The impact of data in our world today.

Suhail Doshi, co-founder and CEO of Mixpanel gives an insight into how data is changing the way we live,do business and even our choices.There are so many applications where people are using data to create interesting machine learning models that can automate things such as car automation, anomaly detection, facial recognition, etc. The use of data in determining who will win contests or elections at astonishingly high accuracy is really interesting, this is changing the tactics people are using to win.Music is becoming more data-centric these days. If you’re a musician, the world is completely transforming from selling units in the store and seeing your spot on the billboard 100 to the number of streams and plays you get from YouTube, Spotify, or Soundcloud in order to drive distribution and improve brand recognition. I think the music industry will become much more quantified. The advent of people being able to create new kinds of hardware easily, we’re starting to see new applications of automation that didn’t exist before. The combination of that with the internet being almost everywhere is making it possible to log data about anything. This shift; digital inclusion is leading to all kinds of new insight that we haven’t had before, there are some companies now automating aspects of agriculture, which makes it easier to be much more data-driven thus increasing the possibilities in that industry.Adopted from Quora.

How a humble farmer turned his unwanted watermelons into fast-selling 'lucky' fruit.

A farmer from Pingdingshan, China, took drastic action to cut declining sales of watermelon.He carved characters with lucky meanings such as 'prosperity' and 'Chinese dream' onto the fruit and in 11 days he managed to sell three tonnes of watermelons which are in popular demand from passersby. A farmer discovered the secret to ensuring his watermelons sell by carving them with sayings and mottos in beautiful calligraphy. According to the 56-year-old from Pingdingshan, central China's Henan province, he had been struggling to sell the fruit before he came up with the ingenious idea to add carvings. He said since adding works of art to his fruit, Gu Xinliang managed to sell three tonnes of watermelons in just 11 days. The 56-year-old rural teacher grows the fruit on his 7,160-square-foot farmland. On July 20, his family dug up an acre of watermelon and set up a stall on the side of the road. A few people were interested but he sold one watermelon. By noon, he had not sold any more and used a fingernail on a watermelon to practice calligraphy. He found that the effect of the carving was quite good so he carved two of the fruit and put them on display. They were soon snapped up by passersby. Gu Xinliang said: 'Lettering on the watermelon takes time and carving a word takes around ten minutes.' But taking the time out to add the letterings meant that people were soon purchasing the fruit.Longevity and a snake: The man thought of the idea while he was sitting waiting for customers to buy his watermelons. He carved the entire lot with characters meaning 'Chinese dream' and 'prosperity.' Gu Xinliang says after adding art to the watermelons, he sold 3,000 kilograms (6,610 pounds) in just 11 days. He also sold the remainder of his crop of cantelopes. He says: 'I had no idea that by writing blessings on watermelons, I would soon sell out.' Xinliang says growing up he was fond of calligraphy but his family didn't have enough money to buy the necessary books and pens for him to practice the skill. However the popularity of the carved watermelons have had an impact on his health. culled from dailymail.co.uk

Badgers and bovine tuberculosis.

Badgers are not transmitting bovine tuberculosis (TB) to cattle through contact as the two species are never close proximity, a study has concluded. Over the past 40 years’ research has maintained that badgers have been infecting cattle with TB because of direct contact between the animals. However, the new study has demonstrated that this is not the case and the infection is spread through alternative ways. Scientists tracked hundreds of badgers and cattle using GPS collars on farms in Cornwall. It was found that though badgers spend a lot of time in cattle fields, there was no direct contact between the animals, with badgers preferring to be around 50m away from the cows. It has previously been assumed that cattle need to be in close proximity, around 1.5m, with an infected badger in order to be affected. Bovine TB is a serious issue for farmers to face, with 5,000 new herds diagnosed with the disease in 2014. The research, published in Ecology Letters, suggests that advice given to farmers about how to control the spread of TB may need to be reconsidered in light of the study. One possible route of infection is through badger faeces and urine in the grazing pastures which may leave the TB infection there for months and will explain why infected cows could be passing the disease between themselves. The team, made up of scientists from Imperial College and the Zoological Society of London, have said that vaccinating badgers may be a better way to tackle bovine TB instead of culling. contributed by wired.co.uk

A Dutch artist is making a fashion statement by converting cow manure into eco-friendly couture.

