Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (author)
Format:
Report
Publication Date:
2017
Published:
Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 8 Document Number: D10296
Notes:
57 pages., Report from FAO, Via website., This report responds to the request by the G20 Agricultural Ministers to FAO, IFPRI and OECD in
June 2016 to build on their preliminary assessment of existing ICT applications and platforms and
make specific proposals for consideration and action by G20 Agriculture Deputies ahead of the next
G20 Agricultural Ministers meeting on the best possible mechanism to improve agricultural ICT
exchange and cooperation. The report is organized as follows: (i) The section Summary, Evaluation and Recommendations is targeted to policy makers and draws from the detailed review undertaken in Sections 1 to 4 of the report. It provides a succinct but comprehensive account of ICTs in agriculture, including evaluating their impact. It identifies gaps, and puts forward a number of recommendations for the G20 in line with the G20 comparative advantage for collective action. Policies and measures to promote ICTs are crucial for the G20 economies and for agriculture in particular. G20 Ministers of Agriculture can take action to integrate ICTs in agricultural policies and initiatives. The report makes a number of recommendations for concrete actions in the area of ICTs that promote sustainable food systems and contribute to the realization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.(ii) Sections 1 to 4 contain a detailed, albeit not exhaustive review of ICTs in agriculture. There is plethora of ICT applications on agriculture, ranging from using radio to satellite remote sensing, and in Section 2 every effort has been made to provide a comprehensive picture through the discussion of selected applications. Section 3 reviews the platforms and initiatives that promote the use of ICTs, and Section 4 examines governance issues specifically related to principles, rights and privacy. A number of Annexes provide more detail to the reader on a number of areas related to
governance.
The Indian Institute of Management and the World Bank organized a workshop titled "Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Rural Development" to bring together case studies of various applications of ICT that can make a difference in the delivery of services or products in rural areas. The cases presented illustrate the opportunities and challenges in the diffusion of ICT within India and fother developing countries. ICT applications can be classified as those that provided decision support to public administrators for improving planning and monitoring of developmental programs, those that improved services to citizens and brought in transparency, and those that empowered citizens through access to information and knowledge. This paper presents successful examples of ICT rural development projects.
