e-agriculture partnership for community development- ahmed mahmoud eisa

8/3/2019 e-Agriculture Partnership for Community Development- Ahmed Mahmoud Eisa

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e-agriculture partnership for community development

Name: Ahmed Mahmoud Eisa

Designation: Chairman of GDCO

Institution/ Organisation : Gedaref Digital Digital City

Email: [email protected]

http://gedaref.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=412&Itemid=1

http://gedaref.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=413&Itemid=1

Sudan is the biggest country in Africa. It is 2,505,800 square km.Sudan has boarders with 9 countries (7,687 km) with more than 10rivers including the Nile (the longest river in the world)., the climateranging from tropical in the south to desert in the north. Sudanpopulation (April 2009) is 39.15 million. Gedaref mechanizedagriculture corporation (GMAC) is the biggest rain-fed mechanizedagricultural scheme in Sudan. This scheme has a high potential ofbuilding a national food stock and provide hard currencies, whichimprove the economy of the country. GMAC is managing more than 10million feddan (1 feddan = 1.038 acre) which require a lot of work to

improve the crop production yield (both quality and quality) in adepleted soil. . Most of the farmers are illiterate and the agriculturalstaff lack ICT experiences and skills Gedaref digital city organization(GDCO) http://gedaref.com/ a non-governmental and non-profit civilsociety organization founded in partnership with Eindhoven Digital City(DSE) Netherlands. GDCO is part of the global Telecentres movement.GDCO is the founder of the first Telecentre academy in TC-MENA andthe thirteen in world (Sudan National Telecentre Academy -SuNTA- )http://sudantelecentreacademy.org/. GDCO works very hard to tackle theseproblems through ICT with the support of its partners (public privatepartnership PPP).DSE the well-known partner of GDCO in Netherlands donated 750

computers and more than 10 projects achieving many of the 8th MDGsone of them is e-agriculture

Objectives of e-agricultureThe e-agriculture project is a public private partnership for

community development. The objectives of the project are

This paper was submitted for eINDIA 2010 conference Page 1
mailto:[email protected]://gedaref.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=412&Itemid=1http://gedaref.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=413&Itemid=1http://sudantelecentreacademy.org/mailto:[email protected]://gedaref.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=412&Itemid=1http://gedaref.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=413&Itemid=1http://sudantelecentreacademy.org/


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1) Agriculture development through ICT specially GIS & GPS andmonitoring of agricultural resources from being depleted oreradicated2) Development of national and global crop marketing online to help

the farmers and traders sell or buy agricultural crop and products3) Increasing crop yield and decreasing cost of crop production

4) Exchange of Knowledge and best practices between farmers toestablish strong partnership to improve agricultural practices5) Enhance capacity building and improve the quality of training of theagricultural sector.6) Achieving the 8th millennium developments goals (8MDGs). 7)Investment in the ICT sector and make the Telecentres moresustainable.

Project implementation1- Digital City of Eindhoven (DSE) through GDCO donated 15computers to Gedaref mechanized agriculture corporation GMAC, 21PCs to the farmers unions2- More than 100 agricultural engineers and staff of GMAC were trainedthe basic of the computers courses then 30 of them were trained manycourses on GIS and GPS in GMAC Telecentre.3- A database for GMAC farmers was developed and the information ofmore than 10.000 farmers was included in the system of GMAC.4- Determining the geographical coordinates of the farms by old staffand newly trained engineers which lead to the natural resourceelectronic (digital) map of Gedaref state.5- Designing a web portal for the crops priceswww.gedaref.com/markets6- Under designed agro-mobile service in partnership with Drishteeorganization (India) is in process.http://202.71.128.176/mobile/sudanmobapp

The project achievements (values)

http://www.gedaref.com/marketshttp://202.71.128.176/mobile/sudanmobapphttp://www.gedaref.com/marketshttp://202.71.128.176/mobile/sudanmobapp


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1- GDCO build a huge database for Gedaref mechanized agriculturecorporation (GMAC) where more 10.000 farmers database was in thesystem of GMAC which ease and make quick transaction between thefarmers and GMAC to get their document (renewing,, agriculturereports,,) where farmers used to renew their farms certificatesannually (it is electronic before but it stopped in 2006 due to virus andprogramming for more than 9999 farmers) and when we started the

project in 2007 the service is done manually in two to three days, butnow they can renew in few minutes.2- The electronic (digital) map which is the legitimate child for thispartnership. This e-map contains all the information about theagricultural area, pastures, forest and rivers in Gedaref state with clearpoints and demarcation of the animal routes, farms edges forestboarders which help in solving many conflicts between the farmers andshepherds and keep the forest from being eradicated.3- A lot of information about the quality and quantity of crops areavailable through the web portal of crop markets which providesfarmers, traders or any one who need the service with prices of many

crops, vegetables and animals in the web portalwww.gedaref.com/markets .

http://www.gedaref.com/marketshttp://www.gedaref.com/markets


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4- Achievement of some of the 8th MDGs and Sharing experiences andbest practices locally, nationally and globally.5- Reduction in the cost of agricultural planning and determining thegeographical coordinates (demarcation) because it is conducted by thetrained agricultural engineers in GPS,6- Farmers get (very soon) many added value e-services (telemedicine,e-education. Internet cafes,), and the sick people can be treated overthe net and save time and money,,

7-Training and capacity building8- An agro-mobile information system (Drishtee India) which willprovide 6 e-services to the farmers, traders, companies or anyone whoneed it. these services include daily weather forecast, Crops prices,animal prices, fertilizers applications, agriculture news break andonline support (help desk). These services are provided in 4 ways a-SMS b- voice messages c- internet d- through a 3rd party for illiteratepeople and in rural area. (This party will also sell many e-services tocommunity e.g. mobiles prepaid card, electricity prepaid card, and helpfarmers to sell their crops.9- ICT for disaster control, where GDCO used the available information

on the Internet for disaster control and a good example was in 2007when the bird flu reached Gedaref state, GDCO designed a color posterand printed more than 3000 copies. This helped the governmentcontrol the disease and this model can be replicated in malaria, HIV,,Swine flu.

The project and the 8th MDGs



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1-This project will increase production (crop yield), decrease the cropcost of production and improve its quality and nutritional value(poverty and hunger)2-The increase in production will lead to increase farmers income in

rural area which improve the quality of education3- Improving agricultural production will improve household foodsecurity and nutrition which reduce children mortality and Improvematernal health.4- A telemedicine and tele-health are added e-service in rural area forserious diseases (malaria, typhoid, HIV). This project gives the farmersthe opportunity to be medically treated online using informationtechnology to reduce the cost and provide the patients with highquality of treatments.5- The project ensure environmental sustainability by preventing overexploiting the resources and preventing the eradication of forest andthese can be taken through GIS monitoring of agricultural resources. Itprovides farmers with best practices for best management ofresources.6- E-farmer project is a great partnership (PPP) project,,, wherepartners (farmers unions,, NGOs,,, governments and private sector)from different parts of the world share experiences, best practices,knowledge to make the life more comfortable for farmers communities(the end users). GMAC started replicating this project in southernKordofan state and project will be replicated in south Darfur andanother five (5) states in Sudan.


e-agriculture partnership for community development- ahmed mahmoud eisa

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