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Can you share any examples, cases or stories of experiences of developing a national e-Agriculture strategy, policy or plans? What went well and what did not work? What are the lessons which can be learned?
you almost said all that it has to be explained, with many testimonies and example. For this final question, I just want to add my particular experience from Senegal, where I conducted a research in the sector of ICT for agriculture with the University of Turin and the Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA) in 2014, that's why I will write in French (quote from my report).
Dans le cadre de croissance basée sur les TIC et les téléservices, le secteur agricole au Sénégal a montré dans ces dernière ans son intérêt à se moderniser et profiter de outils innovants pour pousser le développement des revenus et la création d'emplois et pour réduire les pertes des récoltes, qui affectent considérablement les revenus des agriculteurs.
Pour exemple, à Janvier 2014 a eu lieu le Grand Prix du Fonds de développement du service des télécommunications (FDSUT) dans le cadre d'une coopération avec l'Agence de Régulation des Télécommunications et des Postes (ARTP) et la Croissance TIC (CTIC Dakar), qui ont lancés une compétition pour le développement de projets à fort impact économique dans les secteurs de l'élevage, de l'agriculture et de la santé avec l’utilisation des TIC. «Le concours concerne l'élevage, l'agriculture et la santé qui sont des secteurs stratégiques car ils contribuent à la l'amélioration des conditions de vie des populations. L'objectif est d'inciter les jeunes à entreprendre en matière de TIC», affirme le directeur de l'ARTP. Au Sénégal il y a actuellement le 70% de la pénétration mobile et le secteur des TIC constitue le 10% du BIP du pays, fait que pose le secteur parmi les priorités du gouvernement.
Le concours a donné la possibilité à jeunes développeurs et entrepreneurs sénégalais de créer solutions web et mobiles dans le domaines indiqués précédemment avec 8 projets gagnants et de 5 à 11 millions de FCFA pour la phase de test et d’implémentation: 3 dans la catégorie « Agriculture », 2 dans la catégorie « Elevage » et 2 dans la catégorie « Santé ». Pour ce qui concerne l’agriculture et l’élevage, les initiative sont :
SeedCom, une plateforme web et SMS pour améliorer la production et la vente des semences;
Sooretul, une plateforme d’e-commerce pour aider les groupes des femmes transformatrices à vendre les produits traditionnelles;
BaolRang, une plateforme web et SMS pour faciliter l’information dans l’agriculture;
Daral Technologies, un système qui permet la registration des batails et la prévention des maladies grâce à une plateforme vidéo et SMS;
Sen Ngunu, un logiciel qui permet la surveillance et la gestion des fermes de poulets et qui aides à optimiser les bénéfices.
We can consider it as an example of the will from public and private sector to encourage a national strategy and it had as a result the creation of the first ICT4Ag case studies in the country. I personally consider this case as positive, since it tried to create a co-space for the public sector and the young entrepreneurs supported by the CTIC, a private institution but supported by the governement. You can
If you want to have more information about the research, please just contact me and I can share the report with you as soons as it will be ready (very soon).
To better understand the situation in Senegal and the role of public/private institutions in this sector, watch this research video interviews we conducted at CTIC (Dakar) and published on Agritools, a research journalism project we are leading in Africa on the ICT4Ag sector:
* ARTP, (l’autorité de Régulation des Télécommunications et des Postes du Sénégal) est une institution indépendante chargée de réglementer le secteur des télécommunications au sein du paysage national, ce qui en fait l'un des acteurs les plus déterminants dans les TIC dans le pays.
* CTIC est le premier incubateur et accélérateur de croissance pour les entreprises du secteur des TIC en Afrique de l’ouest. Cette organisation à but non lucratif a vu le jour en Avril 2011 sous l’impulsion du secteur privé sénégalais - Organisation des Professionnels des TIC.
