www.e-agriculture.org

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The e-Agriculture Initiative Sharing of
Innovative Experiences
www.e-agriculture.org
Stephen Rudgard Knowledge Exchange and Capacity
Building Division Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations
February 2008
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World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
WSIS Plan of Action November 2005
Tunis Action Line (C.7/21) ICT Applications
e-Agriculture
FAO assigned responsibility for facilitating
follow-up on e-Agriculture (Feb. 2006)
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About e-Agriculture

• e-Agriculture is an emerging field focusing on
  the enhancement of agricultural and rural
  development through improved information and
  communication processes. 
• e-Agriculture involves the conceptualization,
  design, development, evaluation and application
  of innovative ways to use information and
  communication technologies (ICT) in the rural
  domain, with a primary focus on agriculture.

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The WSIS E-Agriculture Working Group (EAWG)
Goal to create multi-stakeholder,
people-centred, cross-sectoral platform(s) that
will bring together stakeholders representing
relevant constituencies of e-Agriculture. June
2006 1st EAWG meeting hosted at FAO
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The e-Agriculture Community of Expertise
A global initiative that aims at reinforcing the
value of global dialogue and cooperation to
address emerging issues around the role of ICT as
an instrument of sustainable agricultural
development.

• The E-Agriculture Community of Expertise
  comprises of 3 components
• Web-based platform (www.e-agriculture.org)
• Face-to-face meetings and events
• In-country interventions

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The e-Agriculture Community of Expertise

• The Community includes
• policy makers
• rural service providers
• development practitioners
• farmers
• researchers
• information and communication specialists
• in agriculture and rural development.
• Community members interact with each other and
  contribute a range of resources in the form of
  case studies, success stories and lessons
  learned, documents, publications, links, learning
  resources, news. and announcements of events.

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Activities May-September 2007-2008

• Web platform
• May 2007 - Pilot launch
• Jul/Aug 2007 - Virtual Forums on Responding to
  Demand the focus on e-Agriculture (English and
  Spanish)
• Sep 2007 Main launch
• Feb 2008 3,000 community members and over
  10,000 visitors to www.e-agriculture.org
• Meetings
• Sep 2007 - e-Agriculture Week Italy
• Dec 2007 - GK3 (Global Knowledge Partnership)
  Malaysia

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The Community of Expertise - Future Perspectives

• Web platform
• New components for collaboration
• Policy Wiki InfoDev
• Expanded personal profiles
• Meetings
• Congress on E-Agriculture Japan, August 2008
• In-country interventions - reports from
  stakeholders