Information and Communication Technology Uses in Agriculture

The world has experienced an unprecedented growth in information and communication technologies (ICT) through the widespread use of personal computers, Internet, and mobile phones. The objectives of this chapter are to examine trends in ICT use in agriculture, identify key success factors for ICT utilization in agriculture, and investigate the implications of ICT-enabled value chains for the agribusiness industry. The chapter describes the strategic role of ICT in the development of both e-commerce and mobile commerce in agriculture globally. The chapter identifies the leading areas of ICT use in agriculture and agribusinesses as input procurement, production, marketing, food traceability, and financial service delivery. Producers are increasingly seeking ways to add value to their businesses by integrating ICT in the value chain. Similarly, consumers are becoming more knowledgeable about how they could use ICT to articulate their preferences. The chapter discusses key success factors for ICT applications affecting both the internal and external environment of agribusiness firms. The chapter concludes by drawing implications for ICT use in agriculture and agribusiness value chains.

ICT Based Pest Management System for Sustainable Pulse Production

“E-National Pest Reporting and Alert System” in pulse crops is a unique ICT based decision support system, which is very effective and easy to operate through a centralized server system at National Centre for Integrated Pest Management, New Delhi, connected with internet and mobile phones. This system has developed to cater to the needs of rural farmers of India, who grow pulse crops. The useful information is collected, stored, processed, and interpreted, and the appropriate advisories are sent to the registered farmers through centralized server system. They apply suitable corrective measures as per advisories at right time, and thereby, heavy loss caused by various pests can be checked/minimized below economic threshold level. Based on the past experiences and larger response of the stakeholders, Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Govt. of India, suggested that this program should be extended and implemented in all pulse growing states. This system is quiet useful bottom to top level officials/policy makers, involved in E-Pest Surveillance programme.

ICT-Based Market Information Services (MIS) Projects, Deployment Environment, and Performance

The need to provide agricultural information to farmers has led to emergence of numerous electronic-based MIS projects in developing countries. These projects aim at promoting farmer linkage to better markets. However, experiences from past and present projects show mix cases of success and failure, despite some projects meeting their goals. This study examines how the environments in which such ICT-based MIS are deployed affect their performance. It specifically uses two ICT-based market information service projects, the DrumNet and Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange (KACE) projects, to assess how the socio-economic, physical, and institutional environments in such projects are deployed affect the performance of such projects. The study finds that a number of environmental factors related to socio-economic, physical, market, and legal environment affect the performance of ICT-based projects. Some of these factors exacerbate transactions costs thus undermining the performance and even sustainability of ICT-based MIS projects. It discusses policy implications of these findings.

ICTs in Agribusinesses

This chapter critiques the level of adoption of ICTs among the farming community in Ireland and compares this with adoption by the general population. It was found that although computer access and internet use among Irish households have been increasing rapidly in recent years, farm households have been lagging behind in adoption of these technologies. Broadband access has been particularly problematic in rural areas, where farm households are located. The development of a novel extranet service by a large agribusiness is also evaluated in this chapter; this service allows dairy farmer clients to access all information relevant to their accounts with this agribusiness through a secure website. A structured survey of clients was carried out, and respondents were stratified on the basis of their usage of this extranet service. It was found that three factors are constraining adoption and use of ICTs among Irish farmers: low levels of computer skills; lack of awareness of the potential of ICTs to contribute to the farm business; and thirdly, access to Broadband in rural areas. These are fundamental problems that constrain adoption of ICT.

Situational Analysis of the Status of E-Agriculture in Tamil Nadu, India

In recent years, there is scarcely any field in the various sectors of the world economy that has not been influenced by the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT), and the field of agriculture is no exception. Within the past decade, many projects have been implemented by governments, private sector, and NGOs in developing countries to streamline the production, storage, selection of markets, and commercialization of agricultural commodities. These new ICT have opened up numerous opportunities for the farmers to increase the timeliness, quality, relevance, availability, and accessibility of critical agricultural information. The UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimates that one billion people worldwide – most of whom depend in some way on agriculture for their livelihoods – still lack connection to any kind of ICT. Indian farmers face competition from global forces and the usage of ICT tools. Advances in ICT help farmers to access accurate, timely, relevant information and services, thereby facilitating an environment for more remunerative agricultural practices to meet the new challenges. This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the existing rural agrarian digital divide in Tamilnadu, India. The chapter describes the information needs, ICT access, and new opportunities for farmers in rural Tamilnadu. The chapter also examines the status of E-Agriculture in Tamilnadu and the ICT interventions that are available to Tamilnadu farmers. The study outlines the emerging opportunities for rural farmer’ participation in the knowledge society and offers some guidance on how the farmers can take advantage of ICT and utilize the information management system to derive maximum benefit out of the technology.

