AGCommons

(Agricultural Geospatial Commons)

The Who, Why, How & What
By:
Laban MacOpiyo, Director
&
Enrica Porcari, Programme Leader
1
Why….

MISSION

Improve incomes and

lives of small farmers
in Sub-Saharan Africa
through location-
specific information.
 How we got to AGCommons…
Harvesting/
Deciding Planting Growing Selling
Transport

Information Needs Information Needs Information Needs Information Needs Information Needs
• Price
• Availability • Sowing date • Pest and disease • Price • Price
• Suitability • Preparation advice mitigation advice • Storage cost and • Market/trader
• Credit • Soil fertility advice • Crop management availability location
• Pest and disease advice • Transport cost and • Travel cost and
Data Sources
management advice • Irrigation advice availability availability
• Market intelligence
• Soils , water and Data Sources Data Sources Data Sources Data Sources
climate data
• Rainfall forecasts • Pest and disease • Storage, market and • Market prices by
• Credit offers monitoring and trade hub locations
• Cultivation best location and
Providers forecasts • Market prices and product
practices
• Agric Ministry • Rainfall forecasts storage costs • Travel cost surface
• Soil information
• Other Gov service
• Farmer’s Assoc. Providers Providers
• Ag Research Providers Providers
• Farmer’s • Financial
• Local NGOs • Agric Ministry associations institutions • Extension workers
• Intl Dev Orgs • Farmer’s • Other Gov • Farmer’s Assoc. • Other Gov
• Financial Association • Ag Research • Ag Research • Local NGOs
institutions • Ag Research • Local NGOs • Local NGOs • Financial
• Extension Workers • Extension Workers • Extension Workers • Extension workers Institutions

3
 The outreach findings
• Meetings and workshops involving more than
80 organizations in West and East Africa
• Key challenges to effectively reach small
holder farmers
– Accessibility to data and technology: overcoming
technical, political, cultural and cost constraints
– Enabling the field role: dissemination and collection, two-
way data flow
• Impact can be enhanced by adding location
context to inform key decisions

4
 AGCommons evolution
Data Harmonization and Rationalization

Use geospatial technology to improve

farmer productivity and market access

Improve sharing and accessibility for location-specific

information

Deliver high impact solutions to the "last 10 kilometers“

The Africa-based service bureau

5
 Quick Wins
Crop Disease Surveillance
(Grameen Technology
Center)
• Build and test mobile
tools for reporting pest &
disease outbreaks in
Uganda
• Conduct site visits and
take field samples
• Analyze incoming data to
create maps
Nodes of Growth:
Legume Seed Networks
(CIAT)
• Mapping of existing seed
dealers to make
decisions on new outlets
• Create dissemination
maps for farmers
• Feasibility for
dissemination via mobile
phone
6
 Quick Wins
G-roads: Roads Data Africats: Trial Sites SIBWA: Seeing is
Development in Ethiopia Catalogue Believing, West Africa
(IMMAP, RCMRD, CIESIN) (CGIAR) (ICRISAT, Mali)
• Mapping of market • Providing access to over • Unlocking precision
access (roads) and 200 seed testing agriculture in West
agriculture points of networks in Africa African smallholder
interest • New varieties of seeds communities with very
• Initial focus on Ethiopia are available but high resolution imagery
• Using customized information on growing • Applying value of Quick
Cybertracker/GPS conditions were not. Bird imagery to small
scale farming
• All roads data collected
are open and freely • Talking to farmers
available

http://www.groads.org http://africats.org

7
 Location Intelligence
Enables interpretation of complex analytics
– the power of “where” to optimize performance

8
Multiple Perspectives – Many Sources…

Institutions and Individuals

have much to offer and much
to share
9
Proprietary and Confidential AWhere, Inc. April 2008
 What is AGCommons?
Sustainable Development
Multi-dimensional
Multi-directional
Financial

Industrial

Business
Economics
Governance

AGCommons LBI Platform • Actionable Insight

• Local to Strategic
Census • Alerts
• Reports
Agriculture AGCommons
• Requests Crops
Service Bureau
Remote
type
Pest
Policy Sensing Tracking
Education
Soils
Production
fertility

Project data: Agriculture example

 AGCOMMONS Core Competencies
Location Based Intelligence!!!
“Interrelationships that might otherwise be difficult to
describe or explain are often readily understood when visually
presented.”

…visualization drives the „next‟ question

The map visualization delivers accurate, high-impact information

content, enabling decision makers to quickly gain an
understanding of the key issues.

Patterns:
clusters, outliers, boundaries, trends, min/max/mean, gaps
11
Location Based Intelligence
Multidirectional!

