ICT in European rural development

1
ICT in European rural development

• Julian Swindell
• Principal lecturer
• Royal Agricultural Collegejulian.swindell_at_rac.ac.
  uk

2
ICT in European rural development

• This workshop will explore current ideas in ICT
  in rural development in Europe
• The content derives from the most recent
  conference of EFITA
• European Federation for Information Technology
  in Agriculture
• www.efita.net

3
EFITA/ WCCA 2007 Environmental and Rural
Sustainability through ICT"                     
                                                  
                                                  
                                                  
                   
                                                  
                                         
                                                  
                                Image courtesy
of www.morguefile.com Glasgow Caledonian
UniversityGlasgow 2-5 July 2007
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ICT rural development themes

• ICT adoption in rural areas
• ICT in rural communities
• ICT in rural business
• ICT in rural sustainability
• ICT in climate change
• ICT in rural GIS
• ICT in decision support
• ICT in food traceability

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EU-China the differences
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ICT rural development themes

• ICT adoption in rural areas
• ICT in rural communities
• ICT in rural business
• ICT in rural sustainability
• ICT in climate change
• ICT in rural GIS
• ICT in decision support
• ICT in food traceability

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Internet adoption in UK
Households with internet access
Source Office of National Statistics 2007
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ICT adoption case studyUnited Kingdom a
Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
Adoption Results of a Survey of the England and
Wales Farming Community Martina M. Gibbons and
Andrew L. Offer
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ICT adoption case study from United Kingdom b

• Key points-2006
• Postal survey of 2,100 farmers
• 75 have access to a computer for business or
  personal use
• 59 use the internet
• 41 of internet users have broadband (high speed)
  access compared to 50 national average

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ICT adoption case study from Republic of Ireland
a
Development of Information and Communication
Technologies The Impact at Farmer Level A.-E.
Lévêque, T.G. Kelly, Y. Michelin
11
ICT adoption case study from Republic of Ireland
b

• Key points
• Small survey with unclear figures
• 42 owned a PC of which 15 used it for farming
  purposes (6.3 of all farmers)
• Dairy farmers seem to make more use than cattle
  farmers
• Main use of internet is to receive information,
  little interest in sharing/communicating
  information

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ICT rural development themes

• ICT adoption in rural areas
• ICT in rural communities
• ICT in rural business
• ICT in rural sustainability
• ICT in climate change
• ICT in rural GIS
• ICT in decision support
• ICT in food traceability

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ICT in rural communities case study from Spain a
An evaluation of the use of the Internet and ICT
by agricultural co-operatives in the region of
Valencia, Spain, J.F. Juliá, G.
García-Martínez, and E. Silvestre
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ICT in rural communities case study from Spain b

• Key points
• Paper states that the take up of internet and ICT
  in rural Spain is much lower than in urban areas.
• Cooperative societies are very important in rural
  Spain but only 9 in Valencia (the study area)
  have a website.
• Food safety and quality standards information are
  featured fairly highly compared to other content

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ICT in rural communities case study from United
Kingdom a
Local Responses to Global Changes Information
Needs for Environmental and Rural Sustainability,
John D Oldham
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ICT in rural communities case study from United
Kingdom b

• Key points
• Farming in an industrialised European country
• 77 of land area is agricultural
• employs 1.7 of the national work force
• Primary agriculture only 0.5 of the total
  economy
• Promotes the use of ICT to increase efficiency in
  a low labour market and to link businesses to aid
  environmental protection and enhancement

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ICT rural development themes

• ICT adoption in rural areas
• ICT in rural communities
• ICT in rural business
• ICT in rural sustainability
• ICT in climate change
• ICT in rural GIS
• ICT in decision support
• ICT in food traceability

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ICT in rural business case study from Italy a
The Agritourism and the Role of eCommerce in the
Agribusiness Evolution Evidence from a Regional
Survey Salvatore Ammirato
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ICT in rural business case study from Italy b

• Key points
• Concerned with re-localisation as a balance to
  globalisation
• Agritourism seen as a method of achieving this
• Very complex statistical analysis applied to
  evaluation of Agritourism websites in south
  Italy, with little clear outcome.

