Plantwise Knowledge Bank: Building Sustainable Data and Information Processes to Support Plant Clinics in Kenya
Plantwise supports plant health in developing countries through a combination of plant clinics and advice to farmers
Abstract
Plantwise supports plant health in developing countries through a combination of 'plant clinics' providing plant health advice to farmers, strengthened collaboration between different plant health stakeholders, and the Knowledge Bank database. In addition to providing free open-access tools for plant pest and disease management, the Knowledge Bank supports the plant clinics by providing secure data and information tools for managing and analyzing clinic data, and by working with them to learn to handle clinic data. While analysis of these data provides important insights into clinic performance, there are major challenges to collecting this data. CABI, in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture in Kenya, has been running a pilot to establish appropriate and sustainable data; data from all 15 districts running plant clinics are now being analyzed in the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Knowledge Bank team is using these lessons to work with other countries to develop locally-appropriate data and information systems.
Citation
Finegold, C.; Oronje, M.; Leach, M.C.; Karanja, T.; Chege, F.; Hobbs, S.L.A. Plantwise Knowledge Bank: Building Sustainable Data and Information Processes to Support Plant Clinics in Kenya. AgInfo Worldwide (2014) 6: 96-101.