The UN FAO, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and the Pan African Farmers Organization (PAFO) have just launched a new publication on Farm data management, sharing and services for agriculture development.

The publication aims to strengthen the skills of professionals who use, manage data for the benefit of farmers and farmers organizations by exposing them to the topics of importance of data in the agriculture value chain. The book also explains how new and existing technologies, products and services can leverage farm level and global data to improve yield, reduce loss, add value and increase profitability and resilience.
 
Areas covered in this book include the value and the different types of data, services, and applications; data sharing information and the using of data principles; the strategies related to farmer profiling and how and where to find open data; how to expose data with some basics of licensing, copyright, and database rights. The publication raises awareness about data on and for farmers as well as the products and services that have become a growth area, driving expectations and investments including e-extension, precision agriculture and digital financial services.