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ROLLout: Sowing The Seeds of The Bigger Picture
ROLLout: Sowing The Seeds of The Bigger Picture
ROLLout: Sowing The Seeds of The Bigger Picture
Bamako – Jan. 31st, 2010
Why is very high resolution imagery PIVOTAL for the
smallholder farmers that we are? Wait a minute… Why is
it, in fact, so critically important to anchor and trigger
agricultural growth through community geospatial
infrastructures and boosted precision agriculture?
Because the world is changing. Because mankind is
growing, and its offspring, higher rural population
densities and larger cities, constitute with advances in
technology (especially ICT) the number one driver of
global change, BY FAR AND LARGE.
Because everywhere in the developing world, we
intensify production systems – just as surely as we move
forward the demographic transition stages. And guess
what. This twin driver translates on the ground into
another phenomenal duality: the need to simultaneously
GO LOCAL with the production resource base and GO
GLOBAL with income sources of livelihoods. Because we need to quit mining and wasting space and resources, and start to procure and
cycle them locally as they get scarce. Because we need to adapt local systems to the growing distant demand and to the influence of
urban preferences – hey, after all we can demand a few things from urbanites and globalites in return! Like, increase our “carrying
capacity” (what a flawed concept in an increasingly anthropized world!) – or rather, EXPAND OUR TOOLBOXES. By linking us to credit,
new nutrient sources, and resource management tools. Like VHRI.
Because you know what?
We, smallholder farmers,
are inherently skilled in
image interpretation. But
never did anyone bring us
such VHRI maps before –
and therefore few were
aware of what we could do.
We, smallholder farmers,
have many words to
quantify finescale variability
(jigin‐jigin in Bamanankan).
But we never had an
opportunity to look at hot
spots, and bright spots from
above. We, smallholder
farmers, live in close‐knit
communities that can
support and own
intrinsically spatial and
equitable technology
exchange processes – using
our knowledge of family
lineages, hamlets and
population distribution
across the landscape. But
we never before realized
that VHRI could literally
shortcut local extension bottlenecks and shortcomings. These are but a few learnings from the SIBWA ROLLout phase, which introduced 4
VHRI products in each of 6 rural communities of West Africa in August 2009. Spending 3 days per site, logging 44,000 km‐person of road
travel, directly interacting with 183 smallholder farmers, collecting over 600 photographs and 600 minutes of streaming video. And, more
importantly, SOWING THE SEEDS, in these communities, OF THE BIGGER PICTURE. Because that is what VHRI can do: anchor – both
locally and globally – the fundamental paradigm of modern and sustainable agricultural growth.
The SIBWA Team – contact: p.s.traore@cgiar.org
Aicha Amadou Baina Bougouna Fatuma Gilbert Haby Jesse Jules Kalifa Lydie Madina Ouley Seydou Sibiry Solo