GENEVA, Switzerland – Addis Alem Co-op continues to demonstrate ICT innovation for Sustainable Agri-Food Systems. During the 2016 World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS), CropGuard was featured in the Plug and Play showcase of the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA).
The range of ICT applications directly address the agri-food sector and link with the WSIS Action line “e-agriculture” and business creation in the digital society (e-business). CropGuard stood among six other peers, namely, Ensibuuko, Musoni Services, FarmDrive, FoodRing and PEAT.
CropGuard delivered a structured hands-on introduction to its e-agriculture ICT platform, mobile app and web dashboards. The audience which comprised agricultural administrators, conference delegates and international news media experienced the innovation’s features of interest. The opportunity provided for one-on-one discussion with peers and innovators on the challenges in the agricultural field, what is new, what is working. It was a fantastic opportunity for a valuable and very practical insight into the new technologies.
CropGuard’s participation in Plug and Play was a prime opportunity for:
- interested clients to see the demonstration of CropGuard;
- agricultural value chain actors to discover how CropGuard could fit into their agricultural activities;
- investors to analyze CropGuard’s viability for investment;
- donors options to identify emerging areas for support;
- policy makers to understand and explore potential areas for policy and decision actions.
As it relates to the Sustainable Development Goals, the session links to most goals of them.
The range of ICT applications are services and products for the agri-food systems that directly address fighting hunger and healthy lives (goals 1, 2 and 3). They also strongly support agri-food business growth (link with goal 8), innovations (goal 9) and address water access (goal 6), sustainable consumption and production patterns (goal 12), climate change (goal 13) and land degradation (goal 15).