Cow dung just found a new value, its chemically converted into clothing. Cow dung and the fashion industry,a rare but exceptional combination. A Dutch artist is making a fashion statement by utilizing chemistry to convert cow manure into eco-friendly couture. watch.

The need for open data in agriculture and nutrition to ensure food security.

New data-driven solutions in agriculture and nutrition are increasingly being seen as a way to tackle the estimated population explosion. It is estimated that the population of the world is expected to double and the increase will definitely result in more food production. The Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative seeks to support global efforts to make agricultural and nutritional relevant data available, accessible, and usable worldwide. The three and a half year initiative funded by the UK Department for International Development will focus on building high-level policy support for open data in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors GODAN encourages collaboration and cooperation among existing agriculture and open data activities, and brings together stakeholders to solve global challenges. 

GODAN is about impact, it’s about finding the open data practices that work and using them to advocate for more open data in agriculture and nutrition. The initiative is using a data revolution to drive innovation in agriculture and nutrition, which ultimately means improved livelihoods for farmers, especially those in the developing world, and the ability for more people to feed themselves.more This is where telecommunication comes into play, the higher the number of farmers that are connected on a network/platform ,the more data is generated and information disseminated easily. The issue of data is key to any economy, if people,farms, markets,hospitals,stores can not be identified in terms of location,size and capacity then no meaningful planning can be set in motion and definitely no budgetary allocation to cater for that sector. Phones with easy connectivity are a vital tool for growth in agriculture. 

The possibilities are endless and its sad that most farmers in the developing countries are still not connected,the issue of disease surveillance,disease control ,animal health services and pricing of products can easily be rectified by connection of farmers on the network. 

The recent outbreak of anthrax in Yamal could have been curtailed and not escalated as it is now,where many are infected ,and a record of a child' death. The authorities have said they have to bury about 150 corpses a day, all because there was a bridge in communication, the herd man involved had to walk for 5 days to notify authorities of the disease incidence,this delay caused exposure of some many people and also consumption of infected animals. 

 Precision agriculture which is the modern farming ,also works on this premise.The data generated are sent through phones over a reliable network,most of the information generated from the farm,the animals,the soil and environment are all relayed through phones,and the corrective measures also through this platform making response time fast and production effective. 

I believe this is the time to start counting,numbers rule the world. The number of people at risk of hunger in the developing world is estimated to grow to more than a billion people by 2050,but sadly these people are not connected on any network. 

 Mobile connectivity that is expected to drive growth and development along side digital inclusion is still very low among rural communities. The 2016 Mobile Economy report for Africa, which was released by GSMA during the GSMA Mobile 360 Africa event in Dar Es Salaam, , showed that at the end of 2015, 46 per cent of the population in Africa, subscribed to mobile services, which is equivalent to more than half of a billion people. Africa’s three dominant markets are Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa, together accounted for about a third of the region’s total subscriber base.This shows there is so much to be done to ensure all facets of the economy is connected through data sharing, data analysis and networking at various levels to ensure the food security goal.

Agriculture is big business..

