technological innovations

This article explores the myths and realities surrounding the relationship between environmental sustainability, food security, and nutrition. According to the authors, policymakers and researchers alike often make inaccurate assumptions about technological innovations, gender, biofuels, and smallholder farming. Such sustainable food security and nutrition “myths” pose a significant challenge to the effective design and promotion of more environmentally-friendly agricultural and food systems. »

This working paper by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) highlights opportunities and limitations for understanding agricultural drivers of deforestation through remote sensing. In this working paper, 14 of the most commonly used land cover data products are identified, with summarised spatial data, temporal and thematic properties, and estimates of forest and cropland area are compared. The limitations to land cover data that result from their divergent predictions are described and the implications for using this data to assess the agricultural drivers of deforestation in Africa are discussed. »

This article in the Canadian Journal of Plant Pathology highlights an important challenge that is threatening agriculture in Africa: the difficulty in collecting timely data on disease spread and effectiveness of on-farm control methods. This study served as a case study for assessing the viability of a participatory GIS (Geographic Information System) to enable a plant diagnostics network with fieldworkers. »

This report by FAO targets agricultural water extension agents and technical experts, providing them with clear indications on how to improve water harvesting capacity for agricultural production as well as how to select feasible and suited water harvesting techniques for different geographical areas. The assessment outlined in this report forms part of the ‘Strengthening Agricultural Water Efficiency and Productivity on the African and Global Level’ project. »

This working paper provides insight in how mobile technology can support nutrition and agricultural interventions. While the interest is growing in the use of mobile phones for nutrition behavior change interventions in LMICs, hard evidence is very limited, methodologically weak and often based anecdotal findings. Therefore this study reviews a number of cases where mobile technology interventions were used and summarizes the lessons learned from this. »

This report by ING addresses the benefits of FinTech for MSMEs in developing countries. The role of FinTech is centre-stage in the discussion on how to financially include poor people in developing economies. This report shifts the focus on to MSMEs as they are important job creators at the bottom of the pyramid. The report contains 10 main insights that could offer important opportunities for the agro-food sector. According to the authors, FinTech has the potential to impact the whole financial value chain and thus improve financial access for MSMEs. »