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Realizing a Dream: Introducing AGCommons Director Laban MacOpiyo

February 8, 2010 by Mary Schneider

There are many reasons why we choose to follow a particular career path. Sometimes it is a childhood dream that takes shape watching a movie or reading a favorite book; sometimes a spark is ignited in a school classroom; sometimes it is a desire to make a difference in a community; sometimes we adopt someone else’s dream and make it our own. Continue Reading »

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ROLLout: sowing the seeds of the bigger picture

February 4, 2010 by pstraore

Why is very high resolution imagery PIVOTAL for the smallholder farmers that we are? Wait a minute… Why is it, in fact, so critically important to anchor and trigger agricultural growth through community geospatial infrastructures and boosted precision agriculture?

Because the world is changing. Because mankind is growing, and its offspring, higher rural population densities and larger cities, constitute with advances in technology (especially ICT) the number one driver of global change, BY FAR AND LARGE. Continue Reading »

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ROLLout: semer les germes d’une vision plus large

February 4, 2010 by pstraore

Pourquoi l’imagerie à très haute résolution (THR) serait-elle LA CLE pour nous, petits producteurs? Un instant… Pourquoi est-ce, en fait, si important de booster l’agriculture de précision à travers une infrastructure géo-spatiale communautaire pour ancrer, accélérer la croissance agricole ? Parce que le monde change. Parce que l’humanité grossit, et que son corollaire, densités de population rurale plus élevées et villes plus larges font, avec le progrès technologique (notamment les TIC) le facteur numéro 1 de changement global, DE LOIN. Continue Reading »

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A revamped blog site for the CSI

February 2, 2010 by Francesca Pelloni

Our fellows spatial information specialists of the Consortium for Spatial Information (CSI): the initiative of geospatial scientists within the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR), gave a facelift to their web presence. Check it out here for information on datasets available, activities, projects…

The common interest towards the promotion of the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for agricultural development, led AGCommons and CSI to jointly organize the next African Agriculture Geospatial Week (AAGW) soon to be announced.

Stay tuned..

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The Elusive SMS Interface

February 1, 2010 by jharpster

When you spend time in Africa you realize immediately that the use mobile phones for SMS is huge. In the big cities just about everyone has a phone. Even in rural areas, most farmers use mobile phones regularly. Applications such as FrontlineSMS and RapidSMS have made it relatively easy for NGOs and others working in Africa to setup and deploy SMS broadcast to provide a variety of services. Continue Reading »

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Why Roads Data is Critical for African Agriculture

January 27, 2010 by jharpster

The value of accurate roads data is understood in fields such as transportation, logistics and urban planning. However the value of accurate and freely available roads data is often overlooked or mis-understood when thinking of agriculture, especially in Africa. Outdated and often inaccurate sources of roads data are routinely used for market accessibility studies, transportation planning and logistics. Now, with additional sources of roads information available to researchers for modeling and to local agricultural extension agents for planning, the landscape has grown more complicated. Continue Reading »

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