Experts Highlight The Importance of Applying Digital Solutions and Big Data to Drive Agriculture and Empower Smallholders in a Post COVID-19 World
The experts, gathered from around the world, have shared experiences on technologies that are driving agriculture innovations during the Digital Agriculture Solutions Forum 2020, a bi-annual event for Asia and the Pacific, organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
As the region slowly emerges from the devastation and disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be more critical than ever to get digital technologies, inclusively, into the hands of a much wider group of food producers, particularly smallholders.
Transforming the digital landscapes of agriculture
As countries embrace the digital transformation agenda, emerging technologies such as big data analytics, artificial intelligence, data platforms, distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), mobile applications, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and 5G are fast becoming the core engine driving digital innovations. These offer solutions to the challenges facing agriculture and indeed rural economies in general.
FAO and ITU committed to support digital agriculture solutions in Asia-Pacific
FAO and ITU, two specialized agencies of the United Nations, continue to strengthen their collaboration in the area of digital agriculture in the Asia-Pacific region.
The previously published FAO-ITU E-agriculture Strategy Guide (FAO here and ITU here), which provides a framework for countries in developing their national digital agriculture strategies, has now been adopted by a number of additional countries (e.g. Bhutan, Mongolia, Sri Lanka) in the Asia-Pacific region. Driven by the need to share case studies, FAO and ITU have been documenting digital agriculture applications over many years and have produced several knowledge products under the “E-agriculture in Action” series to facilitate sharing of best practices for technology users. The next in the series focuses on the use of artificial intelligence in agriculture. The agencies have also cooperated in building skills and capacities.
