5 PAGES., Released in late 2020, the Center Pivot Fertigation Calculator is designed to help producers make more precise fertilizer applications by assisting in calculating liquid fertilizer flow rate and injection pump settings needed to fertigate through a center pivot irrigation system. The Clemson Drip Fertigation Calculator is designed to help South Carolina vegetable producers make more precise fertilizer applications through drip irrigation systems.
After producers started using the center pivot and drip fertigation calculators, Zack Snipes, assistant program leader for the Clemson Cooperative Extension Service horticulture team and area horticulture agent, noted many were beginning to ask what they should do if using a greenhouse-grade solid fertilizer and putting it into a solution. In response, Rob Last, area horticulture agent, built a spreadsheet that became the basis for the Liquid Fertilizer Solution Calculator.
“We have created a system that provides quick calculations and is really easy to use,” Last said. “Anyone who has questions about these calculators can contact me or Zack and we’ll help them.”
12 pages, Mobile phones are almost universally available, and the costs of information transmission are low. They are used by smallholder farmers in low-income countries, largely successfully, to optimize markets for their produce. Fabregas et al. review the potential for boosting mobile phone use with smartphones to deliver not only market information but also more sophisticated agricultural extension advice. GPS-linked smartphones could provide locally relevant weather and pest information and video-based farming advice. But how to support the financial requirements of such extension services is less obvious, given the unwieldiness of government agencies and the vested interests of commercial suppliers.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12492
Notes:
104 pages in full report, A new generation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is finding a small foothold among poor, small-scale farmers in developing countries. Even so, many barriers still prevent poor rural people from accessing, using, and benefiting from new ICT tools and platforms, and those barriers are arguably higher for rural women. The relationship between gender and agriculture has been studied intensively over the years, and many agricultural interventions now include gender as a crosscutting issue or mainstream gender throughout their operations. Studies of the relationship between gender and the use of ICTs in agriculture have started to appear only quite recently, however. The Africa Region of the World Bank views ICTs as potentially transformative technology for rural development and seeks to incorporate the use of ICTs throughout its portfolio of projects. The present study was designed to examine the feasibility of integrating ICTs into two large investment programs: the Irrigation Development and Support Project (IDSP) in Zambia and the Kenya Agricultural Productivity and Agribusiness Project (KAPAP). The specifi c goal was to examine how ICT-based interventions might be designed to strengthen women s participation in commodity value chains under the two projects.
5 pages., September-November issue via online., Digitalisation is improving the agricultural extension system by providing services at the right time, and facilitating adoption of new agronomic practices, resulting in yield improvements and higher incomes for farming households.
