Digitilization

2020 in review

Key impacts in 2020

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GEOAGRO PROJECTS FINALISTS IN THE CGIAR BIG DATA INSPIRE AWARDS
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LIVESTOCK TERMINOLOGIES SUBMITTED BY MEL TO AGROVOC.
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TUNISIAN FARMERS RECEIVE KEY INFO VIA CELL PHONE MESSAGES
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Geotagging datasets for mapping dryland farming systems

DIGITALIZING RESEARCH FOR A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

Throughout 2020, we continued digitalizing our research to facilitate faster, better, and more accurate data collection, knowledge sharing, analysis, and decision-making. Global developments in technology, digital analytics, remote sensing, networks, and software, especially on now-ubiquitous smartphones, make data collection, analysis, reporting, and knowledge sharing easier and more efficient, even in the most isolated and fragile dry areas where we work.  

Our unique and growing pool of big data – based on four decades of drylands research – helps to model and analyze new approaches, climate variability, assessment of new crop varieties and livestock improvements, socioeconomics, and decision-making at all levels. When consolidated with other Centers under the ongoing One CGIAR reformulation, our data will constitute a formidable resource that will contribute significantly to the battle against global climate challenges.   

In 2020, our Geoinformatics for sustainable Agro-Ecosystems (GeoAgro) team led by Dr. Chandra Shekhar Biradar ramped up the digitalization of research through its geo-big data-driven platform to leverage the latest cutting-edge technological innovations. Selected ICARDA projects contained GeoAgro pilot elements while staff and partners were trained on geotagging tools. The implementation of geo-referenced field data collection with geotagging tools led to collection of over 2500 datasets for mapping farming systems across dry region in 2020.   

We were also thrilled when four GeoAgro-related projects made it to the final fifteen (out of 120 entries) of the CGIAR Big Data Inspire awards. Two projects went on to win – one helps farmers monitor locust activity, and the other, supported by ILRI alongside ICARDA’s Dr. Mounir Louhaichi, facilitates accurate decision-making in rangelands health by pooling data and satellite imagery.

ICARDA’s Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Team, led by Dr. Enrico Bonaiuti, developed tools such as the WOCAT digital explorer and the Central Asia Climate Portal. These tools pool valuable data and knowledge such as climate information and global agricultural innovations from official international sources to support organizations, policymakers, and researchers in decision-making, monitoring, and learning.  

MEL also developed tools such as the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Quality Assurance Processor, or ‘M-QAP’, which pools large data sets from mainstream research databases to simplify and support research and encourage standardization across global databases. These tools have been adopted by the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area to strengthen the extent and complexity of their knowledge frameworks.  

Also in 2020, the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA) began using MEL as its prime monitoring and evaluation tool, to strengthen the extent and complexity of its intervention framework. PRIMA is a joint program undertaken by its 19 participating states aimed at creating a competitive environment for solutions development in research and innovation across the Mediterranean area. 

Through its MEL team, ICARDA also became the official AGROVOC editor in Arabic, in addition to its contribution to the English AGROVOC version, vastly increasing the integration of online tools and systems, which are in multiple languages. It also improves the discoverability of knowledge from the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region in line with the recent FAIR policy approved by CGIAR.  

Another exciting, digital-focused initiative is ICARDA’s involvement through Dr. Filippo Bassi, in the AGENT project, funded by the European Union and launched in 2020. It standardizes and pools phenotype information from global genebank networks within a single database and revolutionizes plant genetic resource information sharing. Our Genetic Resources Team is also accelerating research digitalization through tools such as the CGIAR Breeding Program Assessment Tool, which aids design and analysis, and helps the breeding management system centralize breeding data.  

Our ‘Query the Breeding Management System’ (QMBS) initiative was developed and published in 2020 to offer scientists and researchers easy ways to access knowledge from a wide range of analytics, visualization, and data transformations from within the Breeding Management System – an established tool that helps breeders manage their processes.    

Finally, ICARDA also embraces low-cost digitalization for services to stakeholders with a low technology, affordable approach. The ICT2Scale project uses cell phone-based services to offer e-learning and extension services for crop and small ruminant production, beekeeping, and conservation agriculture to farmers in Tunisia, and farmers in our community-based livestock projects in Ethiopia use the DTREO app to capture and share details about productive animals.

DIGITALIZATION DETAILS

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