Understanding the Information Security Landscape in South Africa

Information security risks are a major threat to South Africa’s bid to build a broad-based information society. The integration of information security in e-government is no longer an option, but an imperative given the resulting “information overload” and the need to filter “good” from “bad” information. Unless South Africa integrates information security in its e-government development policy and practices, the acclaimed benefits of e-government will not be realized. The moral hazard problems arising from bad information behavior such as human manipulation, withholding information, unauthorized access, and violation of individual privacy and confidentiality heightens the need to combat info-security risks and vulnerabilities. South Africa’s readiness to deal with the information security risks has come under scrutiny. The information security infrastructure in South Africa is also not clearly understood. This chapter examines South Africa’s information security landscape and describes how institutional and agency coordination could help improve information security in e-government.

Impact of Information and Communication Technology on Livestock Production

This chapter examines the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on livestock production by rural farmers in Nigeria. Questionnaire, interview, and personal observation methods were employed to elicit information on the impact of ICT on livestock production on rural areas of Nigeria. The study reveals the significance of personal characteristics of the respondents. The findings also reveal that rural farmers need to be encouraged by providing them with relevant ICT gadgets in order to enhance effective access to information on veterinary and extension services to improve productivity. It is therefore concluded that the establishment of internet facilities in rural communities should be the priority of the State and Federal Governments in order to encourage computer literacy.

Enhanced Knowledge Management

Knowledge management (KM) provides opportunity for organizations to achieve higher efficiency and increased output. With objective of attaining opportunities in KM at district level, Woreda Knowledge Centers (WKC) were established and used in ten districts in Ethiopia from 2005 to 2010. WKC is a tele-center used to gather, share, classify, access, and use knowledge at district (woreda) level. The study involves questionnaire, group discussion, timeline, SWOT analysis, and KM performance assessment and document review. This chapter presents WKC usefulness, establishment steps, challenges, and opportunities. In ten districts, of the 500 survey respondents, 79% and 71% agree on an increase in knowledge delivery and availability, respectively. Temporal comparison showed that WKC increased staff capacity to document, access, share, and use knowledge leading to improved extension communication. The study recommends that WKC be established by ministry of agriculture and its partners to enhance KM at district level for agricultural development.

Soft Computing Modeling of Wild Fire Risk Indices

It is essential to find ways that can reduce the risk of devastating forest fires which have multiple negative ecological and financial consequences. This preliminary research effort focuses on the implementation of an intelligent rule based fuzzy inference system evaluating wild fire risk in the forest departments of Greece. The system uses soft computing techniques and was built in the Matlab integrated environment. The whole research is related to the wild fires in Greece during the period 1983-1997 with data coming from the general forest management service. It classifies all Greek forest departments (by assigning three labels) according to their forest fire risk due to distinct parameters. The estimation of the risk indices was done by using fuzzy triangular membership functions and Einstein fuzzy conjunction T-Norms. Moreover the system produces the profile of the forest departments located in the geographic area of “Peloponnesus.” This is a region located in the southern part of the country and it has a vast number of annual forest fire breakouts. Meteorological, topographic, and historical (total burned area and intervention time) features were considered for the determination of the risk indices. The system has shown a good performance which can be improved further if more data is gathered and used. Its main advantage is that it offers an innovative and reliable model that can be employed in any part of the world as a basis for natural disasters’ risk estimation.

Implementation of E-Learning in Forest Workers’ Training for Sustainable Forest Management

Forest workers training is recognized as a necessary precondition for sustainable forest management. As sustainable forest management sets higher levels of standards, the adoption of new information and communication technologies (ICT) in forest workers’ training and extension systems is a necessity in the Information Age, which will help the current and future workforce to better fit in the increasingly digitalized and demanding world of forest work. However, limitations on the use of ICTs do exist and should be seriously taken into consideration. Digital divide is evident both in developed and developing countries, making the implementation of ICT applications difficult, especially in the case of African and Asian countries. Furthermore, the development of e-learning systems for forest professionals must adhere to very specific design standards and educational theories. In this context, research should focus on the needs of the end-users at regional or national level. However, all efforts will be ineffective unless they are incorporated and facilitated by a stable framework of political and financial support. The combination of long-term planning, clear target setting, and cost effectiveness is critical for the successful promotion of sustainable forest management through e-learning.