Not-for-profit life sciences publisher CABI has announced that the Plantwise Knowledge Bank, a new initiative from the company, has been highly commended in the Publishing Innovation category at the 2012 ALPSP awards.
Part of the wider Plantwise programme, the Knowledge Bank helps extension workers, government organisations and researchers support farmers by providing vital information on essential crops and the pests and diseases which attack them. The awarding panel noted that the resource is intuitive and disarmingly simple with clear practical benefits. They also recognised the geospatially indexed content and field observations, which connect farmers in developing countries to reliable plant health information.
A key challenge for any global resource is to deliver locally applicable results and this is particularly true in agriculture. Knowledge Bank users can start their search from a homepage tailored to their country to ensure they are seeing geographically relevant information. They can also explore interactive distribution maps if they need a more regional or worldwide view. The diagnostic tool then identifies plant diseases and pests from pictures of symptoms and a range of factsheets provide information on possible treatments.
Access to validated science-based information helps farmers and those who support them bring more crops to maturity. These crops feed farmers and their families, as well as contributing to the wider food security of countries across the world. The Plantwise Knowledge Bank currently holds over 1600 factsheets to help extension workers, government organizations and researchers identify solutions and the resource is continuing to grow.
