Smart Agriculture in Central America: A Big Data Roadshow Central America

The Roadshow will engage public, private, and civil society actors in select Central American countries on a number of successful examples of the use and management of big data in the agricultural sector via a series of two-day workshops entailing presentations of leading initiatives in this area carried out by three external partners (notably, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society of the Columbia University Earth Institute, and GlobalG.A.P.) and related round-table discussion. Presentations will focus on two key issues: (1) leveraging national agricultural information systems to facilitate evidence-based decision-making; and (2) leveraging food safety certification standards to facilitate market access. More broadly, the presentations will touch on themes of agricultural decision-making, agricultural productivity, and farm-level/sector-wide resilience. On a strategic level, the Roadshow aims to build a strong foundation for future dialogue and collaboration between the visited countries, the visiting organizations/firms, and the World Bank towards the potential adoption of data solutions related to information and decision support systems as well as market access and certification systems.