Probabilistic scenario planning in agriculture: balancing risks through data-driven forecasting

Probabilistic scenario planning in agriculture is a procedure that uses available data and expert estimates to inform decision-making across the food system in a way that minimizes economic risk

Designing gender-inclusive digital solutions for agricultural development: An introductory guide and toolkit

Digital tools play an increasingly important role in agricultural research for development. Often, they fall short in fulfilling their promises for women or other marginalized groups. Adoption across these groups is often low. One key reason for this is a narrow and techno-centric perspective on digital tool design. Human Centered Design brings a change in perspective on digital innovations towards more inclusive design processes. This practical guide and toolkit for gender-inclusive digital design is directed at people in CGIAR working in digital agriculture who are interested in creating gender-inclusive, sustainable solutions. This guide aims to 1) introduce the concepts of design thinking and inclusive design, 2) describe the design process and provide relevant tools for the differentsteps of the process, and 3) provide links for further readings to deepen the understanding on this topic

User-centred design of a digital advisory service: enhancing public agricultural extension for sustainable intensification in Tanzania

Sustainable intensification (SI) is promoted as a rural development paradigm for sub-Saharan Africa. Achieving SI requires smallholder farmers to have access to information that is context-specific, increases their decision-making capacities, and adapts to changing environments. Current extension services often struggle to address these needs. New mobile phone-based services can help. In order to enhance the public extension service in Tanzania, we created a digital service that addresses smallholder farmers’ different information needs for implementing SI. Using a co-design methodology – User-Centered Design – we elicited feedback from farmers and extension agents in Tanzania to create a new digital information service, called Ushauri. This automated hotline gives farmers access to a set of pre-recorded messages. Additionally, farmers can ask questions in a mailbox. Extension agents then listen to these questions through an online platform, where they record and send replies via automated push-calls. A test with 97 farmers in Tanzania showed that farmers actively engaged with the service to access agricultural advice. Extension agents were able to answer questions with reduced workload compared to conventional communication channels. This study illustrates how User-Centered Design can be used to develop information services for complex and resource-restricted smallholder farming contexts

Participatory design of digital innovation in agricultural research-for-development: insights from practice

Digital development is becoming mainstream in research-for-development. Applying participatory design methodologies in digital development projects can help develop more user-centered innovation. But these processes require new skills and methods from researchers, and research-for-development project context can create challenges for participatory design. This article presents lessons learned from practical experiences within participatory design projects for digital solutions

The extension agent of the future

The Community of Practice in Data-Driven Agronomy (Big Data Platform – CGIAR) and the Feed the Future Developing Local Extension Capacity (DLEC) have joined forces to explore and define the future of agricultural extension far beyond sustainable crop production. The findings highlight the main knowledge, skills and attitudes that the Extension Agent of the Future should have

Tapping the full potential of the digital revolution for agricultural extension: an emerging innovation agenda

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CGIAR’s role in digital extension services

CGIAR’s digital extension services bridge the gap between the development and the adoption of new climate change adaptation strategies. These services include new ways to disperse information on rainfed systems of agriculture, nutrition, pest control, new crop varieties, crop management practices, and more

CIBERER : Spanish national network for research on rare diseases: A highly productive collaborative initiative

Altres ajuts: Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII); Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.CIBER (Center for Biomedical Network Research; Centro de Investigación Biomédica En Red) is a public national consortium created in 2006 under the umbrella of the Spanish National Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII). This innovative research structure comprises 11 different specific areas dedicated to the main public health priorities in the National Health System. CIBERER, the thematic area of CIBER focused on rare diseases (RDs) currently consists of 75 research groups belonging to universities, research centers, and hospitals of the entire country. CIBERER's mission is to be a center prioritizing and favoring collaboration and cooperation between biomedical and clinical research groups, with special emphasis on the aspects of genetic, molecular, biochemical, and cellular research of RDs. This research is the basis for providing new tools for the diagnosis and therapy of low-prevalence diseases, in line with the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) objectives, thus favoring translational research between the scientific environment of the laboratory and the clinical setting of health centers. In this article, we intend to review CIBERER's 15-year journey and summarize the main results obtained in terms of internationalization, scientific production, contributions toward the discovery of new therapies and novel genes associated to diseases, cooperation with patients' associations and many other topics related to RD research

Seasonal scenario planning for matching seed supply and demand: MS Excel decision support tool

This is an MS Excel tool for seasonal scenario planning. This tool correlates historical seasonal rainfall with seed sales. Using expected rainfall forecasts the tool gives an estimate of expected seed seales in the coming season. The tool should be introduced to decsion makers in a workshop, presented jointly with "seasonal scenario planning: worshop format" and "seasonal scenario planning: workshop slides"

Seasonal scenario planning for matching seed supply and demand: Workshop format

This document describes a workshop procedure for seasonal seed scenario planning. It is guided by a powerpoint presentation and revolves around jointly using the MS Excel tool for scenario planning, and leveraging informed decision-making on seed supply