Thanks for sharing, Eliz-de. You mention in your post
We can consider it as an example of the will from public and private sector to encourage a national strategy and it had as a result the creation of the first ICT4Ag case studies in the country.
I'm curious if this initial will from the public and private sectors to encourage a national strategy resulted in the formalization of a strategy. If so, can you share more about that experience? If it did not, what happened to derail it?
There is the will to continue in this direction, even is there is not any specific programme dedicated to the ICT4Ag sector. There is a general programme that is called Stratégie de Croissance Accélérée (SCA).
As I wrote in the report:
"Les TIC sont considérés des points de croissance pour la création de richesse et d’emplois par le gouvernement du Sénégal, en représentant en 2012 environ le 10 % du PIB et, à l’horizon 2015, le 15 % du PIB selon les prévisions de la Stratégie de Croissance Accélérée (SCA)[1]. La SCA a été créé avec le but de développer et diversifier les sources de création de richesses du pays à travers la valorisation des produits du marché sans une transformation poussée et l’insertion durable dans les chaînes de valeurs internationales[2]. Dans ce cadre d’action, la SCA a identifié des "grappes de croissance" qui sont gérés par des organes de gestion et de promotion dont "chaque grappe" comprend un Président représentant le secteur privé et un Vice-président représentant l’Administration et un Coordonnateur, nommés par décidé par le Ministre de l’Economie et des Finances"[3]. Les grappes de croissance sont:
Elevage, Production et Industries Animales
Agriculture et Agro-industrie
Produits de la mer et Aquaculture
Tourisme, Industries culturelles et Artisanat d'art
Textile Confection
TIC et Téléservices
Dans l’idée de l’éradication de la pauvreté, de la de diversification et transformation de l’économie sénégalaise et de sa compétitivité dans un marché international, le TIC et Téléservices sont considérés un des facteurs de développement qui peut réduire le gap numérique entre le Sénégal et les pays plus développés numériquement d’ici à 2015 et que l’accès aux TIC soit généralisé et fasse partie de la culture et de la vie des citoyennes sénégalais".
As you can see, the strategy concerns different aspects and the agriculture is just one of these points. After my research (ended in November) the Government, together with some private companies and institutions, organized an event to promote some ICT initives: http://jambartechawards.com/ Some of these are related to agriculture and livestock, but there was not a specific event or plan to promote the one specialized in agriculture. Some days ago, there was another event, supported by the same public/provate institution: https://www.facebook.com/yourgeniusfamily/photos/pcb.832752023483957/832..., a training day organized by Genius family, a young start up that develop ICT solutions as the most famous one, Sen Ngunu, a software for the poulty farming: http://www.senngunu.com/
So, I can say there is a general will, but not a specific plan for ICT4Ag. And maybe because there are not enough proposition and involvement from youth, at least in Senegal.
Ken LohentoTechnical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA)Netherlands
Thanks a lot Elisabetta for your Senegal experience and the various links shared. This clearly indicates that there is a will from the government of Senegal to promote e-agriculture, even though their youth ICT entrepreneurship initiative (the various competitions they have supported through the incubator CTIC) is not only focused on agriculture. But we can see that the Grand Prix du Fonds de développement du service des télécommunications (FDSUT) targeted mainly agricultural sectors (2 out of the 3 domains targeted).
CTA also collaborated with their Ministry of agriculture (their agricultural training entity) two years ago, for the organisation of web 2.0/social media training devoted to agricultural officials, including extension officers. The good thing is that, after having experienced our sponsored training, very much interested, they funded themselves two other training sessions using our curriculum (I am not sure if it was with resources from the national budget or with a donor ‘s budget). All this shows indeed that the country does want to fully leverage on ICTs to support the transformation of the agricultural sector.
However, I have not understood this as a formal move to launch the development of an e-agriculture strategy as we are discussing it here. They have not launched, as far as I know, such a formal process. But they may be formally thinking about it. Also this does not prevent them, maybe in the meantime, to improve ICT usage in their agricultural sector.
