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Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce www.chamber.org.tt

e-Agriculture:
ICT driven and
well on its way

ICT use has also galvanised internal and external support for
farmers organisations. Local and regional organisations are
now literally networked with hemispheric entities such as Via
Campesina through which their voices are amplified. By way
of example, the Caribbean Farmers Network and the Windward
Islands Farmers Association both use internet-based technologies
to convene multi-location meetings and share information with
their members. Amidst increasingly stringent quality and
ecological standards, ICT use has been the dominant mechanism
to keep producers informed, self-audited and compliant.
This aptly named e-Agriculture utilises several platforms
including Websites, Broadcast Media Systems, Production
hardware and software systems, text-based information sharing,
and Mobile applications. Practitioners improve their net returns
through web-based trading of tangible goods, knowledge
transfers or the provision of services. They use security,
management, and automation systems that can directly increase
productivity at the production or processing site. ICT facilitates
the provision of broadcast services to producers, traders and
marketers so that they can make good business decisions. It
concomitantly affords a broadened information base for
researchers, policy makers and sector planners.

By Steve Maximay

or years we have been openly lamenting the fact of

an aging population at the helm of the agricultural
sector. The good news is that the sector is not only
moving in to younger hands; it is actually handheld.
The use of handheld devices like mobile phones, Global
Positioning System (GPS) monitors, and high definition
camcorders has increased across the spectrum of agricultural
activity. The Information and Communications Technologies
(ICT) driving this expansion are the devices, networks, services
and applications that keep practitioners informed and connected.

Globally, ICT has been used to improve agricultural production,

improve markets and build farmer capacities. Improved
production is often achieved by increasing efficiency, productivity
or sustainability through information about farm layout, plot
sizes, pest and disease control, new varieties or techniques, and
regulations for quality control. Improving markets is often a
matter of greater information flows with respect to cost of inputs,
produce prices, product volumes and consumer trends. Capacity
building with the use of ICT invariably involves coaching on
negotiation skills, broadening farm family perspectives and
expanding the scope or depth of operations.
Whilst farm mapping using GPS and GIS technologies is the
subject of ongoing research and adaptation work at the St
Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies, the full
array of possibilities is yet to be widely utilised nationally. Haiti,
long associated with resource paucity, has mango farms with
GPS-enabled, automated crop management systems capable of
identifying individual trees and adjusting their care accordingly.
Mango exports to the United States are thus facilitated as part
of an ICT-dominated value chain.

Whilst the use of all these seemingly high-tech devices and

systems has a nice ring to it (especially in an era of personalised
ringtones), has it yielded increased returns to the users? The
initial evidence indicates that it has. The National Agricultural
Market Information System (NAMIS) based on linked handheld
devices, networked computers and tailored software, provides
timely web-based details on prices, buyers, sellers, volumes,
trends and historical data. NAMIS has been a flagship system
with respect to the use of ICT in regional agriculture.
Examples can be found at the youth entrepreneurial level. Keron
Bascombe of Tech4Agri produces a youth oriented web series
that focuses on technology, innovations and successes in the
agricultural sector. It is created using mobile journalism; which
incorporates the use of mobile devices, apps and accessories to
collect, edit and present stories. Mobile journalism allows more
modern storytelling across all types of media formats at less
cost to the advertiser or sponsor. Alpha Sennons not-for-profit
We Help You-th Farm (WHYFARM) promotes agriculture
among the youth using ICT, the Agriman superhero (live, online
and comic book versions) to increase their awareness of the
worlds food problems and by doing so; grow the future
producers of 2050. Agriman has a virtual presence on all
continents and will be physically touring selected areas in North
America and Africa during the fourth quarter of 2016.
The use of ICT, although driven by young agriculture
professionals, is not the exclusive domain of the young. ScienceBased Initiatives (SBI) a virtual consulting firm was launched
in 1998 by a 42-year old. The Firms first 17 contracts were all
web-based in terms of the initial selection interview, contract
signing, report submission, and remuneration. Information and
Communication Technologies were employed to source
consulting opportunities, and maintain an electronic presence

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Contact Vol.16 No.3 September 2016

in a very competitive global workspace. ICT often shrinks the

physical and financial base upon which one can launch an
agricultural enterprise. A virtual presence only requires a web
address and often eliminates the need for physical
accommodation or the associated overheads.
As exciting and rewarding as the aforementioned ICT platforms
may be, they are not a panacea for all the ills affecting agriculture
in this Republic. Information does not solve problems, informed
people do. As with most electronic or computer-based retrieval
systems GIGO applies. If one inputs garbage then you can only
retrieve garbage, Garbage in garbage out. The quality of the
data entered in to the system, whether it is a commodity price
or a GPS coordinate, determines its eventual utility. To be truly
useful the data should transition through the DIKUW continuum.
If you subscribe to the DIKUW continuum, then data should
translate in to information that becomes part of a Knowledge
system that increases Understanding and leads to Wisdom. It is
not uncommon to see all the relevant information, a pamphlet,
screen display or crop report, in the hands of a producer yet
things continue to go awry.
Cognisant of this need to move persons along the DIKUW
continuum, ICT interventions in agriculture often include
Knowledge Management Systems. Not to be confused with
Content management or Information management, Knowledge
management is the process of capturing, developing, sharing,
and effectively using suitably interpreted bits of information to
achieve predetermined objectives. Agriculture has always been
a knowledge-intensive pursuit, what these Information and
Communication Technologies have accelerated is the sharing of
that knowledge.