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ICT in rural business case study from Germany a
Trust in e-supplier relationship management food
networks e-Trust Melanie Fritz
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ICT in rural business case study from Germany b

• Key points
• Examines the modelling of trust between suppliers
  and purchasers in electronic vertical food chains
• Considers how trust is established in electronic
  transactions
• Compares important determinants of trust in
  different food supply scenarios

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ICT rural development themes

• ICT adoption in rural areas
• ICT in rural communities
• ICT in rural business
• ICT in rural sustainability
• ICT in climate change
• ICT in rural GIS
• ICT in decision support
• ICT in food traceability

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ICT in rural sustainability case study from
United Kingdom a
ICT supporting rural sustainability. The
emergence of the rural e-community D. Heery and
P. Fowler
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ICT in rural sustainability case study from
United Kingdom b

• Key Points
• Examines the development of community-led service
  provision in rural communities in England
• Particular discussion of Cybermoor Community Web
  site
• Success was due to sufficient funding at start up
  and continuing funding to employ local people in
  maintaining the web portal
• Similar, less well funded projects simply failed.

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ICT in rural sustainability case study from
Czech Republic a
Can Videoconferencing Help Rural
Sustainability? Zdenek Havlicek, Edita
Silerova, and Alan M. Westcott
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ICT in rural sustainability case study from
Czech Republic b

• Key Points
• This is a study of development of
  video-conferencing within the EU NODES project
• The current usage is between educational
  institutions across Europe
• Plan to use it to help improve communications
  within the agricultural sector, but little
  evidence given of work in this direction outside
  of institutions

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ICT rural development themes

• ICT adoption in rural areas
• ICT in rural communities
• ICT in rural business
• ICT in rural sustainability
• ICT in climate change
• ICT in rural GIS
• ICT in decision support
• ICT in food traceability

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ICT in climate change case study from Hungary a
Changing climate and the spatial distribution of
optimal production area of maize, Sz. Bella, G.
Szépszó , S. Szalai
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ICT in climate change case study from Hungary b

• Key points
• Important scientific study of the spatial
  distribution and variation of the factors
  influencing maize growth in Hungary
• Future climate changes are considered to see how
  they may change the distribution of the most
  suitable maize growing areas in the future.
• Very ICT intensive academic work which will help
  in future farm decision making.

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ICT in climate change case study from Germany a
Model-based climate change impact assessment for
arable land in a moraine landscape of North-East
Germany and adaptation possibilities Mirschel
W., Eulenstein F., Willms M., Wieland R.,
Schindler U., Wenkel K-O.
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ICT in climate change case study from Germany b

• Key points
• An important study in Germany of the potential
  affect of climate change on local agricultural
  conditions.
• Builds comparative scenarios for years 2000 and
  2050 and predicts the changes in growing
  conditions within a specific study area.
• Provides a basis for decision on coping with
  inevitable climate change.

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ICT rural development themes

• ICT adoption in rural areas
• ICT in rural communities
• ICT in rural business
• ICT in rural sustainability
• ICT in climate change
• ICT in rural GIS
• ICT in decision support
• ICT in food traceability

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ICT in rural GIS case study from Czech Republic a
Dynamic geovizualization of landscape changes and
threatening processes using digital landscape
model Svatonova H., Kolejka J., Charvát K.
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ICT in rural GIS case study from Czech Republic b

• Key points
• This project builds digital spatial models of an
  agricultural landscape
• These models are used to study historical land
  use change, through use of 1950s military
  photography and modern remote sensing
• It is also used to study erosion risk and land
  degradation caused by modern intensive farming
  systems

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ICT in rural GIS case study from United Kingdom a
LandSFACTS Software for Spatio-temporal
Allocation of Crops to Fields Castellazzi M.,
Matthews J., Wood G., Burgess P., Conrad K., and
Perry J.
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ICT in rural GIS case study from United Kingdom a

