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Nicaragua Creates Innovative Agricultural Information System With Open Source
johanneswilm writes "Nicaragua is the second-poorest country of the Americas. It is now also the Latin American country with the most capable web-based information system for agriculture, thanks to open source software. ALBAstryde itself is open source, and it is based on Django and jQuery. It allows the user to play with the data, and its reach is further extended by a net of radio stations which are broadcasting the numbers to remote peasants, who thereby, for the first time ever, get up to date data on prices and general production levels in the country. The implementation for the ministry of agriculture of Nicaragua already contains live data."
$('plant .coca').harvest('fast');
THL phish sticks
I, for one, welcome our agricultural monitoring overlords?
It would be an interesting exercise to check out the U.S. systems and review how they could be improved. Especially the market systems. The USDA does a lot of monitoring of various local markets for everything from cattle to hay to everything in between. Conditions at all these markets contribute to the commodities price at the main trading markets in Chicago. If you look at the USDA data though, it's all still old mainframe stuff with tab delimited all caps formatting. The data is all fairly disjointed and it's not possible right now to mine the data unless you want to collect and translate it all into your own data warehouse. These market reports often contain interesting information about why the price is being affected, such as weather conditions, etc. I think the government should do a better job of making this data available to the public. You know the big trading houses have negotiated direct feeds to this data, and I think that gives them unfair advantage in determining market pricing.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
If small time farmers can prosper using this system in one of the poorer country in Latin America, this could bode very well for fair-trade types of practices and businesses, as well as micro-lenders, all over the world.
Good luck, amigos!
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
So Nicaragua comes out and does something really interesting and in response we subject their 400 mhz K6-2 server to the Slashdot Effect. Whose idea was this? Henry Kissinger?
How long before Microsoft announces "Microsoft Hinterland ShareCrop Server 2010" to compete?
They're hiding something. Since the Japanese ministry of agriculture is not responsible for Gundam, it must be some other ministry of agriculture responsible for it. And this is but one sinister sign of which one exactly it might be...
...if they didn't intermittently keep electing the communist Sandinistas to wreck and loot their country.
Yay communists think that they're so special! Only they buy the Microsoft propaganda that open source software is communism. Useful idiots.
Shut up and report back, when agricultural output in the country increases by, at least, 50%...
For benchmark, this source reports: During 1990-2000 the agricultural output grew by a yearly average of 5.7%. In 2001, the agricultural trade surplus was $85.2 million. But that was when the Sandinistas were out of power. They are ruling the country again since 2006, when Daniel Ortega returned to the presidency with 37.99% of the vote.
In 2007 they were afraid of a famine blaming a hurricane. Unless their policies are drastically different now, they aren't going to achieve much good, even if they use Linux for their command-and-control implementation of economy — for the Greater Good (TM).
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
and show that giving poor countries technology so that their people can learn, grow and prosper will work out better then just throwing food and money at them just too keep their miserable, go nowhere lives going.
Give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime.
On the other hand it would be in best interest of big corporation that these poor countries don't move up and prosper as this kills cheap labor.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Sure, they will put all this effort in making their agriculture more efficient, only to have their crops overtaxed in the US and Europe because of pressure from their richest farmers.
"and show that giving poor countries technology so that their people can learn, grow and prosper will work out better then just throwing food and money at them just too keep their miserable, go nowhere lives going."
Maybe, but before you all decide that technology is the silver bullet to what ails the third world. You might want to view this Global Voices video over at Hulu.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
About boosting output, have a look at what Chile did with Project Cybersyn during the Allende reign.
Of course, when the CIA-backed coup took place (Project FUBELT/Track II, the first thing the USA-installed puppet dictator Pinochet did was to dismantle the project.
The Cybersyn project itself was not a reason for the coup. It was collateral damage. But having a more efficient way of governing and routing around damage such as outside-sponsosred strikes in this little leftist country was obviously anti-business, and therefore anti-USA.
A note from the 2009 reconstruction of Cybersyn:
Interestingly enough, the coup happened at September 11. The year was 1973.
Ronnie Reagan and Ollie North were right! all the Nicaraguans are damned communists! Open Source?! this would never have happened if the USA had continued to fund the Contras!
At our farm we have been using a particular open source device for generations. We call it "well".
If I read well, Senator Feinsten clearly said: "“Today across the United States, there are not enough agricultural workers to pick, prune, pack or harvest our country’s crops. With an inadequate supply of workers, farmers from Maine to California, and from Washington State to Georgia, have watched their produce rot and their farms lay fallow over the years,” Lean Muscle X
These peasants are going to get used to looking at data and making decisions, and then what? It's a slippery slope to scientific habits and secularism. We'd best send in the Marines to set things right before it gets too far. Nicaraguans need to accept their place: illiterate, undernourished, and working obediently and QUIETLY for American business.
What % of Nicaragua farmers are connected to Internet?
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
The fact that you applaud the US killing foreign heads of state for the 'crime' of being socialist is NOT distinct from the topic. It is entirely germane, and horrifying, so much so that it completely discredits anything else you have to say.
Just one? I already have. The US backed coup in Chile removed democratically elected president Salvador Allende and replaced him with Augusto Pinochet, a brutal monster who, as I said, slaughtered his people for generations to come. You may cheer that slaughter, but slaughter it was.
I can't believe you haven't given up by now. I mean, we both know I've handed you your ass over and over again in this debate. Your only defense so far has been a childish, "Nuh uh! Is not!" sort of vapid disagreement with the well documented facts I've cited.
Hopefully, these delicious truths burns painfully in the pit of your stomach as you contemplate the utter lie your entire life is based on.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton