ArcGIS for Global Agricultural Programmes

Esri announces that the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) has signed a site license providing its fifteen research centres throughout the world with access to ArcGIS software. CGIAR works in collaboration with hundreds of government, civil society, and private organisations to reduce poverty and hunger, improve human health and nutrition, and create greater ecosystem resilience. Esri's geographic information system (GIS) technology will be implemented in the centers to foster programs for sustainable agricultural growth benefiting the poor.

"This site license agreement will ensure that scientists in every center have access to the GIS technology they need to continue their important work including the creation of data collections on population, poverty, climate, soils, crops, livestock, transportation, and biodiversity," says Enrica Porcari, chief information officer of CGIAR. "The centres will provide spatial applications that help users more readily see and understand interrelationships between such subjects as urban and rural markets, crop production, deforestation, and soil erosion."

"The new agreement with Esri represents a major advance in the ability of CGIAR and its partners to build and share location-specific agricultural and natural resource knowledge products to help overcome poverty and hunger," says Stanley Wood, coordinator of the Consortium for Spatial Information (CSI) of CGIAR and International Food Relief Program (IFPRI) senior research fellow.

"Esri is pleased to work closely with CGIAR as it strives to provide food security for every nation," says John Steffenson, manager of the Esri federal civilian and global affairs team in Washington, D.C. "We strongly support the critical research of these centres as they improve agricultural production, sustainability, and resilience globally."

Esri's ArcGIS will provide the platform for collaborative efforts in GIS-based agricultural research at global, regional, and local levels in every centre. This will allow CGIAR to continue creating online applications such as the Amazon Initiative which allows dynamic queries about biomass and deforestation in the Amazon. More than 10 CGIAR datasets and applications are also available as services from ArcGIS.com, a hosted Web site available for anyone to create, find, and use maps, applications, and tools.