ICTs in agriculture

In developing countries, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are helping to increase the efficiency, productivity and sustainability of smallscale farms, providing up-to-date information on prices, access to credit and training, and the ability to interact with other farmers.

From an agricultural make-over television programme, to the use of video, radio and mobile phones, we focus on a number of initiatives that are using ICTs to provide farmers in developing countries with the information they need to be productive and profitable in an increasingly challenging sector.

Read more from New Agriculturist.

Strengthening rural development with ICT

The International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) believes that people need access to information and communication to improve their lives, particularly in developing countries. "Farmers, workers and entrepreneurs can use information and communication technology (ICT) to access market information, improve quality and productivity and strengthen business skills and employment opportunities," states IICD's regional manager for West Africa, François Laureys. Over the past five years, IICD has been working with its partners to evaluate their projects to learn lessons about the effective use of ICT to boost rural economic development.

Read this article in detail from New Agriculturist.

Promoting ICTs for farmer

In Bangladesh, availability of timely and appropriate information is a big challenge due to an inefficient extension system. Farmers lack access to relevant and timely information, knowledge about new technologies, skills, practices, ways to collaborate with the market and resources to overcome these limitations. As a result, smallholders are vulnerable to crop related diseases, suffer productivity constraints and fail to take advantage of potential farming opportunities. Poor awareness and lack of understanding of the benefits of information services among farmers are also challenges.

To address these issues, the Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID), in collaboration with Katalyst (a multi donor development initiative) and Grameen Phone (a leading telecom operator), launched the e-Krishok initiative in 2008. e-Krishok aims to bridge the information gap that exists in the agriculture sector and build awareness and capacity of farmers to use ICT-enabled information and advisory services. BIID is also working to demonstrate the potential of the existing mobile network to reach the last mile and connect smallscale farmers with e-Krishok services.

Read this article in detail from New Agriculturist:

Cambodian rice expert produces ‘more with less’

When he introduced his novel rice production method to Cambodian farmers more than a decade ago, Yang Saing Koma had to battle skeptics who laughed at his idea. How could less irrigation and shallower planting result in higher yield?

But Koma, founder of the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture(Cedac), only had to tap one brave farmer to get his program going.

Yang Saing Koma

Today, his System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is an official rice production method endorsed by the Cambodian government, credited for doubling the country’s total rice output in the last decade.

And while other Asian nations, the Philippines included, still depend on rice imports, the country of almost 15 million is looking to expand its market internationally as grains constantly grow by Koma’s design.

“For the first time, no farmer wanted to do it. It was very strange for them. But you just select one who has the courage,” Koma said laughing, recalling how he started his program.

“I just wanted to do something good for the country. I feel that I have done something, it’s very important. Of course, there are still many things to do. But I am very happy with what we’ve done so far. I think we’re very proud,” he added.

Unfamiliar but effective

Koma, an agronomist educated in the prestigious University of Leipzig in Germany, is among this year’s recipients of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, recognized for his unshakable will to push for a method that at first got laughs and criticism from traditional farmers.

The 46-year-old son of a teacher-farmer was selected as one of this year’s Ramon Magsaysay laureates, chosen for his “creative fusion of practical science and collective will that has inspired and enabled vast numbers of farmers in Cambodia to become empowered and productive contributors to their country’s economic growth.”

It’s an unexpected accolade for the soft-spoken Koma, who said his work in the last 15 years had been dedicated to empowering Cambodian farmers through an unfamiliar yet more effective method to grow rice.

“I didn’t expect to get an award. I just want to do something for the farmer, not do something for the award. The award is a plus. It’s more for the farmer and everyone involved in the work for rice farmers,” Koma said.

The rice production method also won for Koma in 2005 an award from SEED, a United Nations-led global initiative that recognizes outstanding sustainable entrepreneurship practices around the world.

Only one seedling

The SRI method is quite simple in principle but great in intent: “producing more with less.”

Traditional rice farming, Koma said, involved planting several seedlings deep in the ground “very close to each other” and filling the hole with a lot of water. The plots are fed with fertilizer to promote growth.

But Koma’s method, which he improved from a technique first practiced in the island country of Madagascar, follows an almost opposite procedure.

“You go for planting only one seedling very shallow, bigger spacing, less water, more compost. The result, you get a very high yield,” he said.

Less water is better

It shifts the farmer’s “typical mind-set,” the agronomist said. “Before, a farmer [thought] you need a lot of water … Actually, the rice grain is an aquatic plant. It just needs water, but actually, less water is better.”

“At first, a lot of farmers were laughing, a lot of them critical, because it was different from what they had seen for years. But they saw it was good, then it spread, they realized, Oooh … So you change their mind-set completely,” Koma said.

He first introduced SRI to 28 “reluctant” farmers in 2000, three years after he founded Cedac, now Cambodia’s top agricultural and rural development nongovernment organization.

