Blended learning education on precision farming in developing countries: The example of Cape Verde and Mozambique

The continuous development of techniques related to agriculture information management and GIS, with a close connection to sustainable development, are factors which contribute to the dissemination of precision farming. Cape Verde and Mozambique have a strong dependence on agriculture, a lack of skilled professionals and extreme poverty rates in rural areas. There has been an increased acknowledgement of the need to develop new educational programs in developing countries focused on innovative crop and land management concepts. To overcome this issue, the NOVA Information Management School created a consortium with the Catholic University of Mozambique, the University of Cape Verde. The consortium developed the AgIM (Agriculture Information Management and Precision Farming) master course. Working in a blended learning format, the students learn to work with GIS, remote sensing, variable rate technologies, GPS and applications for the analysis of geo-referenced data. Currently both countries have skilled technicians with a strong interaction with local communities and farmers aiming at multiplying the benefits of precision farming, allowing to contribute to the decrease of poverty due to an improvement of the fields’ management and production.