Report on National Agricultural Information Services & Zambia National Farmers Union exhibition at the e-Learning Africa 2010

The 5^th International Conference on ICTs for Development, Education and Training was held in Lusaka from 26^th to 28^th May, 2010.
The world has taken quantum leaps in the last 20 years as a result of innovations only made possible by ICT developments. Today we are able to communicate instantaneously using programmes such as Skype, Twitter and Facebook on the Internet and SMS and MMS using mobile phones.
The technological developments have not only reduced the cost doing business for farmers but have also created new business for the farming community and enabled them know where to sell their products thereby giving them self-employment opportunities. We can all use ICT as leverage to improve our economy with more innovation and efficiency in the way we create wealth. Even more important are the possibilities ICT has made in both the social and economic sectors, such as agriculture, commerce, education and health.
However, this calls for more investment in ICT development as a tool for increased farmers’ productivity. Investment in agricultural ICTs is investment in the country’s economy.
ICTs have contributed to the development of the agricultural sector for many years. However, the use of ICTs in the sector have remained low, especially among the small scale farmers for obvious reasons such as non availability, non accessibility, costs implications and infrastructure limitations, particularly in rural areas.
The rapid advancement in ICTs and introduction of new products on the market presents great opportunities for use of ICTs in the agricultural sector.  Countries that have embraced ICTs have become more efficient in agricultural production and marketing.  It is increasingly becoming difficulty for countries to penetrate the competitive world of agricultural trade without the use of ICTs.  It is therefore imperative for Zambian farmers and other players in the agricultural industry to take decisive steps to embrace ICTs as they promote higher productivity and access to markets not only in Zambia but beyond our boundaries.
 
The Ministry of agriculture and cooperatives has for many years been using the traditional ICTs namely; radio, television and print media to disseminate up to date technical information and agricultural news to the farming and fishing communities.
 
Zambia is taking positive steps to incorporate new ICTs in the agricultural sector particularly in production and marketing strategies.  With the growing demand for technical information generation and dissemination by our famers, and rapid changes in technology, my ministry and that of agriculture and cooperatives have in recent years been designing programmes meant to use ICTs in service delivery.
 
So far a number of ICT programmes have been introduced in the agricultural sector to help farmers increase their production and productivity.  Among the notable ones are the following:-

• The farmers’ internet café, hosted by the Kabwe farmers’ association under the   Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU), which aims at linking the mother body with affiliates at district level while at the same time providing individual union members with access to information.  From this facility, farmers are       now able to compare the prices of crops such as tobacco in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia on the internet. Through this network, farmers are able to negotiate for a better price.
• The SMS market and trade information service,                a system developed by the Zambia national farmers union and Zain is being used in the sector.  This system allows farmers and traders to know prices of agricultural products in selected areas by simply sending an SMS on their mobile phone to 4455 to make farmers, traders and other players aware of prevailing commodity prices and make decisions on where to sell their produce.
• The Ministries of Agriculture and Cooperatives and Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI) have developed websites that provide farmers access to information using the internet.
• The Ministry, through the National Agricultural Information Services has set up agricultural information centres in Kasama on a pilot basis to enable farmers have access to agricultural technical information closer to their doors steps.
• The two Ministries are also using ICTs to manage and store data, a move that has helped to reduce loss of very vital information.
• Another success story of ICTs in the agricultural sector is the Macha works programme in Choma, where farmers are now able to grow and market sunflower and jatropha using information they get from the internet.
• The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives is currently exploring and                 piloting an ICT based voucher system under the Conservation Agriculture Scaling up Productivity and Production (CASPP) and the Farmer Input Support Response Initiative (FISRI) in 12 districts. The initiative aims at improving the efficiency in the distribution process.

In this three days event NAIS and ZNFU shared with the rest of the world our progress in e-agriculture. It is hoped that in our country e-agriculture will address the challenges of agricultural production and productivity in general and in particular the attainment of Millenium Development Goals, as well as matters of access, equity and participation in agriculture and the economy.
At the Zambian stand, the Ministries of agriculture was represented by NAIS and ZNFU where we displayed FrontlineSMS technology and mobile phone market information respectively, while the Ministry of education was represented by David Kaunda High Technical Secondary School who displayed the white board technology.
The FrontlineSMS tool was not operational but it attracted a lot of interest from the Zambian conference participants and visitors who passed through the stand as they wanted to know when the system will be fully operational to enable them get agricultural technical advice using their mobile phones.
The combination of ZNFU mobile phone agricultural trade and marketing information system and NAIS FrontlineSMS agricultural technical production information received a lot of praise from conference participants who wanted to find out from Zambia how farmers have been encouraged to participate in the systems. 
It is my hope that ZICTA will soon allocate NAIS with a short code so that we can have the system operational.