Developing Solutions for an Off-line USDA

As the world’s focus on mobile computing intensifies, several USDA agencies are working towards solutions for technology users in an off-line environment. These agencies are developing mobile applications that allow workers to input and collect data in the field, help firefighters share wildland fire information as it happens, and keep employees in the field and out of the office connected – all without a Wi-Fi connection.

With more and more organizations embracing the mobility movement as a way to improve communication and productivity, off-line technology users are in danger of being left behind. Without connectivity, their tablets and smartphones are little more than costly accessories. They cannot share essential information with their colleagues. They waste valuable time travelling to a fixed workstation to submit paperwork – paperwork that they could have otherwise submitted via a mobile tablet. Bottom line: users of USDA applications need the ability to work anywhere, whether they are connected or not.

This leaves many USDA agencies facing an interesting challenge: how do we make the most of new wireless tools designed to make life in the field easier for our workers, in areas that don’t have wireless connectivity?  Here are a few examples:

USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has taken advantage of mobile capabilities to improve field time to office time ratio. Before the advent of computers, employees would spend 80% of their time in the field and only 20% in the office. With traditional computer workstations making employees more and more office bound, those numbers have now reversed. Therefore, 80% of the time customers must travel to USDA offices. NRCS is turning the tables on this trend with mobile alternatives to administrative tasks that would have otherwise brought field employees indoors. These tools increase time spent with the customer and help NRCS employees meet their customers where they are, reducing trips to USDA office sites and improving customer satisfaction.

USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Serviceconducts field surveys and interviews farmers across the country to gather data, usually conducting these interviews in person. But instead of using traditional paper forms, the interviewers now are entering the data into Agency-issued iPads. That data is securely stored and then transmitted when wireless network access is in range.

And USDA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer’s Enterprise Application Services’ mobile Fire Size-Up application leverages crowd-sourcing software to help firefighters on-the-ground collect and share intel. It leverages a mobile device’s camera and GPS capabilities to record the location, size, and magnitude of wildfires, then shares this information with other firefighters. Not only do these kinds of systems allow firefighters to focus on their most important task – fighting fires – but they also increase employee satisfaction. With the ability to securely enter data on a mobile device, firefighters don’t have to return to an office building to enter hours and complete paperwork after a long day in the field. They can do their administrative work from a mobile device and submit it as soon as they are in range of a network.

Developing mobile solutions for offline environments is a key element of USDA’s latest mobility efforts –from allowing workers to create and update records of a daily activity or statistic, to tracking the results of an inspection, to reviewing, updating, and assigning work order tasks.  For many USDA activities, we need to provide apps and functionality that allow us to work offline, yet automatically synch data when the device finds a connection.

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Agriculture and Agribusiness

One billion people around the world are still chronically poor. Agricultural growth and productivity remains central to poverty reduction, particularly in the poorest countries, where a large share of the population relies on agriculture and agribusiness for their livelihood.

In recent years, IEG has undertaken a series of evaluations of World Bank Group’s support to agriculture, rural development and agribusiness and other relevant fields such as rural finance, land redistribution, safeguards and sustainability policies, and competitive grant schemes. These evaluations aim to provide an opportunity for the institution to learn from the past experiences and to inform emerging strategies and programs.

• Key Points

  Impact evaluations found that primary constraints for farmers are: low quality of inputs, limited knowledge, low quality of land, policy environment, post-production promotion assistance, and limited access to loans or insurance. (IEs in Ag.,p. 34)

  Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa, including public and private partnerships, are greatly affected by borrower commitment and capacity. (Growth and Prod., p.85 and 81)

  Most productivity growth will need to come from rain-fed areas, where most production occurs. Because natural resources are scarce, promoting efficiency is critical to increasing productivity. (Growth and Prod., p. 3 and xi)

  Adoption of new farming technologies specifically related to production inputs, such as fertilizer, delivered positive impacts more than 60 percent of the time. (IEs in Ag.,, p.25)

  Interventions implemented by the private sector report a high level of positive outcomes. (IEs in Ag., p. 42)

The role of ICT for Future Agriculture and the role of Agriculture for Future ICT

