Blockchain technology is a distributed electronic ledger of digital records, events or transactions that are cryptographically secure, extremely hard to forge, and updateable through a consensus protocol agreeable to all connected nodes. [1] The technology uses decentralized consensus algorithms to control database consistency. The database is purely distributed in nature and is shared to all nodes connected to the network. Transactions in the databases are bundled together for specified period of time to form a block of certain number of transactions.These blocks are linked cryptographically through hash pointers to form a chain of blocks with transactions (Figure 1) [1][2][3].
Horticulture as the part of agriculture sector plays the role for food security, economic growth and nutrition improvement. In developing countries where agriculture is regarded as the backbone of most countries' economy it draws attention for most governments as the main source of employment and livelihood for the majority. Agricultural extension has been the key facilitator for achieving high crop productivity and an enabler to knowledge resources for these countries. However, lack of clear information for vegetable cultivations, crop requirements, climatic information, pests and diseases to constantly help farmers to come up with proper potential yield of the vegetable crops reduce the potential of horticulture in improving the farmers livelihood and countries economic gain , Therefore, this study aims at bringing the ICT-enabled extension support system for farmers to help them make decision on proper ways of cultivating their crops based on locations' and timely climatic condition.
As evident as the contribution of broadband internet in developed countries' economies has been, many developing countries have taken initiatives to exploit the same. However, the efforts are not reflected in the rural areas broadband adoption as reported by global Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs') ranking bodies. This study aims to analyze the factors towards the uncorrelated relationship between the broadband initiatives against broadband adoption in rural parts of Low Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) looking from the supply side, exemplified here by Tanzania. The initiatives considered are National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) and Universal Communication Service Access Fund (UCSAF). The study deployed a Qualitative Research Method (QRM) exploiting semi-structured interviews for data collection. 23 interviews were conducted with personnel from the aforementioned entities together with their collaborating agencies. Thematic analysis was opted where vigorous coding and data cleaning resulted in five themes characterizing poor broadband adoption; infrastructure, affordability, digital skills, contents' relevance and services, and statistical reporting. The majority of the response (84%) agreed that the ranks reflect what is found on the ground hence more work is needed from the supply side on enforcing adoption in rural areas. Nevertheless, 16% of the coded responses maintain a view that improper statistical reporting due to statistical model mismatch and data unavailability from local statistical agencies to some extent causes the poor adoption ranks in the global ranking bodies. This article should provide insights to policymakers towards creating/improving and implementation of broadband plans/policies, and as a result, exploiting broadband contribution to countries' Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Pesticides authenticity is important for human health and environmental protection also economic progress of users, dealers and the government benefits through levies. In order to ensure that authentic pesticides are sold in Tanzania, laws have been enacted and government bodies given mandate to enforce these laws. Despite the efforts, counterfeits are found in markets. Companies that spend a lot in research so as to produce authentic pesticides products end up losing hope as no substantial return in investment. This study targets on an ICT based solution for pesticides authenticity verification in the market which is a case study of Arusha region. In order to prove the need for the solution, literature review has been done and presentation of data gathered from the identified three groups of pesticides stakeholders, which are regulatory authority, registrants/formulators/importers and users preferably farmers all from Arusha region. The findings from the collected data reveals that, despite high awareness on availability of counterfeit pesticides among respondents, still most of them declared to have been buying counterfeits. Hence, there is a need of more reliable ICT based solution to help pesticides users in authenticity verification of products during purchase.
Climate change is currently one of the most serious and extreme issues worldwide. Besides the contribution of human activities to climate change, the planet's climate is changing now much more than ever [1]. Due to climate-related and geophysical disasters, a total of 1.3 million people have died between 1988 and 2017, and a further 4.4 billion injured, homeless, and displaced [2]. Although a greater number of these disasters were due to geophysical events like earthquakes and tsunamis, 91% of all documented disasters due to natural hazards resulted from floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, heat waves, and other excessive weather events [3]. The effects of climate change are anticipated to further increase due to the general change and variability of climate.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.