Josh, In Ghana, the drive (interest) came from the Public sector. It was actually a government policy and it led to the development of the strategy. Government developed an ICT4AD policy after which sector strategies were developed including Health, Agriculture, and others. Since it was a government-driven agenda, all efforts were made to ensure that at least the documents were produced. All the required resources were sourced / provided and they were developed. The Ghanaian e-Agriculture Strategy was a very good document - my problem with it was the problem with ownership, which affected it's implementation.
The process in the Ivory Coast also originated from the public sector. it was in line with the government’s decision to modernise the agricultural sector and enhance its productivity. Again, in this case, the required resources were sourced / provided for the development of the strategy. In their case, there were experiences from other countries and so they dealt with the ownership problem correctly.
There are other examples to show that if the interest (or the drive) comes from the public sector, the chances of developing the strategy is very high. It does not however guarantee the involvement of the right stakeholders, and for that matter, its implementation. In some cases, consultants (who sometimes may not have clear understanding of e-Agricultue) are used to develop the strategy whicch finally ends up on the 'shelves'.
I will rather share a few experiences in implementing an e-commerce project in Ghana. Implementation results are often needed in formulating or revising guides, policies and plans.
An e-commerce/agricultural information centre was established in Koforidua, Ghana against the backdrop of lack of transparency in marketing, cheating by middlemen, limited knowledge of markets beyond national borders and emerging mobile telephony.
What went well:
many farmers and traders got registered on the platform
some took offers and had markets even in neighbouring West African countries
centre also served as venue for training farmers and traders
Esoko platform offered additional opportunity for accessing prices on mobile phones
What did not work:
internet connectivity was poor then in 2004
offers received were too big for smallholder farmers and petty traders
Lessons learned:
low level of computer literacy among beneficiaries. As system was mostly web-based, beneficiaries had to rely on extension officers, whose numbers keep on reducing
centre became less patronized as time went on due to technological changes
there should be strategies and plans towards sustainability of the process even under changing circumstances
action plans in e-agriculture guides should include activities such as farmer-based organizations development, creation of markets and productivity increases even if such activities do not require electronic means
Thanks Mr. Adukpo for bringing this up. In fact the lessons learnt form the E-Commerce project we implemented in the Eastern region, but also in other regions in Ghana was taken into consideration in the development of Ghana's e-Agriculture Strategy.
In India's e-Agriculture recent past, two efforts stand out. The first is SMS messaging (or voice messaging) involving market prices, input providers, weather forecasts tailored to geographically significant crops, and the like. Independent evaluations suggest that price and weather information that is acted upon is now reaching farmers from multiple other reliable and inexpensive channels; the novelty of SMS and canned voice messaging for younger early adopter farmers wears off, and decision making continues involve complex weights to Government data, the wisdom of elder farmers, visible early indicators, and the like. The other major push was by Government nationally, in parallel and by NGOs within their own institutes, to network their institutes by providing internet connections and computer hardware. The impact of basic infrastructure provision has not been stunning because its users are either too occupied with their routines while not being power users of remote scientific repositories, or loathe the filing of online forms, and associated overheads.
I believe that both efforts received backing because they are quick wins for their sponsors. It is as easy to broadcast SMSs as register mailing list receipients, it is more difficult to demonstrate impact from the limited general content broadcast following an evaluation. Similarly, it is easy to sanction funds for hardware as it is basic infrastructure, and overload field personnel with data entry and research directives.
There is a lot of potential to engage in user-centered design. Several Governments do not speak this language still, nonetheless.
Nestor NGOUAMBECameroon Youth Initiative dor Rural Development (CAMYIRD)Cameroon
Deal all, A National Strategie for e-agriculture will be really welcome in our country. the main challenge now is to get the
government involve at least the ministry of agriculture and the ministry of ICT and communication. My NGO is also inspired , but we already started by national training on ICT4ag (the use of ICT and social media for agriculture) now we are preparing a conference on social media, Agriculture and Youth engagement and at the end of the conference if we got donors, we will advocate for national strategie for e-agriculture.