Agriculture is taking center stage with more and more countries ,corporations,technology industries racing to dive in and make profit from the green gold. Farming for sustenance has been greatly out matched by innovative farming methods which has proven to be a faster, cheaper and easier way of providing food . Agriculture has benefited from technology with biocrops, hydroponics, drones,precision farming and most especially urban farming. The need to utilize available space to produce food crops has stemmed the innovation in urban farming such sack farming,trough farming, vertical farming on terraces and roof tops and green house technology. This all points to the fact that land though a necessity is a scare resource and various initiatives have been put in place to access this resource. In Nigeria to further encourage more people to practice agriculture,the river basin development authority of various states have made land readily available for urban farming. The Ogun-Osun River Basin Authority which covers Lagos, Ogun, Osun and Oyo States the authority allocates a portion of the land to farmers on a lease-based agreement,after paying the stipulated fees. The river basin development authority have irrigation systems that supply water to the farms and tractor services for plowing and cultivation at highly subsidized rates. They also provide fertilizers and seedlings are also available at subsidized rates as well,farmlands are also readily accessible and affordable accommodation for workers and security of the land is also guaranteed. The federal government of Nigeria in a bid to promote agriculture is set to launch a graduate agriculture scheme in 12 River Basins in the country as 50 graduates are expected to be trained per river basin in various areas of agricultural production. continue The leasing of land for agricultural purposes to foster food production is just taking prominence among the citizens,its this same policy that the Zimbabwean and South African farmers have used for years in the country for farming and breeding purposes. This system has also been harnessed in Japan to foster food production ,with traditional family farms on the wane, corporations are increasingly entering the agriculture sector, taking advantage of an updated law allowing them to lease farmland across the country. At the end of 2015, more than 2,000 companies were operating in the farm sector, a roughly five-fold increase from before the farmland law was revised in 2009, according to the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry. Among them is Morishige Bussan Co., a food wholesaler in the city of Saitama that’s growing perilla on a 6-hectare patch of hilly land in Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture.continue

Youths in Agriculture,the future of work.

The clamor to get more people into agriculture is growing by the day. The diversification of various economies around the world has seen massive revamping of the agricultural sector with youths in the center stage. The eye-opening fact that the ever growing world population needs a massive input of food production to ensure food security where many nations have realized that to feed themselves they have to double-up on agriculture combined with various innovations and technology transfer from other nations to reach their goal. The inclusion of youth in agriculture through various initiatives are widespread all over the world but most predominant in African countries,who according to reports will account for a major percentage of the population growth expected. In Nigeria there are various agricultural-initiatives targeted at youths,young graduates and high school graduates,the AGRIC-YES programme is an example.The government also recently announced a graduate agric scheme which will see about 500,000 trained in various sectors of agriculture such as poultry e.t.c. The school agric project is also another initiative,where agricultural practices and processes are taught and practiced in schools,thereby equipping the students for the future while growing their interest in agriculture. The agricultural initiatives spans across the country with many state governments incorporating youths in various scheme; the Osun state government recently sent some youths to Germany for training in agriculture with the goal to expand expertise and establish a more viable agrarian economy, the Imo state government has even proposed that the workers in the state should operate a 3-day-in the office and 2-days for agriculture to further empower the workers and increase food production in the state. A recent survey shows that more young Africans are ditching office jobs for the farms,a sign that the youths themselves realize that agriculture,agribusiness and agric-investment is where the future lies. They Jamaica recently staged a youth in agriculture village with the theme My dream;agripreneurship. Read A new initiative to involve more youths in agriculture in Jamaica has be launched by Farm Up Jamaica Limited (FUJL) which has implemented a ‘Young Soldiers for Food Security’ (YSFS) programme aimed at encouraging more of the country’s youth to get involved in agriculture. Farm Up is a non-profit organisation, established in 2013 to assist local farmers in the cultivation of organic produce. It is comprised of Jamaicans living in the diaspora. Executive Director of FUJL, Neil Curtis, said YSFS is a “deliberate push” to engage the youth in farming, after realizing that the majority of the persons in the sector are over 50 years old .Students from several agriculture schools get the opportunity to gain practical farming experience by working on our organic farms every weekend, and thus helping them to consider farming as an alternative career path. He The future actually lies in agriculture as many have come to realize that no nation can survive without agriculture because its the basis of major industries such as textile,leather,food processing,arts and crafts and biogas and electricity. The race to get more people involved is not solely for food security but to engage more stakeholders so as to provide innovative solutions to the climate change by practicing agriculture with better understanding of the ecosystem.