At the start of the 21st Century we are faced with the emerging problem of global food demand and exceeding the Earth’s carrying capacity with the current way of agricultural production. Moreover, the issues of safety, health, quality and sustainability, underpinned by  the concept of transparency, have become increasingly important. In many global discussions forums it has been acknowledged that ICT can and will play an important role in meeting these challenges.
Over the past thirty years ICT technologies have been introduced in the agri-food sectors. Important milestones were introduction of computers (1980s), internet, email and mobile phones (1990s), and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), wireless communication and social media (last decade). Modern farms make use of one or more of the following ICT: computers with a farm management system to keep track inputs, outputs and economics, weather forecast, early warning and decision support systems for crop management, auto guidance systems for controlled traffic on fields, tractor mounted board computers for steering of sprayers and other machines in a preferred way, and data registration systems to meet legal and chain requirements.
However, the uptake of these solutions has been slow due to a number of important yet  unresolved issues. For instance, farmers register a large amount of data. The use of this data is still limited because handling is still far from easy in optimization of crop, farm and  chain management. Problems are related with limited standardization, data protection and lack of optimizatin models. There’s still a large potential in stimulating adoption of current  ICT, but future ICT technologies even promise more potential gains. At the same time, it is  believed that the agri-food sector itself can also play an important role in the development of  future ICT. Read more

Strengthening Agricultural Marketing

One of the best definitions of marketing is that “marketing involves finding out what your customer wants and supplying it at a profit.” Probed more deeply, this deceptively simple sentence manages to encompass most facets of marketing. It is also a convenient structure around which to explain the expanding role of ICT in strengthening agricultural marketing.

The phrase “finding out what your customer wants” emphasizes the role of communications in agricultural marketing. It encompasses two kinds of information: (1) the immediate information required on the market’s demand for specific volumes and quality of agricultural products and (2) the longer-term information on market trends (referred to here as “market intelligence”) required to make future plans for the farm. ICTs, especially mobile phones, facilitate the provision of both types of information. ICTs are used for real-time market research to obtain current information and help users gradually accumulate market knowledge and insight.

“Supply” emphasizes the critical role of transport and logistics in moving products efficiently and effectively from rural production areas to consumption points, which increasingly are located in distant urban markets. The management of supply chains—the aggregation of product, organization of transport, and consolidation of loads—is increasingly improving through the use of ICTs.

The phrase “at a profit” has as a subtext the multiple issues surrounding the reduction of costs and improvement of prices. Reducing costs can involve, for example, reducing transaction costs, reducing losses following the harvest, gaining better access to cheaper inputs, and increasing productivity for an overall reduction in the unit costs of production. Improving prices can involve, for example, gaining a stronger negotiating position, exploring alternative markets, or making better decisions on where and when to sell product

Applications for Agribusiness Supply Chains

The global food industry has undergone significant structural changes in recent years that have created opportunities for smallholder farmers in developing nations. The inclusion of these smallholders in agribusiness supply chains offers significant opportunities as well as challenges. ICTs can aid smallholders in taking advantage of opportunities and mitigating some of the challenges, as discussed in this module.

Smallholders in the Global Food Industry: A Complex Relationship

The global food industry, with over US$ 4 trillion in annual retail sales (Gelhar 2009), comprises agribusinesses of varying sizes. The largest are multinational corporations that operate internationally. In this module, “agribusiness” refers to a wide range of private companies:

• Retailers such as supermarkets or convenience stores (Walmart, Carrefour, ITC Choupal Fresh)
• Food processors and manufacturers (Nestlé, Kraft, Unilever)
• Input suppliers who produce fertilizer, seed, pesticide, irrigation equipment, and farm machinery (Bayer, Syngenta, Monsanto).
• Producers that may be smallholder farmers, cooperatives, or corporate farming entities.
• Wholesalers, traders, and other intermediaries in a supply chain that connect retailers or processors to producers (ADM, Bungee, Cargill, Olam).

In recent years, following deregulation of the food industry in many developing nations (Reardon et al. 2009:5) and the lowering of trade barriers in developed ones (World Bank 2008), private, market-driven agribusinesses have replaced state-supported entities. On the demand side, an increasingly urban population worldwide requires food to be delivered farther and farther from the farm; with rising incomes and changing preferences, this population also demands higher levels of food safety, quality, and traceability.

