Gov’t to push e-agriculture

The Ministry of Public Telecommunications is seeking to enhance the local agricultural sector by introducing opportunities for ‘e-agriculture.’
E-agriculture is a contemporary field that focuses on the development of agriculture through the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Speaking at the launch of Internet Week 2017, Minister of Public Telecommunications, Cathy Hughes, said technology will be used to push agriculture.
“One of the things that we’re going to be doing in a few short months is bringing to Guyana, a vision of the opportunities in e-agriculture.”
She related that the Public Telecommunications Ministry has already been able to develop ICT- based solutions for the health and education sectors before and the next “intervention” the ministry will be focusing on is enhancement of the agriculture sector.

Ministerial Advisor Lance Hinds said the aim of the ministry’s intervention in this field is to use ICT to enable a more efficient local sector. This, as explained by him, involves transforming the managing, marketing and selling of products into a more efficiently run system.

Recently, the Telecommunications Ministry organised a CODESPRINT competition which required tech-savvy youths to create software that would connect farmers and customers in a fast, economic and reliable way.
Moreover, the software developed for this competition catered specifically for the local sector, given that the participants were required to carry out research here.
Hinds also told the Guyana Chronicle that the ministry is gearing towards introducing e-agriculture at the Demerara-Mahaica/Region Four Regional Democratic Council (RDC)’s Regional, Agricultural and Commercial Exhibition (RACE) slated for November 24 to 26.
Here, patrons and stakeholders alike will be able to learn how exactly e-agriculture will aid in transforming the sector.

“The idea is to have sessions on the potential of agriculture and sessions on the potential of ICT in agriculture,” the advisor said. These sessions will include software solutions, like those developed at CODESPRINT 2017, as well as hardware solutions such as the use of agri-bots and other ICT-enhanced equipment.

Source: Guyana Chronicle