Author: Abel Renew

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AgriProFocus Kenya – Have You Joined?

Over at AgriProFocus, they bring together farmers, agribusinesses, civil society, knowledge institutes and governments. United in diversity, their members show that agribusiness and development are not mutually exclusive. Together, they find new, sustainable ways of creating impact with business; cultivating collaboration through linking, learning and leadership.

LINKING – Build successful partnerships

AgriProFocus helps people find the right people to solve problems and to do business with. Whether you are looking for change makers in the agri-food sector or partners to solve specific challenges with. Their network connects (un)usual suspects, facilitates innovative ways of working together and stimulates long term collaboration.

LEARNING – Expand your expertise

AgriProFocus facilitates exciting learning environments aimed at innovating people’s business. Their members share best practices, experiences and failures in order to learn from and with each other. Reflection and sense-making around specific issues are key in their learning processes.

LEADERSHIP – Find your leverage

AgriProFocus is a space for people to set and influence the agenda in collaboration with other relevant stakeholders. Their network aims to change both the ways of working and the rules of the game in the agri-food sector. By collectively improving the business environment for agripreneurs, they make sure impact is made at scale.

If that sounds interesting, you can join up here.
Ndiyo, I’ve joined 😊

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PlantVillage Nuru – an application that uses a digital assistant to diagnose crop disease

PlantVillage Nuru to diagnose crop disease
PlantVillage Nuru

PlantVillage Nuru is a publically supported, and publically developed application that uses a digital assistant to help farmers diagnose crop disease in the field, without an internet connection. Developed at Penn State University the app uses Google’s Tensorflow machine learning tool and a database of images collected by crop disease experts across the world. The app is based on extensive research comparing the accuracy of machine learning models to human experts and extension work. This is continual research and the app will be constantly updated. The app also allows for a blended model where images are examined by AI and human intelligence through a cloud system. This app was developed with International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. We welcome further collaboration with public institutions. This app is a public good and is not commercial or backed by venture capitalists. We do not have advertisements or collect farmer data to sell to third parties. You can donate if you like https://plantvillage.psu.edu/. In addition to the diagnostic tool the app contains the library of knowledge that is on PlantVillage, the largest open access library of crop health knowledge in the world.

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Free Courses on Environmental Topics from the UN

educational course categories

When the course is provided by the United Nations, you know it will be authoritative. The topic groups include:

  • Biological Diversity
  • Chemicals and Waste
  • Climate and Atmosphere
  • Land and Agriculture

Courses in the Land and Agriculture group include:

More information is available from this link https://elearning.informea.org/, where you can sign up.

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How can we feed 11 billion people? BBC Radio Programme

BBC The Inquiry programme

This is not just because Western Kenya is featured 🙂 , but as the programme summary puts it:

“The world’s population is set to grow from 7.7 to 11 billion by the end of this century. The challenge is to produce enough food to feed this number of people. In the 1960s the Green Revolution provided answers to similar problems – but the projected population growth of the future is on a much greater scale than before, and so new measures are required. In east Africa they’re working to reduce the amount of food that’s lost before it even gets to market – globally this stands at around 30 per cent. In the United States scientists are working to improve the natural process of photosynthesis – to make plants themselves function more efficiently. And in India they’re working to preserve genetic diversity – conserving rice varieties that can flourish in salt water or in conditions of drought.”

You can listen at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csytfv

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Qualifications and Courses in Environment-Related Fields

Have you felt the urge to know a bit more about sustainable development?
Do you need a little more on your CV?
Can’t quite manage all the fees for some university courses?
We have all the answers here:

How about ‘Sustainable Development in the 21st Century with Ban Ki-moon‘?

Or perhaps, ‘Water Supply and Sanitation Policy in Developing Countries‘? That one is from Manchester University in the UK.

The third choice here is ‘The Age of Sustainable Development‘ delivered by Professor Jeffery Sachs. Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned economics professor, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist. Professor Sachs serves as the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University.

Which course will you choose? All of them?