November 10th, 2010
Final Call for AGRO-ICT- Conference Uganda

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There are only some days left until AGRO-ICT conference opens its doors in Uganda. If you have not registered yet, please do it at: http://www.progis.com/events/uganda2010/registration.html . Since our last message, we have upgraded the program with some very interesting topics. Please look at:http://www.progis.com/events/uganda2010/program.html

The list of participants becomes longer and longer – there are represented 12 countries already.

If you did not decide whether to take part or not,  – here are some additional thoughts gathered during the Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change, which took place last week in The Hague/The Netherlands, where several hundred highest ranking decision and policy makers of almost all countries of this world were represented and where PROGIS hold a side event on ”ICT in support of agriculture, forestry, environment and risk management – an integrative approach” together with company Adcon – the European weather-station expert. Next to introducing the integrated approach for land- and farm-management as it will be the topic in Uganda as well, panellists discussed the following topics.

The role of public-private cooperation within innovation

• The need to optimize the use of  resources
• The need to build the right institutions
• The need to select best practices
• To develop accounting methodologies for comparing technologies
• To address ALL elements of ecosystems
• To promote climate smart agriculture
• To combine long term economic returns with shorter term environmental and social returns
• To understand the need of synergy between government policies
• Climate finance can help to pay upfront costs of innovative technologies and frameworks
• Organize finance for carbon sequestration and understand that
• Agriculture is the only emitting carbon sector that has the capability to sequestrate carbon and  use the potential to link agriculture and climate change within integrated approaches
• To use the window of opportunity to use fast track funding
• To give farmers long term land use rights on restored land
• To commit to the urgent need to work on large scales and
• To understand the need to integrate banks and insurance companies
• etc. etc.

The conclusion of the The Hague conference  is summarized in a roadmap for action which you may download here: http://www.afcconference.com/final-roadmap-for-action, but we want to highlight that about 75 % of the tools and technologies, required for climate smart agriculture are developed by PROGIS and technology partners and in practical use already.