PS: Between 2012-2013, we conduct astudent on how mobile phone, community radio could contribute for agriculture extension to reach farmer living in remote rural areas with positive results in terms of informations sharing and demonstration. the report of those studies was presented during ICT4ag conference in Kigali in 2013, and is still available in french.
The discussions in this e-agriculture forum have been illuminating and have given me pause for reflection. Our discussions have, understandably, considered hard content topics (e.g. stakeholders, methods, applications, lessons learned, etc.) but it would seem of benefit to also consider soft content topics (e.g. values, culture, philosophy, etc.) to provide a vision and mission for the tactical, hard content topics. A national level e-agriculture strategy should be clear that ICTs are not the solution but are merely enablers for people who create the solutions. As such, our strategy should promote empowerment, training and education as a segway to the requisite cultural shift – from top down, prescriptive governmental directives - to knowledge sharing, trust and transparency.
In addition to promoting a culture change, a people first approach will also position the strategy for the ambiguity of the future. The pace of technological change seems to outstrip our capacity to keep up with those changes. Any type of prescriptive e-agriculture strategy will quickly become obsolete. To that end I believe a worthy answer to Nyaneba’s (Edward Addo-Dankwa) query in Question 3 might be that an e-agriculture strategy should not be based on an existing agricultural strategy because it will likely be top down and prescriptive. By focusing on knowledge sharing, trust and transparency individuals will be better equipped to rapidly respond to changes in ICT technologies, business models and paradigms within the context of an e-agriculture strategy.
So to bring this back to the discussion, a top down, prescriptive governmental directive will not work (question 4). A strategy that promotes empowerment, training and education of people provides a ‘values’ messaging (question 2). This will contribute to a process for aligning an appropriate vision and mission (question 3) with the tactical, hard content topics that we have discussed.
For non-agri sectors the 20th century was all about achieving organizational and supply chain efficiencies (e.g. Malcolm Baldridge Awards, ISO 9000, just in time manufacturing, etc.). For agricultural value chains, ICTs and mobile money will not only promote greater efficiencies but also increased economies of scale. Agricultural ICTs and mobile money will do for the base of the economic pyramid what commercial banking did for the Industrial Revolution!
Dear all,
you almost said all that it has to be explained, with many testimonies and example. For this final question, I just want to add my particular experience from Senegal, where I conducted a research in the sector of ICT for agriculture with the University of Turin and the Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA) in 2014, that's why I will write in French (quote from my report).
Dans le cadre de croissance basée sur les TIC et les téléservices, le secteur agricole au Sénégal a montré dans ces dernière ans son intérêt à se moderniser et profiter de outils innovants pour pousser le développement des revenus et la création d'emplois et pour réduire les pertes des récoltes, qui affectent considérablement les revenus des agriculteurs.
Pour exemple, à Janvier 2014 a eu lieu le Grand Prix du Fonds de développement du service des télécommunications (FDSUT) dans le cadre d'une coopération avec l'Agence de Régulation des Télécommunications et des Postes (ARTP) et la Croissance TIC (CTIC Dakar), qui ont lancés une compétition pour le développement de projets à fort impact économique dans les secteurs de l'élevage, de l'agriculture et de la santé avec l’utilisation des TIC. «Le concours concerne l'élevage, l'agriculture et la santé qui sont des secteurs stratégiques car ils contribuent à la l'amélioration des conditions de vie des populations. L'objectif est d'inciter les jeunes à entreprendre en matière de TIC», affirme le directeur de l'ARTP. Au Sénégal il y a actuellement le 70% de la pénétration mobile et le secteur des TIC constitue le 10% du BIP du pays, fait que pose le secteur parmi les priorités du gouvernement.
