In continuation of the efforts to promote sustainable ICTs for agriculture and to share knowledge on emerging technologies that holds great promise for agriculture, FAO-ITU have released the next in the series of E-agriculture in Action publication.

About the Big Data for Agriculture publication
Entitled the E-agriculture in Action: Big Data for Agriculture this publication tries to highlight the ecosystem needed to support data driven agriculture with the help of case studies from leading organizations.

This publication on big data for agriculture is the fourth in the E-agriculture in Action series of publications. The publication has two parts (i) three in-depth articles on big data and (ii) case studies in big data in agriculture. The first article focuses on data driven agriculture and explores the data challenge and opportunities in agriculture – such as data privacy, structured data, data infrastructure and data processing capabilities.

The second article focuses on the paradigm shift towards digital agriculture; and how big data can unlock more opportunities in agriculture such as helping to increase crop yields, reducing food losses and making agricultural supply chains more efficient. The article further itemises the benefits that big data offers to agriculture – increased accessibility, improved productivity and reduced costs.

The third article unpacks the data driven digital revolution and explores the status and constraints faced by smallholder farmers within their value chains. To achieve true digital agricultural transformation, digital solutions need to be simple and scalable, connect with stakeholders, and be aligned to data flows.

Cases Studies in Big Data in Agriculture
The publication then offers seven cases studies related to the use of big data in agriculture: -
Big data ecosystem for disaster resilience
Olam Farmer Information System (OFIS): improving smallholder productivity and livelihoods
Mobile solutions, technical assistance and research (mSTAR) project
Leveraging satellite data and artificial intelligence to drive financial inclusion for smallholder farmers
Delivering remote flood analytics as a scalable service
AtSource – Connecting customers to the source of supply
WAGRI – the agricultural big data platform

Source: http://www.fao.org/