Changes in the informal supply environment have accompanied changes in the broader industry. The entry of large, private, often international agribusinesses from the formal economy has caused fragmented, informal suppliers to consolidate and formalize. To meet supply requirements arising from changing demands, agribusinesses often prefer to source through lead farmers or farmer cooperatives or directly from individual farmers. The alternative—purchasing from wholesale markets—can pose difficulties, be inefficient, and most important, cost more. When sourcing from wholesale markets, agribusinesses have little quality control, face uncertainties in supply and price, and lose the ability to trace products (which consumers increasingly demand).

When farmers are insulated by layers of intermediaries, it is difficult to communicate to farmers what items or quality levels the market demands. Reducing the number of intermediaries (“disintermediation”) allows companies to reduce, deploy their market power more directly to garner lower prices, and improve quality control.

Direct procurement and improvements in production, transport, and supply-chain technologies make it possible to source competitively from vast numbers of suppliers and increase the relative importance of factor costs such as labor and raw materials. Companies looking to economize move production to places where factor costs are lower, which presents an enormous opportunity for farmers in developing countries (World Economic Forum 2009).

“Commercial supply chain”refers to a supply chain in which a private agribusiness is sourcing agricultural produce from farmers or selling products to farmers in accordance with a profit-seeking business model. “Supply chain” typically refers to the set of buy-sell interactions as goods flow from raw materials through production to the final retailer where consumers can buy them. “Value chain” generally refers to the whole ecosystem of players involved moving from the retailer backward to the producer. These terms are often used interchangeably, and a special distinction is not made in this module. Such chains can be of various types (see figure 10.1).

Although participation in commercial supply chains presents an opportunity for smallholders to attain higher incomes (between 10 and 100 percent; see World Bank 2008:127) and reduce poverty, these outcomes are not certain unless other important factors are addressed. For example, actual income changes depend on the crop, the time needed for farmers to learn to produce the crop more efficiently, and the quality and other standards required. Changes in income may not be sustainable unless accompanied by improved practices such as postharvest handling or risk management

INNOVATIVE PRACTICE SUMMARY
Virtual City’s AgriManagr Builds Better Supply-Chain Links with Farmers

Virtual City is a private Kenyan technology startup founded by entrepreneur John Waibochi in 2000.⁶ The company had its beginnings in e-commerce but shifted its focus to developing software applications that manage supply chains, knowledge, and customer relationships. In response to a perceived market opportunity, Virtual City developed its AgriManagr software.

AgriManagr Builds Trust Among Supply-Chain Partners

The AgriManagr software is used by collection centers to manage the process of buying agricultural produce from farmers (figure 10.5). The application runs on mobile phones or PDAs.

Figure 1 The AgriManagr System

Who invented the idea of organic farming and organic food?

For more and more people today, shopping for food involves a stop at the farmers market or the organic produce section of the local grocery store. As a result, sales of organic food rose a healthy 10.2 percent in 2012 and captured 4.3 percent of total food sales, according to the Organic Trade Association. Organic food sales generated a healthy $29 billion last year. That's not bad for an industry that is fairly new: the USDA didn't approve national standards for organic food until 2002.

 

So where did this engine of healthy food and economic growth come from? Although many people think the idea for organic farming harkens back to a simpler time before industrial agriculture, the truth is that we owe many of the ideas about organics to a few people in the 20th century.

 

The most notable of these is Walter Ernest Christopher James, better known by his title, Lord Northbourne, who first used the term "organic farming" in his 1940 book "Look to the Land," which is still in print more than seven decades later. Lord Northbourne's book posits that "the very large increase in the use of [artificial chemicals] which has taken place during this century has coincided with an almost equally rapid fall in real fertility." He predicted that "the results of attempting to substitute chemical farming for organic farming will very probably prove farm more deleterious than has yet become clear" and called for a return to a system of looking at the land as a living organism.