Le concours a donné la possibilité à jeunes développeurs et entrepreneurs sénégalais de créer solutions web et mobiles dans le domaines indiqués précédemment avec 8 projets gagnants et de 5 à 11 millions de FCFA pour la phase de test et d’implémentation: 3 dans la catégorie « Agriculture », 2 dans la catégorie « Elevage » et 2 dans la catégorie « Santé ». Pour ce qui concerne l’agriculture et l’élevage, les initiative sont :
We can consider it as an example of the will from public and private sector to encourage a national strategy and it had as a result the creation of the first ICT4Ag case studies in the country. I personally consider this case as positive, since it tried to create a co-space for the public sector and the young entrepreneurs supported by the CTIC, a private institution but supported by the governement. You can
If you want to have more information about the research, please just contact me and I can share the report with you as soons as it will be ready (very soon).
To better understand the situation in Senegal and the role of public/private institutions in this sector, watch this research video interviews we conducted at CTIC (Dakar) and published on Agritools, a research journalism project we are leading in Africa on the ICT4Ag sector:
-"The challenges of the ICT4Ag sector in Senegal": http://www.agritools.org/the-ict4ag-sector-in-senegal/
- "The first incubator for ICT startups in Senegal": http://www.agritools.org/the-first-incubator-for-icts-start-ups-in-senegal/
* ARTP, (l’autorité de Régulation des Télécommunications et des Postes du Sénégal) est une institution indépendante chargée de réglementer le secteur des télécommunications au sein du paysage national, ce qui en fait l'un des acteurs les plus déterminants dans les TIC dans le pays.
* CTIC est le premier incubateur et accélérateur de croissance pour les entreprises du secteur des TIC en Afrique de l’ouest. Cette organisation à but non lucratif a vu le jour en Avril 2011 sous l’impulsion du secteur privé sénégalais - Organisation des Professionnels des TIC.
Thanks for sharing, Eliz-de. You mention in your post
I'm curious if this initial will from the public and private sectors to encourage a national strategy resulted in the formalization of a strategy. If so, can you share more about that experience? If it did not, what happened to derail it?
Dear Josh,
There is the will to continue in this direction, even is there is not any specific programme dedicated to the ICT4Ag sector. There is a general programme that is called Stratégie de Croissance Accélérée (SCA).
As I wrote in the report:
"Les TIC sont considérés des points de croissance pour la création de richesse et d’emplois par le gouvernement du Sénégal, en représentant en 2012 environ le 10 % du PIB et, à l’horizon 2015, le 15 % du PIB selon les prévisions de la Stratégie de Croissance Accélérée (SCA)[1]. La SCA a été créé avec le but de développer et diversifier les sources de création de richesses du pays à travers la valorisation des produits du marché sans une transformation poussée et l’insertion durable dans les chaînes de valeurs internationales[2]. Dans ce cadre d’action, la SCA a identifié des "grappes de croissance" qui sont gérés par des organes de gestion et de promotion dont "chaque grappe" comprend un Président représentant le secteur privé et un Vice-président représentant l’Administration et un Coordonnateur, nommés par décidé par le Ministre de l’Economie et des Finances"[3]. Les grappes de croissance sont:
Dans l’idée de l’éradication de la pauvreté, de la de diversification et transformation de l’économie sénégalaise et de sa compétitivité dans un marché international, le TIC et Téléservices sont considérés un des facteurs de développement qui peut réduire le gap numérique entre le Sénégal et les pays plus développés numériquement d’ici à 2015 et que l’accès aux TIC soit généralisé et fasse partie de la culture et de la vie des citoyennes sénégalais".
