Charmley, Ed, Hay, Rachel, and Bishop-Hurley, Greg (2016) Impact of communication technologies on pastoralist societies. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Rangeland Congress. pp. 78-83. From: 10th International Rangelands Congress, 16-22 July 2016, Saskatoon, Canada.

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Abstract

The rangelands cover approximately 20% of the World's land surface and provide 16% of annual food production as meat and milk for local and distant markets (Holechek, 2013). Food production from rangelands represents an important source of nutrition as global human population is projected to exceed 9 billion by 2050 (United Nations, 2015). There is pressure to increase production from the pastoralism but this has to be done sustainably to ensure the productive capacity is not eroded in the longer term for short term gains. Information technology represents a very real opportunity to improve livelihoods, increase food production and secure environmental outcomes in the pastoral lands.

About 70% of the World’s pastoral lands are found in developing and emerging economies where they support indigenous human populations existing in a close synergy with their livestock (Reid et al., 2014). Such societies are driven by cultural mores that often lead to sub-optimal livestock production, over grazing and poor resilience to factors such as climate change and societal upheaval. In developed countries, pastoral lands are under threat from depopulation, loss or lack of infrastructure to support developed production systems and competition for alternative use of the rangelands, such as carbon storage, mining, ecosystem services and tourism (Roxburgh and Pratley, 2015). Against this background then, how can information technologies transform the pastoral lands from marginal production systems to those that are resilient to challenges, sustainable in the long term and deliver optimum levels of livestock production?

Item ID:	45989
Item Type:	Conference Item (Research - E1)
ISBN:	978-1-77136-458-4
Keywords:	information communications technologies, ICT, livestock, rangelands
Related URLs:	http://rangelandcongress.org/irc-2016-ca...
Date Deposited:	25 Jan 2017 03:20
FoR Codes:	30 AGRICULTURAL, VETERINARY AND FOOD SCIENCES > 3002 Agriculture, land and farm management > 300210 Sustainable agricultural development @ 100%
SEO Codes:	97 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 970107 Expanding Knowledge in the Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences @ 20% 97 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 970110 Expanding Knowledge in Technology @ 70% 89 INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION SERVICES > 8902 Computer Software and Services > 890205 Information Processing Services (incl. Data Entry and Capture) @ 10%
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