 

Lord Northbourne was not alone. The same year that he published "Look to the Land," British botanist Sir Albert Howard published his classic book, "An Agricultural Testament." Based on his decades of work documenting traditional farmers in India, the book tackles nature-driven principles such as soil fertility and composting instead of the chemical methods that were becoming standard at the time. He called this the Indore method, "the manufacture of humus from vegetable and animal wastes" to improve soil fertility. Inspired by traditional European and Asian farming models, humus farming used a combination of composting, crop rotation, and soil additions — such as manure, lime and other natural rocks — to manage the pH of soil.

 

Howard's book would become the more influential of the two 1940 volumes. Based on his work, Lady Eve Balfour conducted the first scientific study to compare the efficacy of organic vs. chemical farming. Her results were published in yet another influential book, "The Living Soil," which was published in 1943. Three years later she would start the Soil Association, probably the first group to advocate for organic farming.

 

The concepts of organic farming grew for the next few decades but got their next big push in 1962 when Rachel Carson published her groundbreaking book, "Silent Spring," which famously documented the effects of the pesticide DDT on the natural environment. Embraced by the growing environmental and counter-culture movements, Carson's book became a call to action to support organic foods and to avoid synthetic chemicals.

 

Unfortunately, the earliest proponents of the "back to the land" movement of that time forgot or ignored the lessons of Howard, Balfour and Northbourne. According to "A Brief History and Philosophy of Organic Agriculture" by George Keupper (pdf), "many novices failed to understand that growing quality food without pesticides or synthetic fertilizers would not work very well without the regenerative practices of the traditional organic method." This resulted in what was called "organic by neglect" and produced some pretty unpalatable produce.

 

Despite this setback, organic produce continued to make progress. The first regional organic standards were developed in the 1970s and 1980s, although each had its own guidelines that provided little consistency for customers. The Alar scare of the 1980s finally led to the first national organics law — the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 — which in turn, eventually, led to the national standards that were finally published in 2002.

 

It took a long time, but organic foods and farming are now here to stay, and they have been standardized in a way that protects both food and consumers. For that, we can thank Lord Northbourne, Sir Albert Howard, Lady Eve Balfour and those who followed in their important and world-changing footsteps.

Severe Drought Has U.S. West Fearing Worst

The punishing drought that has swept California is now threatening the state’s drinking water supply. With no sign of rain, 17 rural communities providing water to 40,000 people are in danger of running out within 60 to 120 days. State officials said that the number was likely to rise in the months ahead after the State Water Project, the main municipal water distribution system, announced on Friday that it did not have enough water to supplement the dwindling supplies of local agencies that provide water to an additional 25 million people. It is first time the project has turned off its spigot in its 54-year history.

State officials said they were moving to put emergency plans in place. In the worst case, they said drinking water would have to be brought by truck into parched communities and additional wells would have to be drilled to draw on groundwater. The deteriorating situation would likely mean imposing mandatory water conservation measures on homeowners and businesses, who have already been asked to voluntarily reduce their water use by 20 percent….

The crisis is unfolding in ways expected and unexpected. Near Sacramento, the low level of streams has brought out prospectors, sifting for flecks of gold in slow-running waters. To the west, the heavy water demand of growers of medical marijuana — six gallons per plant per day during a 150-day period — is drawing down streams where salmon and other endangered fish species spawn.

“Every pickup truck has a water tank in the back,” said Scott Bauer, a coho salmon recovery coordinator with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “There is a potential to lose whole runs of fish.”

Without rain to scrub the air, pollution in the Los Angeles basin, which has declined over the past decade, has returned to dangerous levels, as evident from the brown-tinged air. Homeowners have been instructed to stop burning wood in their fireplaces.

In the San Joaquin Valley, federal limits for particulate matter were breached for most of December and January. Schools used flags to signal when children should play indoors.

“One of the concerns is that as concentrations get higher, it affects not only the people who are most susceptible, but healthy people as well,” said Karen Magliano, assistant chief of the air quality planning division of the state’s Air Resources Board.

The impact has been particularly severe on farmers and ranchers. “I have friends with the ground torn out, all ready to go,” said Darrell Pursel, who farms just south of Yerington, Nev. “But what are you going to plant? At this moment, it looks like we’re not going to have any water. Unless we get a lot of rain, I know I won’t be planting anything.”