As you can see, the strategy concerns different aspects and the agriculture is just one of these points. After my research (ended in November) the Government, together with some private companies and institutions, organized an event to promote some ICT initives: http://jambartechawards.com/ Some of these are related to agriculture and livestock, but there was not a specific event or plan to promote the one specialized in agriculture. Some days ago, there was another event, supported by the same public/provate institution: https://www.facebook.com/yourgeniusfamily/photos/pcb.832752023483957/832..., a training day organized by Genius family, a young start up that develop ICT solutions as the most famous one, Sen Ngunu, a software for the poulty farming: http://www.senngunu.com/
So, I can say there is a general will, but not a specific plan for ICT4Ag. And maybe because there are not enough proposition and involvement from youth, at least in Senegal.
[1] Optic, Vision et plan d'actions du secteur prive pour le developpement de l'economie numerique, 2012, p.3 http://www.optic.sn/sites/default/files/publication/document_dorientation_et_de_plaidoyer_du_secteur_prive_des_tic_pour_le_developpement_de_leconomie_numerique_1.pdf
[2] Enjeux et objectifs stratégiques
http://www.sca.gouv.sn/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=90&Itemid=86
[3] Cadre institutionnel de mise en œuvre http://www.sca.gouv.sn/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=145:cadre-institutionnel-de-mise-en-oeuvre-&catid=59:cadre-institutionnel-et-plan-daction&Itemid=149
Thanks a lot Elisabetta for your Senegal experience and the various links shared. This clearly indicates that there is a will from the government of Senegal to promote e-agriculture, even though their youth ICT entrepreneurship initiative (the various competitions they have supported through the incubator CTIC) is not only focused on agriculture. But we can see that the Grand Prix du Fonds de développement du service des télécommunications (FDSUT) targeted mainly agricultural sectors (2 out of the 3 domains targeted).
CTA also collaborated with their Ministry of agriculture (their agricultural training entity) two years ago, for the organisation of web 2.0/social media training devoted to agricultural officials, including extension officers. The good thing is that, after having experienced our sponsored training, very much interested, they funded themselves two other training sessions using our curriculum (I am not sure if it was with resources from the national budget or with a donor ‘s budget). All this shows indeed that the country does want to fully leverage on ICTs to support the transformation of the agricultural sector.
However, I have not understood this as a formal move to launch the development of an e-agriculture strategy as we are discussing it here. They have not launched, as far as I know, such a formal process. But they may be formally thinking about it. Also this does not prevent them, maybe in the meantime, to improve ICT usage in their agricultural sector.
Ken
Josh, In Ghana, the drive (interest) came from the Public sector. It was actually a government policy and it led to the development of the strategy. Government developed an ICT4AD policy after which sector strategies were developed including Health, Agriculture, and others. Since it was a government-driven agenda, all efforts were made to ensure that at least the documents were produced. All the required resources were sourced / provided and they were developed. The Ghanaian e-Agriculture Strategy was a very good document - my problem with it was the problem with ownership, which affected it's implementation.
The process in the Ivory Coast also originated from the public sector. it was in line with the government’s decision to modernise the agricultural sector and enhance its productivity. Again, in this case, the required resources were sourced / provided for the development of the strategy. In their case, there were experiences from other countries and so they dealt with the ownership problem correctly.
There are other examples to show that if the interest (or the drive) comes from the public sector, the chances of developing the strategy is very high. It does not however guarantee the involvement of the right stakeholders, and for that matter, its implementation. In some cases, consultants (who sometimes may not have clear understanding of e-Agricultue) are used to develop the strategy whicch finally ends up on the 'shelves'.
I will rather share a few experiences in implementing an e-commerce project in Ghana. Implementation results are often needed in formulating or revising guides, policies and plans.
An e-commerce/agricultural information centre was established in Koforidua, Ghana against the backdrop of lack of transparency in marketing, cheating by middlemen, limited knowledge of markets beyond national borders and emerging mobile telephony.
What went well:
What did not work:
Lessons learned:
Thanks Mr. Adukpo for bringing this up. In fact the lessons learnt form the E-Commerce project we implemented in the Eastern region, but also in other regions in Ghana was taken into consideration in the development of Ghana's e-Agriculture Strategy.