“First, I discussed the idea, the principle of why too much water is a problem, why less water is better, why one seedling is better. The farmers, they understood, but they never tried it. But with the program, one said, ‘OK, I’ll try it.’ From the first farmer you get more and more farmers interested,” he said.

Total yield

Today, some 140,000 farmer families are implementing SRI in 21 Cambodian provinces, helping boost total yield from 3.82 million tons in 2002 to 7.97 million tons in 2010.

Several organizations have spun off Cedac’s success. In 2003, the organization established the Farmer and Nature Net, a cooperative-type network of farmers’ associations and individual members that aims to promote sustainable agriculture and encourage women to get involved in farming.

The organization currently has $8 million in savings.

Spreading the word

Koma also initiated the Cedac Enterprise for Development, which “links farmers directly to the market.” The social enterprise now runs 13 shops that sell locally produced organic stock, bringing goods from some 5,000 farmers directly to consumers.

His gains in the last decade mark a journey that Koma set out to do soon after the fall in 1979 of the violent Khmer Rouge, a regime that uprooted his family from rural Takeo province and forced them to move to Phnom Penh.

He said he simply wanted to see his country grow, and he saw the opportunity in land.

“I saw that my country is poor and I [was looking at] how to build my country. I felt it was better to start with agriculture,” Koma said.

Koma aims to spread SRI to all of Cambodia’s farmers, who make up roughly 66 percent of the country’s total population.

He has also traveled around Southeast Asia in the hopes of promoting the rice production method, from Thailand and Laos to Vietnam and Burma (Myanmar).

2012 Ramon Magsaysay Awards: Agronomist empowers farmers in Cambodia

MANILA, Philippines - Cambodian Yang Saing Koma was a young boy when his family was forced by the communist Khmer Rouge to flee their home province for Phnom Penh.

Yang Saing Koma

Like the rest of Cambodians, Koma witnessed the brutality and oppression under the four-year Khmer Rouge regime, during which 1.7 million people were killed or died as a result of torture, disease outbreak and starvation.

Koma fortunately survived the regime and used his experience to work on a lifetime goal to lift his people from the ruins of a brutal regime.

Although he saw his people as broken and hopeless, Koma was optimistic that his country would rise again as a nation and he would, in his own little way, contribute to Cambodia’s recovery.

He knew his country had natural resources – vast tracts of land – and from there he could help his people improve their lives through innovations in farming.

After all, 66 percent of Cambodians are reliant on rice farming and 80 percent of the population are in the rural areas.

Koma thought improvements should take place in the rice farming sector.

In 1995, Koma went to Germany on a scholarship where he specialized in agriculture and earned a doctorate at the University of Leipzig.

Koma returned to Cambodia to share what he learned. He worked for foreign development organizations but his heart was intent on establishing an organization that will help and make farmers sustainable.

Koma then established and founded the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), making sustainable agriculture his centerpiece in 1997.

Together with a lean team and French non-government organization, Koma worked hard to make CEDAC an independent and self-sustaining organization.

Fifteen years after CEDAC was established, it is now one of the largest agricultural and rural development NGOs in Cambodia, helping thousands of farmers improve their lives.

CEDAC’s success lies with the introduction of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), an ecologically sustainable approach to rice production.

“SRI is based on a simple system of plant, water and soil management, and is suitable to Cambodia’s dominant pattern of smallholder farms.”

Koma introduced SRI in year 2000 to 28 reluctant farmers. Today, Koma has been promoting SRI to more than 100,000 rice farmers, registering a 61 percent increase in rice yields, even as it decreased the amount of seeds and chemical fertilizers used while increasing the use of organic fertilizers by 85 percent.

In 2005, the Cambodian government officially endorsed SRI as a rice production strategy.

Today, 15 years after it was established, CEDAC is now able to support 140,000 farmer families in 21 provinces. Between 2002 and 2010, Cambodia’s rice production rose from 3.82 million tons to 6. 97 million tons, and CEDAC’s work has been largely credited as the driving force behind this increase.

Koma also established the Farmer and Nature Net (FNN), an independent network of 1,402 farmer associations with around 40,000 members who share farming knowledge among themselves.

Today, the associations under the FNN have been able to mobilize savings of more than $8 million, with an average monthly increase of five percent.

In founding CEDAC, Koma’s goal was to allow farmers to discover for themselves a better way of doing things.

“Cambodians need to take responsibility for their own destiny. The challenge lies in building people. We have to believe in ourselves, we have to believe in our ideas. Everything is interrelated. A simple thing can have a lot of influence in the system. If more people grow, society will grow,” Koma said.

In electing Yang Saing Koma to receive the 2012 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his “creative fusion of practical science and collective will that has inspired and enabled vast members of farmers in Cambodia to become more empowered and productive contributors to their country’s economic growth.”

Source: The Philippine Star