect of the existing industry. Over the past decade the Australian government has committed $10 billion to return our existing food bowl, the Murray-Darling system, to economic and ecological sustainability. The key to the success of this approach, now enshrined in the Basin Plan, is to use water more effectively and competitively to deliver the highest-yielding and most sustainable products. The scope for improvement is enormous, with a 2008 CSIRO report estimating that up to half of the water used in irrigated farming may be lost from inefficiencies in irrigation systems, on-farm distribution channels and over-watering. The latest Murray-Darling plan may address some of these problems, but there is still much to do. A recent ANZ report said that Australia needed to invest $1 trillion in our existing agricultural sector if we wanted to make the gains in productivity we need to capitalise on Asian markets, $600bn in investment and a further $400bn to support farm turnover, as ageing farmers make way for the next generation, and smaller farms are consolidated for possible sale to foreign interests. Even then this investment may reap as little as $390bn, but as much as $1.7 trillion. These are big figures for possibly questionable returns, so we need to be smart. Agricultural productivity has stagnated in the past decade as farmers have battled drought, ever-mounting debt and a lack of capitalisation in supply chains and infrastructure, especially in relation to our rundown rail networks and port bottlenecks. Fixing our existing food bowls may not be as sexy as jumping in the covered wagon and heading north, but it would be foolhardy of any government to shift its focus to grandiose visions that so far have been monumentally expensive failures. Yet both sides of politics seem once again obsessed by the northern myth. Northern Australia will never be the food bowl of the world, Asia or even Australia. The federal government’s Northern Land and Water Taskforce found that only 60,000ha was suitable for irrigated agriculture — less than the size of some individual farms in Australia. All large-scale irrigation projects in northern Australia have been expensive failures, including Humpty Doo in the Northern Territory and Camballin and the Ord in Western Australia. The Ord scheme was probably the best located. The poster boy for the northern food bowl, the Ord has had more than $1.3bn ploughed into it, yet all attempts at large-scale cropping have failed, including rice, sugar and cotton. The most recent rice crop, hailed far and wide in the late 2000s as the rebirth of the Ord scheme, was destroyed by rice blast, a fungus never found before in Australia and which now threatens every rice crop across the country. Apparently Chinese investment is now going to save the Ord. A few years earlier it was South Korea’s biggest food company, before that the Americans and so the story goes on and on. The cargo cult has a name and that is the northern food bowl. Almost half the Ord is planted with sandalwood for incense and perfume — hardly useful for feeding Asia. Camballin on the Western Australia’s Fitzroy River had 30 years of government and private funding pumped into it, yet its 23,000ha was eventually washed away in floods in 1983, leaving nothing. We shouldn’t attempt to dam any more rivers in northern Australia when we have already had such spectacular failures. Northern Australia has some of the last pristine rivers on the planet and they need to be treasured. The freshwater flowing into northern Australia’s estuaries is critical for biodiversity as well as a commercial fishery worth $232 million. That’s almost four times the economic output of the Ord and there is potential for growth. Why squander such opportunities with high-risk, unproven development models? The Coalition has suggested building 100 dams at a cost of $30bn, yet how realistic is this when the Ord has now cost $1.3bn? Even so, all mega projects in Australia are running late and over budget because of labour shortages and wages. Chevron’s Gorgon gas project blew out by 40 per cent from $37bn to $52bn. Where is this money going to come from when governments are scrambling to find $7bn to finish the long-promised duplication of the Pacific Highway or find $10bn for the West Connex project that may not even reach the Sydney CBD or Port Botany? Businesses are increasingly wary of public-private partnerships. Over the past 25 years $8bn of investment in PPP has gone belly up, including spectacular failures such as Airport Connections in Brisbane. Where would the investment come from for projects in the most remote parts of our country with a proven track record of failure when infrastructure projects in cities of four million people struggle to succeed? The Australian people and our economy deserve better than pie-in-the-sky stuff. We need fiscally responsible development in our proven food bowls if we are going to take part in the Asian century. Fix what we have, don’t bugger up any more. Lyndon Schneiders is national director of the Wilderness Society. Continue reading
