AGCommons

AGCommons Program

Why, what and when

Enrica M. Porcari

Chief Information Officer, CGIAR

Chair, AGCommons Steering committee

Nairobi, April 2nd 2009

AGCommons

Improve incomes of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa through location intelligence."mprove incomes of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa through location intelligence."

Mission:

“Improve incomes of

smallholder farmers in

Sub-Saharan Africa

through location

intelligence”

AGCommons: why?

Kenyan farmer Mary relies on her own instincts to decide

which crops to plant or when to harvest.

A farm’s location greatly affects its chance for success and

productivity;

Local farmers do not have access to location-specific

information about their farm’s area:

–soils

–the best crops

–the most appropriate farming techniques

–which markets are offering the most competitive prices

Like more than 70 percent of rural Africans who live in

poverty, Mary depends on agriculture for her family’s food

and livelihood

Key Challenges to Success

Key challenges to effectively reach farmer

Mary– Accessibility – technical, political, cultural constraints

– Affordability

– Enabling the field role: dissemination and collection - two-

way data flow

– Change in focus from input / data to output / analysis /

users’ needs

– Engage key-user groups

AGCommons what?

“ensure availability of and access to relevant,

timely, and targeted knowledge that

leverages information about the “spatial”

context of agriculture “

So Mary can take more informed decisions…

AGCommons how?

Phase I (through end 2009):

Engagement

– Engage a community of Stakeholder

– Focus on end-user requirements

– Ensure diversity of perspectives

– Cooperation and buy-in on program goals

Outreach plan

– East and West Africa

– Nairobi meeting

– Workshop in Rome and Washington DC

AGCommons how?

Phase I (through end 2009):

Contribute to commonly accessible Geo-ICT

infrastructure to enable interoperability and

sharing of data and analyses

– Service-oriented, not technology driven

Scan environment: avoid duplications,

ensuring synergies (IWMI)

AGCommons how?

QuickWin Projects:– Nodes of growth: Improving legume seed networks in Kenya -

CIAT-Africa

– Seeing Is Believing: unlocking precision agriculture in West

African smallholder communities with very high resolution

imagery – ICRISAT

– Roads Data Development in Ethiopia - NASA (SEDAC)

– Community Level Crop Disease Surveillance - Grameen

Foundation

– Africa Trial Sites Catalogue: Reaching out to farmers,

agronomists and plant breeders with spatially efficient,

participatory testing networks - CGIAR

AGCommons who?

Steering Committee

CGIAR, Program Coordinator

CH2MHill and ITC, Implementation Team

Enrica Porcari - Chair (CGIAR)

Srikant Vasan, BMGF

Stanley Wood, IFPRI/CGIAR

Kate Lance, NASA

Peter Ndunda, The Green Belt

Movement

Laurent Gouinde Sedogo, PhD

Minister of Agriculture, Water and

Fisheries of the Republic of Burkina

Faso

Olajide Kufoniyi, PhD, Obafemi

Awolowo University in Nigeria

Jos Bakker, ARCADIS

Jeff Tschirley, FAO

What we’d like to hear…

Your “big ideas” to design Phase II

– How to best achieve farmer impact quickly

– What can we contribute?

– Achieving sustained stakeholder engagement

(we cannot do this alone!)

Thank you!

www.agcommons.org