In India's e-Agriculture recent past, two efforts stand out. The first is SMS messaging (or voice messaging) involving market prices, input providers, weather forecasts tailored to geographically significant crops, and the like. Independent evaluations suggest that price and weather information that is acted upon is now reaching farmers from multiple other reliable and inexpensive channels; the novelty of SMS and canned voice messaging for younger early adopter farmers wears off, and decision making continues involve complex weights to Government data, the wisdom of elder farmers, visible early indicators, and the like. The other major push was by Government nationally, in parallel and by NGOs within their own institutes, to network their institutes by providing internet connections and computer hardware. The impact of basic infrastructure provision has not been stunning because its users are either too occupied with their routines while not being power users of remote scientific repositories, or loathe the filing of online forms, and associated overheads.
I believe that both efforts received backing because they are quick wins for their sponsors. It is as easy to broadcast SMSs as register mailing list receipients, it is more difficult to demonstrate impact from the limited general content broadcast following an evaluation. Similarly, it is easy to sanction funds for hardware as it is basic infrastructure, and overload field personnel with data entry and research directives.
There is a lot of potential to engage in user-centered design. Several Governments do not speak this language still, nonetheless.
Deal all, A National Strategie for e-agriculture will be really welcome in our country. the main challenge now is to get the
government involve at least the ministry of agriculture and the ministry of ICT and communication. My NGO is also inspired , but we already started by national training on ICT4ag (the use of ICT and social media for agriculture) now we are preparing a conference on social media, Agriculture and Youth engagement and at the end of the conference if we got donors, we will advocate for national strategie for e-agriculture.
PS: Between 2012-2013, we conduct astudent on how mobile phone, community radio could contribute for agriculture extension to reach farmer living in remote rural areas with positive results in terms of informations sharing and demonstration. the report of those studies was presented during ICT4ag conference in Kigali in 2013, and is still available in french.
The discussions in this e-agriculture forum have been illuminating and have given me pause for reflection. Our discussions have, understandably, considered hard content topics (e.g. stakeholders, methods, applications, lessons learned, etc.) but it would seem of benefit to also consider soft content topics (e.g. values, culture, philosophy, etc.) to provide a vision and mission for the tactical, hard content topics. A national level e-agriculture strategy should be clear that ICTs are not the solution but are merely enablers for people who create the solutions. As such, our strategy should promote empowerment, training and education as a segway to the requisite cultural shift – from top down, prescriptive governmental directives - to knowledge sharing, trust and transparency.
In addition to promoting a culture change, a people first approach will also position the strategy for the ambiguity of the future. The pace of technological change seems to outstrip our capacity to keep up with those changes. Any type of prescriptive e-agriculture strategy will quickly become obsolete. To that end I believe a worthy answer to Nyaneba’s (Edward Addo-Dankwa) query in Question 3 might be that an e-agriculture strategy should not be based on an existing agricultural strategy because it will likely be top down and prescriptive. By focusing on knowledge sharing, trust and transparency individuals will be better equipped to rapidly respond to changes in ICT technologies, business models and paradigms within the context of an e-agriculture strategy.
So to bring this back to the discussion, a top down, prescriptive governmental directive will not work (question 4). A strategy that promotes empowerment, training and education of people provides a ‘values’ messaging (question 2). This will contribute to a process for aligning an appropriate vision and mission (question 3) with the tactical, hard content topics that we have discussed.
For non-agri sectors the 20th century was all about achieving organizational and supply chain efficiencies (e.g. Malcolm Baldridge Awards, ISO 9000, just in time manufacturing, etc.). For agricultural value chains, ICTs and mobile money will not only promote greater efficiencies but also increased economies of scale. Agricultural ICTs and mobile money will do for the base of the economic pyramid what commercial banking did for the Industrial Revolution!