Caribbean Librarian for Agriculture

"Trinidad and Tobago's first recorded endemic mammalian species is as cute as it is tiny, and is named after the famous broadcaster and naturalist, Sir David Attenborough. Introducing  Myotis attenboroughi , discovered by    Ricardo Moratelli,   Don Wilson, Roberto Novaes, Kristofer Helgen, and Eliécer E. Gutiérrez, which    represents the first, and only known, endemic mammalian species in the country...." see http://www.looptt.com/content/tt-goes-batty-over-first-endemic-mammalian-species 

Latin America and the Caribbean promotes an international code of conduct to prevent and reduce food losses and waste The region will submit a proposal to the Committee on World Food Security at the end of June. http://www.fao.org/americas/noticias/ver/en/c/893041/ 

African Farmers Facing Heavy Prison Sentences If They Continue Their Traditional Seed Exchange See http://alternativemediasyndicate.com/2017/06/06/african-farmers-facing-heavy-prison-sentences-continue-traditional-seed-exchange

New Caribbean Climate Hub Video Teaches Kids about Agriculture see https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/06/06/new-caribbean-climate-hub-video-teaches-kids-about-agriculture

See infographic for Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition Security see Factsheets

Data Sets for Agriculture At the recent  ICTforAg Conference , the “What Works for Ag Data: Apps, Tools, and Visualizations” session brought together three digital development professionals to discuss data analysis and presentation tools: Matthew Cooper  of Conservation International Tilly Josephson  of Vera Solutions Michael Shoag  of Forum One see http://www.ictworks.org/2016/07/11/9-data-sets-to-improve-your-ictforag-programs/

See Libguide by Shamin Renwick, Librarian, Alma Jordan Library, UWI, St. Augustine Lib Guide - Managing Information Resources in Science and Agriculture

Agriculture is the sector most vulnerable to the seasonal nature of drought

Agrimapps app  is an example of promising technology developed by researchers of the Facutly of Food and Agriculture and Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of the West Indies. See   https://play.google.com/store/ apps/details?id=dcit.uwi. agrimaps&hl=en Agrimapps aims to assist farmers and extension officers by providing crop selection recommendations tailored to the soil properties and climatic properties of individual sites. The app also provides other spatial information e.g. land contours, proximity to rivers etc and can be downloaded for free at the google play store. At present, it is only supported by android but other versions are in the pipeline.  (Shared by Renaldo Belfon)

The CIARD Routemap to Information Nodes and Gateways (RING)   is a global registry of web-based services that give access to any kind of information pertaining to agricultural research for development (ARD). It is the principal tool created through the CIARD initiative to allow information providers to register their services in various categories and so facilitate the discovery of sources of agriculture-related information across the world.  The RING aims to provide an infrastructure to improve the accessibility of the outputs of agricultural research and of information relevant to ARD management. The CIARD RING is a project implemented within the Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development ( CIARD ) initiative and is led by the Global Forum on Agricultural Research ( GFAR ). URL:  http://ring.ciard.net/home

Information Services at the Caribbean Development Bank has a collection which consists of reference books, monographs, handbooks, directories, journals, newspapers, conference reports and specialised technical writings. The collection covers a broad range of subjects, including: §   Energy and Technology §   Agriculture §   Environment §   Economic policy/planning §   Banks and banking §   Industry §   Reference Materials CDB INFOLINK - ONLINE PUBLIC ACCESS CATALOGUE (OPAC) External Users please use B9030 as your User ID URL: Information Services: http://www.caribank.org/titanweb/cdb/webcms.nsf/AllDo/C369772B1952479E0425744A0059DF05?OpenDocument OPAC: http://69.63.217.13/C10300Staff/OPAC/index.asp

EarthTrends - Agricultural Information is a page on the  EarthTrends - Environmental Information site , launched in 2001 by the World Resources Institute . Inside these pages you will find time-series information for over 500 variables, more than 2000 country profiles, as well as data tables, maps, and feature stories on a variety of environmental, social, and economic topics. URL: http://earthtrends.wri.org