12
 Communication!
Farmer Facing (Realtime!)
• Alerts: across partners
• Disseminated information system
• Up and Download
• GPS!
• Dynamic aggregation
• Communication

Connect the team

Forum, FAQs, Blog…

13
Policy, Research Facing (Realtime!)

14
Policy, Research Facing

15
 M&E - institutional memory, transparency and
accountability, move away from data silos!
AGCommons: Ready to transform performance, M&E,
communication…

 Proven Location Intelligence platform

 No organizational “re-engineering” required

 Strategic data partnerships
 Low IT impact
 Scalable platform; rapid deployments

16
 Backend…

Communication
Data Collection
& Advocacy

Harmonization,
Management Decision
& Dissemination Support
AGCommons
Service Bureau

Project
Visualization M&E Support

DS PV, C & A DS/ME

 Data Services
• Field data collection
– Full service for robust, quality-
controlled effort on the
ground
• Hardware provisioning,
software, training, field
campaign planning and
management.
– Meso-scale collection
• Aerial-orthophotography and
photogrammetry
• Data research and
procurement
– Desktop research and
evaluation
– Licensing and acquisition
DS
• Hosting
– Library Services
• Web Access, Thematic Framework,
User Licensing
• Data Translation and Processing
– Format conversion
– Imagery feature extraction
– Data fusion
• Field collected, modeled, remotely
sensed, historical
• Dissemination
– Metadata catalogue
• Searchable, Discoverable,
“Crawlable”
– APIs
• Web Mapping Service (WMS),
Short Messaging Service (SMS)
18
PV, C & A DS/ME
 Project Visualization, Communications &
Advocacy
• Cartography and Mapping • Graphics and maps for
– Traditional Static Maps marketing and outreach
• Maps targeted for a – Context maps
specific audience or
purpose – Project web maps
– Atlas Products • Spatial Intelligence
• Map services for large
– Location based
scale products SIBWA
Tailored services
• Dynamic Maps Field
Maps • SMS data delivery
– Map books
• Social media
• Thematically organized
content, update
dynamically
• Web Maps
– Interactive online maps

Map illustrating where the project is

Trial Sites Interactive Map working and who is involved in the
work.

19
DS PV, C & A DS/ME
 Decision, M&E Support
• Spatial Analysis
– Characterization (query
the data)
• “Where” questions
– Targeting
• Overlay analysis
– Suitability
• Network analysis
– Travel time and
accessibility
– Modeling (test scenarios)
• “What if” questions
• Geostatistics
Comparison of modeled rice
production with seed dealers
Nodes of Growth: Project
Design via Spatial Analysis
DS PV, C & A
• Environmental change mapping
– Time series mapping: Water,
soils, landcover
• Social change monitoring
– Time series mapping: Poverty
& health indicators
• Ex ante/Ex post evaluation
– Field sampling
• KPI mobile data collection
• In situ sensors
– Spatial Analysis framework
• Quantitative and Qualitative
Visualizing
Changes in
Environmental
Indicators
20
DS/ME
 How… Principles

• Build on other efforts

• Outreach efforts: listen to the needs
• Not on our own: partnerships USAID, CGAIR,
SERVIR-Africa, RCMRD, ESRI….that’s the
beginning
• Gain experience and “proof-of-concept”
through 5 quick win projects
The Real Story…

22
 Uses ICT expertise to
modify Droppr for the
Produces harmonized local environment,
spatial data for provides access to
agriculture decisions localized spatial data.

Local
Farmers

Produces Droppr as Uses Droppr and

an interface to AGCommons data to
HarvestChoice data help call center
workers help local
farmers

23
 But what is IT?
• The AGCommons technical environment is a Platform
• AGCommons is Not just one Application

Server GIS Offline Mapping

Google Earth
Open Source GIS

AGCommons
www.agcommonsplatform.com Modeling Environment
Direct API’s ‘Geo’SMS

SOCIAL
UN CGIAR NATIONAL LOCAL PROJECTS Data Sources
MEDIA

24
 What is AGCommons?
Sustainable Development
Multi-dimensional
Multi-directional
Financial

Industrial

Business
Economics
Governance

AGCommons LBI Platform • Actionable Insight

• Local to Strategic
Census • Alerts
• Reports
Agriculture AGCommons
• Requests Crops
Service Bureau
Remote
type
Pest
Policy Sensing Tracking
Education
Soils
Production
fertility

Project data: Agriculture example

Africa Agriculture GIS
Week And a “GIS ShareFair”:

•exhibitors
•training sessions
•thematic workshops
•presentation sessions

Meet the Quick-Wins!

26