Harnessing Data to Enhance Agricultural & Food Security
Enhancing food security is a daunting challenge, specifically for regions with rapidly increasing populations, like sub-Saharan Africa. DG harnesses data to better understand agricultural, economic, and market systems, which helps decision-makers know when, how, and where interventions can support farmers.
Focusing on the Supply of Data
DG has a strong knowledge of agriculture data sources, challenges, and opportunities. We focus on improving the supply of agriculture data; building easy-to-use tools; and supporting governments and the private sector in using data to meet their strategic priorities.
Whole-of-Ecosystem Design
Change requires all elements of the system – production, monitoring, distribution, and quality assurance – to work together synergistically, supporting and underpinning each other. Through in-depth assessments, DG works with stakeholders to understand the data gaps and needs of the agricultural sector at large.
Supporting Markets and Supply Chains
By focusing on supporting decision-makers in larger systems, DG works to ensure smallholder farmers have access to the information they need. We enable decision-making that benefits farmers, and integrate learning strategies throughout – laying a path for collecting high-quality data and delivering high-quality results.
Addressing Unmet Demand
While speaking with hundreds of agricultural stakeholders across multiple countries, we have identified significant, unmet demand for more and better data, and have developed new ways to visualize and analyze existing information to meet that demand.
Un-Siloing Information
From seed systems, to fertilizer markets, to arable land, the information needed to make decisions is often siloed within the private sector, government ministries, or CSOs. DG works with partners to build tools that support information sharing and streamline processes to ensure quality data and sustainability.
a Livestock Information Vision Ethiopia (aLIVE) Program
The aLIVE program is fulfilling the needs of livestock decision-makers in Ethiopia by improving the accessibility and reliability of livestock data. The overall goal of aLIVE is to support Ethiopia in meeting national food demands as well as achieving food security while building a more robust, independent economy.
Digital Advisory Support Services for Accelerated Rural Transformation (DAS) Program
The DAS Program seeks to advance food security across Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia by advancing access to and use of technological solutions that support smallholder farmers.
Visualizing Insights on Fertilizer for African Agriculture (VIFAA)
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has the lowest fertilizer usage in the world – insufficient to replace soil nutrients lost every year to crop production. To maintain agricultural productivity and sustain farmers, both the government and the private sector in Africa need to better collect, analyze, and use relevant data to encourage fertilizer use. Through the VIFAA Program, we are working with partners on dashboards and tools to improve, manage, and visualize fertilizer data in Africa. VIFAA is a six-year program led by DG in partnership with the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), Wallace & Associates, and with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
More from Our Blog
Healthy Farming, Healthy Planet: The Environmental Case Against Tobacco Farming
While all agriculture has an environmental impact, tobacco is unique in that every stage of the tobacco lifecycle–from the production and consumption of tobacco to farming and disposal of the final product–wreaks havoc on the environment. In this piece, we’ll introduce the lifecycle of producing and using tobacco and explore the requisite environmental impact.
Connecting Digital Dreams to Infrastructure Needs: Three Lessons from the aLIVE Program
After eighteen months of implementing the aLIVE program, we’ve learned three lessons on how to best support our partners in Ethiopia, advance our work in data systems and management, and ultimately, reach our overall goal of supporting Ethiopia in achieving food security and building a more robust, independent economy.
Case Study: Fostering Sustainable Agriculture through Data-Driven Collaboration and Partnership: Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Nigeria
Through DG’s Visualizing Insights on Fertilizer for African Agriculture (VIFAA) program, we recently published a case study titled “Fostering Sustainable Agriculture through Data-Driven Collaboration and Partnership: Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Nigeria.” It dives deep into how the VIFAA program has impacted the fertilizer data and markets in Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Nigeria. In this blog, we explore the overall impact that the VIFAA program is making, why the program was needed, and offer some key highlights from the case study.