A new journal for Sustainable Development has been started. The Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development is a biannual, peer-reviewed journal, available online at no charge. This multidisciplinary journal, will address the issue of 'sustainable development' and how it can be achieved. It publishes scholarly articles in the realms of public policy, science, economics and the law as they relate to the concept of sustainable development and its various facets (i.e. human well-being, economic growth, environmental quality, natural resource use and management, innovation, and technological change). The EJSD is a co-publication of International Policy Network ( www.policynetwork.net ) and the University of Buckingham ( www.buckingham.ac.uk ). URaL: http://www.ejsd.org/

CTA's Knowledge for Development website supports the policy dialogue on S&T for agricultural and rural development in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. It enables the ACP scientific community - primarily agricultural research and development scientists and technologists, policy makers, farmers and other stakeholders and actors - to share and review results of national and regional efforts and collaborate to harness science and technology for the development of agriculture in their countries.  You can register for a monthly newsletter via email. URL: http://knowledge.cta.int/

FAOLEX is  a multilingual team summarizes and in many cases translates laws and regulations on topics falling within FAO's mandate - agriculture, cultivated plants, environment, fisheries, food, forestry, land and soil, livestock, water and wild species and ecosystems. Legal information is received by FAO from Member Nations pursuant to Article XI of the FAO Constitution. "FAOLEX contains treaties, laws and regulations on food, agriculture and renewable natural resources from all over the world. Most of the material comes from the official gazettes sent by FAO's Member Nations pursuant to Article XI of the FAO Constitution, for the receipt of which FAO is indeed grateful. Upon receiving such material, the FAO Legal Office selects, indexes and summarizes in English, French or Spanish significant texts pertaining to FAO’s mandate, i.e. legislation on agriculture, livestock, environment gen., fisheries, food, forestry, land & soil, cultivated...

Farm Chemicals International has a Crop Protection Directory posted on their website. Have a look. URL: http://www.farmchemicalsinternational.com/cropprotection/cpd/

Networks start informally and, if successful, tend to become formal networks, attracting funding and evolving based on the needs of the members. Members of the Caribbean Regional Agriculture Policy Network (CaRAPN) met last week at a crucial point in its existence to formulate a Medium Term Strategic Plan. This link " Strategizing to support Agriculture " is a report on the first day of the meeting - Jul 27, 2010. URL: http://www.carapn.net/index.php

FAO announced   that it  is granting free and open access to its central data repository, FAOSTAT , the world's largest and most comprehensive statistical database on food, agriculture. Prior to this only limited information was  available on FAOSTAT. "FAOSTAT includes data on agricultural and food production, usage of fertilizers and pesticides, food aid shipments, food balance sheets, forestry and fisheries production, irrigation and water use, land use, population trends, trade in agricultural products, the use of agricultural machinery, and more. FAOSTAT can be consulted using English, French or Spanish and allows users to select and organize the statistical information into tables and charts according to their needs and to download it in Excel format. The original statistic data is supplied by individual countries and regional development organizations in standardized formats. Records go back to 1961, the dawn of the Green Revolution." Click this l...

The Trinidad and Tobago Network of Rural Women Producers (TTNRWP) is the Trinidad & Tobago chapter of Caribbean Network of Rural Women Producers (CANROP). TTNRWP has been in existence for the past 11 years. The current membership consists of groups of rural women throughout Trinidad and Tobago. CANROP was launched in July 1999 with support of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA), rural women of Barbados, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago . The main goals of the Network are to provide rural women with access to credit for micro-business projects, to contribute to government policies that are sensitive to and supportive of the special needs of rural women producers, to contribute to the elimination of the gender bias in the ownership of land, ensuring that women have the same opportunities as men to own property. The Network also seeks to provide marketing support for rural women producers and to offer training, research, t...

CariPestNet is an email network that assists people of the Caribbean sub-region in obtaining  advice and information on the identification and management of plant pests (Arthropods, micro-organisms, nematodes, molluscs & weeds). In so doing the network links the sub-region with Taxonomists and Plant Protection specialists world wide. CariPestNet URL: http://www.caripestnetwork.org/