Agriculture, Nokia, WWF in data distribution effort

The Agriculture Department said Wednesday that it tapped a leading mobile phone maker to distribute data on production volumes and crop prices to selected areas of the country. The Finnish firm’s Nokia Data Gathering solution will allow mobile access and sharing of agricultural data, a practice that is already in place in other countries. Also in the tie-up is international environment group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-Philippines). “In Manaus, Brazil, the software had greatly helped the Brazilian Ministry of Health to fight back dengue fever. [It] allowed Brazilian provinces to craft effective response strategies using data that established both the epidemic’s extent and the responses to treatment," the DA said in a statement. The software could, among others, track regional temperatures and compare provincial yields, Greg Elphinston, Nokia Finland’s director for corporate social investment, said in a statement. “If it can be used to avert outbreaks, it can also be used to avert a looming food crisis brought about by climate change," Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan, WWF-Philippines CEO, said. “Our ambition is to service all 1,500 Philippine municipalities within a decade," Elphinston added. The Agriculture Department, is giving emphasis on the country’s rice supply. “Overpopulation, droughts, storms, wasteful processing methods, plus the uneven cost of seeds and fertilizer, have hurt local production, forcing the government to import a part of the nation’s rice needs," the department said. “We are trying to develop realistic solutions to this problem. However, the current wave of climate change impacts — from massive droughts spawned by the El Niño phenomenon to more destructive typhoons — have greatly hampered our efforts," DA chief Bernie Fondevilla said in a separate statement. The Nokia software would supplement and eventually replace the department’s data-gathering systems, allowing Agriculture to concentrate on crafting programs and solutions that boost farm yields despite erratic weather patterns. Regular updates to supply-and-demand data could lead to a swift analysis of basic agricultural commodities such as rice, coconuts, meat, and vegetables, the DA said. “The Philippines is an archipelago with over 1,500 municipalities, most of which are separated by water. Tracking each area’s grain and water distribution, monitoring productivity and market prices —all in real-time — pose a huge logistical challenge to the DA," Fondevilla said. The lack of fresh data often hampers the decisions and policies the department needs to implement in response to specific situations in farms and markets. For starters, 100 Nokia E71 mobile phones with the software installed would be deployed to 100 Philippines municipalities. —VS, GMANews.TV