[open-development] Working the Agricultural "data-mine" ; -) // Fwd: 7,500 New Photos - data.fao.org!

Tue Mar 5 14:51:34 UTC 2013

Wow Mariana, this is very exciting stuff you guys have :-)

Agri-business is big business world over; a group of research buddies of
mine are working on connecting farmers of organic foods to buyers world
over by providing a simple sales and distribution management system. We've
had partners come in and wanted to distribute information to farmers. In
Uganda, where I live and work, we have a number of challenges

1) farmers are generally poor
2) farmers practice subsistance farming

Myths:
1) All farmers are poor
There are a number of farmers who hit it big in terms of high revenues and
most of these are the more affluent ones. Many youths in developing nations
for example, shun agriculture and wouldn't ever get caught digging.

An information portal that will help people learn the best practices in
farming is important and on top of that, a way of earning an income and
getting a market.

Data given out openly is good; at least to significant level. We are
looking at partnerships (at least where I am) that will subsidize the cost
of farmers using this tool; partnerships with Telcos/mobile operators to
subsidize costs of smartphones so these farmers can buy them is key to
success.

We are looking at a couple of technologies
1) mobile SMS/text
2) smart phone
3) Web (including mobile)

We noticed that SMS is very limiting as to how much information can get
relayed and right now, what makes the most sense is information about:

a) market prices
b) weather information
c) promotional offers e.g. insecticide, seedlings, etc.
d) any general advice that is limited by 140 characters (the size of an SMS)

The world, sadly is multifaceted and people globally don't have equal
incomes to be able to afford devices that will give them better
visualization... but it all starts somewhere, perhaps, using projects like
these to encourage marketization and learning will in the near future make
them wealthier and therefore have access to better resources.

I hope my share of whatever research am doing my "side" of the world will
encourage deep discussions (of course of financial interest too).

regards,
Victor

On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 5:22 PM, Mariana Mas <mmasminetti at gmail.com> wrote:

> Victor, this is really intresting information! We are working on a
> mentorship with a group which is developing a web application called "Mi
> huerta"(here is the link for the prototype:
> http://huertas.coffeebreakwebs.com/).
>
> The objective for the implementation of the first phase of  is to present
> in a "wizard" format a friendly and simple guide that allows an individual
> or community, without previous knowledge to know where to start and how to
> start planting their own vegetable garden.
>
> One of the great problem we have is the need of open data on this matters.
> We are already using some data from FAO and data from  Uruguayan
> universities and other government´s agencies that work on the subject (we
> are based on Uruguay).
>
> Cheers!
>
> *Mariana Mas*
>     *DATA* <http://datauy.org/>
>   Uruguay
>
> 2013/3/5 Victor Miclovich Amooti <vicmiclovich at gmail.com>
>
>> I think this might be of interest to a number of folks on the list that
>> would love to work with large agricultural data-sets; I'll be writing some
>> stuff up on "opportunity-data mining for agricultural business
>> intelligence"
>>
>> Enjoy hacking FAOData.
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: FAOData <faodata at fao.org>
>> Date: Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 3:49 PM
>> Subject: 7,500 New Photos - data.fao.org!
>> To: *|FNAME|* <vicmiclovich at gmail.com>
>>
>>
>> **
>>                          ***7,500 new photos have been added to
>> data.fao.org!*
>>                   Close-up of the fibre found in the Parkia biglobosa
>> bean
>> ©FAO/Roberto Faidutti
>>
>> *Coming soon!*
>>
>> In the upcoming release at the end of March, the following datasets will
>> be available in data.fao.org:
>>
>>    - EMPRES-i - Includes data on animal outbreaks.
>>    - FAOSTAT - Includes revised population data.
>>    - GLiPHA - Includes data on human demography, land types, livestock
>>    health on the country level, and livestock production and population.
>>    - Forestry National Inventory Assessment - Includes forestry
>>    inventory data by country.
>>
>>             The new photographs come from 2 large datasets:
>>
>>    - *Forestry* *Mediabase *- Includes images that have tree or forest
>>    themes. See these new images here:
>>    http://data.fao.org/database?entryId=97c72b40-5dbe-4110-bce6-f2684d954680<http://fao.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=088c37ed2ca4a37774fb5a3a1&id=9db4515eb7&e=4bc49b263b>
>>
>>
>>    - *Conservation Agriculture* - Includes images that have agricultural
>>    themes. See these new images here:
>>    http://data.fao.org/database?entryId=69a1ff0a-ffb6-4f5e-be7b-5836f412a596<http://fao.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=088c37ed2ca4a37774fb5a3a1&id=f1ce946ee4&e=4bc49b263b>
>>
>>  *Additional added functionality includes:*
>>
>>    - On data query pages, separated and confirgurable table and chart
>>    tabs.
>>    - The ability to modify datasets that don't have a time dimension.
>>    - Performance improvements to data query filters with many elements.
>>    - Improved search page filter toggling.
>>    - Improved handling of photo thumbnails with more photo resolution
>>    choices.
>>
>> *If you have suggestions, comments or questions, we would be happy to
>> hear from you.  Please contact us at: faodata at fao.org<Forestry+inventory+by+specific+country>
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