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Here’s how the World Bank defines financial inclusion: It means that “Individuals and businesses [should] have access to useful and affordable financial services and products that meet their needs – transactions, payments, savings, credit and insurance – delivered in a sustainable way” Considering this, the scale of smallholder farmers who are not financially included is […]

A case study of Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute The dairy sector, an allied sector of agriculture, can do well with the utilisation of data-driven digital innovations.  While the key utility of such digital innovations lies in strengthening the management information system by enabling online real-time data collection, it can also be used for documentation and processing […]

“Products containing baby spinach with possible salmonella contamination recalled in 8 states” ran the headline throughout the weekend in the U.S., in January this year.  This recall occurred after routine sampling by the Florida Department of Agriculture and the New York Department of Agriculture and markets.  The consequence was that various prepared foods that contained […]

Foodborne illnesses are always a potential public health burden.  Every year in the United States, 48 million people (that’s one in six) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and another 3000 die each year from foodborne illnesses.*  This points to the fact that without a proper food safety legislation, the threat of a public hazard is […]

Data-driven agriculture and Smallholder Farmer : The entire buzz about data-driven agriculture at times brings our attention back to the smallholder farmer, whose communities have been engaged in agriculture over generations, and who produce the majority of the world’s food.  Where does he fit in the new scheme of things, in which data generation and […]

A plant can actually have properties similar to pharmaceutical drugs, and people have been using them throughout history to either cure an illness or lessen its symptoms – and these plants fall in the category of medicinal plants.  Medicinal plants have the ability to synthesize a wide variety of chemical compounds that are used to […]

Cocoa-based chocolates are hot favorites as gifting options – be it on birthdays, anniversaries, or even on Valentine’s Day.  Discovered by the Spanish when they invaded native cultures, cocoa was kept a secret for a hundred years.  But it soon landed in Europe through trade routes, where, at that time, it was consumed only by […]

At the base of the entire agrarian system is the seed.  Without a way to preserve and propagate the seed, what would be left of agriculture? As we know, in the way primitive agriculture was practiced, after the harvest, farmers used to retain a part of the seeds to be planted in the next season. […]

Henry C. Wallace, one of the former Secretaries of Agriculture of the United States, had once remarked, “Agriculture is our greatest industry, transportation our second greatest.  These two industries are dependent upon one another, and the national well-being is dependent on both”. This statement simply puts in perspective the remarkable impact that a reliable and […]