• Key points
• Crop modelling research carried out with EU
  funding
• Aims to allow researchers to build realistic
  scenarios of crop distribution for use in land
  change studies
• Limited in its wide application at this stage as
  it assumes fixed field boundaries and one crop
  per field per year
• Has the potential for further development as a
  modelling support tool

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ICT rural development themes

• ICT adoption in rural areas
• ICT in rural communities
• ICT in rural business
• ICT in rural sustainability
• ICT in climate change
• ICT in rural GIS
• ICT in decision support
• ICT in food traceability

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ICT in decision support case study from Romania a
Decision support tools for a sustainable
agriculture Marius Radulescu , Constanta Zoie
Radulescu
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ICT in decision support case study from Romania b

• Key points
• A study of mathematical modelling which could be
  used as a basis of agricultural decision making
• Little evidence of practical application to a
  real farming system
• Assumes a fairly rigid decision making process
  which has little relationship to many ideas of
  localisation or knowledge based decision making
• Little reference to free market, competitive
  decision making.

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ICT in decision support case study from United
Kingdom a
IRRIGUIDE a decision support tool for drainage
estimation and irrigation scheduling Martyn
Silgram, Damian Hatley, and Richard Gooday
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ICT in decision support case study from United
Kingdom b

• Key points
• This paper is a review of an ICT based
  water/irrigation modelling system which has been
  in use for many years in the UK
• The model is useful both for scientific modelling
  with reference to climate change, and for
  practical farm level decision making on
  irrigation, fertiliser run off etc.
• Much of the work involves updating from older
  programming languages to modern programming
  environments

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ICT rural development themes

• ICT adoption in rural areas
• ICT in rural communities
• ICT in rural business
• ICT in rural sustainability
• ICT in climate change
• ICT in rural GIS
• ICT in decision support
• ICT in food traceability

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ICT in food traceability case study from Germany
a
Cost-Benefit-Analysis of Quality- and
Traceability Systems in Supply Chains of Animal
Products Roth M. and Doluschitz R.
44
ICT in food traceability case study from Germany
b

• Key points
• This work is still in progress and aims to
  determine the costs and benefits of an internet
  based food-traceability scheme in Germany
• Initial findings show that it is very difficult
  to demonstrate whether or not there is any
  quantifiable benefit to the producer
• Most farmers show a desire to use a range of
  communication techniques, not just a single
  internet based one

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ICT in food traceability case study from Italy a
EtiNET Web platform for traceability in the food
chains a regional scale implementation for
quality insurance and food safety control in
Italy Gianfranco Giannerini
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ICT in food traceability case study from Italy b

• Key points
• Regionally managed software system which allows
  food traceability from producer to consumer
• Linked to food labelling scheme
• Farmers can integrate their own records with the
  central system to benefit from the growing
  consumer desire to know all about the qualities
  and sources of their food.

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Summary

• Academic and applied research
• Standalone business use of ICT
• Rural sustainability
• Climate change
• Food traceability

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Outside of Europe

• Experiences of ICT in rural development outside
  of the EU

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ICT in rural development India and Honduras
Rural empowerment through access to knowledge a
comparison of two projects on two continents J.
Swindell
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India

• Information Villages of Pondicherry
• Successful, long term, bottom up rural
  development
• M S Swaminathan Research Foundation of Chennai
• Major local involvement

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Honduras

• Multi-scale spatial decision support system for
  Honduras
• Short term top down rural development, little
  lasting effect
• CIAT plus many international collaborators
• Little local involvement

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ICT in rural development some thoughts on China
International Conference on Agricultural Science
and Technology (ICAST) Beijing, 2001
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China ICT in rural development

• Potential is there
• Capacity must be developed
• Local knowledge is unique and enormously valuable
• Need for innovation is essential
• Chinese solutions to Chinese problems (and
  international problems)
• Market leading rather than market following

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Thank you for listening.

• Julian Swindell
• Web site
• www.rac.ac.uk
• Email
• julian.swindell_at_rac.ac.uk