Africa Monitoring System sets to boost food security

AMS aims to provide real-time integrated data on agriculture, ecosystems services and human well-being, assembled in six indicator categories, which policymakers and organisations can use to better understand trade-offs that result from increased agricultural production.

Data will be collected by automated sensors as well as manual observations and measurements from technicians and will also be incorporated from household surveys using smart phones, says Sandy Andelman, vice president at US-based non-governmental organisation Conservation International (CI). "The data will be summarised into a set of holistic indicators and displayed on [an open access] web-based dashboard," she told SciDev.Net. CI co-leads the AMS project.

Andelman said the tool's target audience will be policymakers at the international, national and regional level, donors, agricultural extension systems, non-governmental organisations and farmers' associations. Farmers, she said, would also benefit indirectly through improvements to livelihoods and the maintenance of ecosystems. Allafrica.com reports that Ethiopia, Ghana and Tanzania will be the first countries to contribute data to the tool, in the first of three phases targeting five regions in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Read the full article on http://allafrica.com.