I'm really pleased to see how many people have already highlighted the important role of policy makers in enabling the envvironmen that is needed for family farmers to fully benefit from ICT.
My organization, APCICT is dedicated to developing ICTD capacity among policy makers in Asia-Pacific. You can read more about the programme online at www.apcict.org Based on our success in this region, a similar centre is just being established in Nicaragua to work in the LAC region.
Hi Michael you can tell us more about the new proyect of in Nicaragua, may be we can make a link between you proyect and some iniciative of gubernamental organizations try to do en last year
In the case of Madagascar, I would like to relate some observations that we have made.
I) it should be agreed that ICT has impacted and could have greater impacts on rural areas as well as on agriculture. For example, Mobile Banking System reduces the risks of highwaymen and pickpocket attacks on those doing ambulant trades and farmers that just saled their produces. In addition, mobile banking system leaves traces on financial transactions where traditional banking is very costly and/or unavailable to the multitude of small farmers and small producers. Furthermore mobile phone with local radio offers the opportunity to farmers to be abreast on agriculture market information and news. Some of the information broadcast on these local chains enables community leaders to stand out to abuses as well as to respond to development call for application.
II) what is less analyzed and communicated are threats that ICT brings into the livelihood of those who control rural economy as well as on opportunity of ICT to reduce ability of politicians to manipulate votes. For example, it is well known facts that bribed local officials have the ability to change local election results. Increasing the uses of wireless access, which is the most applied technology now, for rural and agricultural development, would not be supported by politicians because most importantly, they are the one who control the local economy and local governance….Their is immediate risk for them to be publicly denounced with proof on their misconduct and/or render to them more difficult to manipulate vote.
III) it is also observed that most of projects are carried out as “pilot” with limited consideration to sustainability as well as long term overall development.
Simon WandilaSouthern Africa Telecentre Network / YPARDZambia
Engaging youths in policy processes is essential. I recommend the approach IICD, CTA, FARA and the youth movement YPARD are using, and appeal to community media organisations/ associations/consortium to adopt a similar approach.
The provision of Community Media and ICT services has a lot of potential in empowering the youth and attract them to participate in the provision of these services. Deliberate policies and initiatives should be put in place to actualise this.
Conducting comprehensive research to understand the information, knowledge and
communication needs of government extension service providers, private extension
enterprises, farmers and telecentres across the agricultural value chain.
Establishing and strengthening public private partnerships involving different
stakeholders such as telecommunication companies, entrepreneurs’ associations,
government line ministries and departments, local and regional public and private
agricultural research institutions, farmer associations, community development agents,
local communities, telecentre networks, and government and private agricultural
extension service providers.
Develop an agricultural information and knowledge content management model for
community media initiatives where various key projects and organisations such as African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Service, Regional Agricultural Information and Learning System,
Dissemination of News Agricultural Technologies in Africa, FARA, CTA, FAO, local private and
public agricultural research and extension services and other related institutions
participate in content development and capacity building for Community Media.
Below are some interesting reads that adds to this write up...
Sorry for the very basic comment: we are just Internet service providers and we are not "à la mode", we don't use mobile phones !!
Nevertheless, we have around thousand users all over Sub-Saharian Africa including some in the agriculture sector enjoying Internet access thanks to our service.
One of the main reasons why it is quite difficult to extend such service to a larger subscriber base are local taxes and duties. Our satellite terminal getting out of the factory at half the price of a smart phone gets 3 times more expensive after transport and most important import taxes often around 35% of the value of good PLUS cost of transport !!
Similarly, our local partners providing the service to the end user (so also contributing to local economy) are in too many countries confronted with yearly taxes per antenna which are up to 10 times the yearly price of the service, making it unaffordable for the smaller users.
If policy makers would remove import taxes and apply blanket licensing for micro-VSAT, as the kind of technology we use could be defined, this would alaredy give a lot more chances to small agriculture exploitation to have access to very decent Internet access services which is a conditio sine qua non to enjoy the benefits of ICT.
I am very glad that this issue is brought up. Indeed at government level, some countries have high taxes and duties which prevent from having equipement, infrastructure in place at a reasonable cost. I think that regulors need to be aware of such decisions. ICTs are not only a new juicy market, but an enabler of development. Taxing heavily thsi porming sector is killing the potential for nationla growth. it is therefore very important to have awareness campaing at politcal level, for policy makers and regulaors to understand better the decsions they take.
Shahid Akbar Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID) Bangladesh
Government intervention is must to promote usage of ICT and improve rural communication services. Supportive policy will ensure respective organizations (both private and public sectors) and initiatives to focus more on relevant content and services targeting to the rural communicties. Incentives (Tax benefit & subsidy for connectivity, services etc.), engagement (iinvolve in local level decision making process) and recognition can be introduced to create positive impression among the actors.
The potential of ICTs, as this discussion by its proponents indicates, to contribute to improving family farming, especially of smallholders and resource poor as the majority of farmers are in Africa, Asia and South America are, is now accepted without much doubt.
The overwhelming notion that an individual may get from reading the opinions and perspectives addressed in this forum would be that ICTs are the panacea that has alluded this category of farmers for all their problems since the dawn of farming.
Is this notion true?
Or is it that ICTs will usher changes that will further diminish this type of farming and cause even a more drastic decline with smallholder farmers leaving this livelihood even more rapidly. And, what will be the consequences on our food systems and quality of life when such a phenomenon as the exit of these farmers from farming occurs?
First of all, it is a very romantic perspective that ICTs will hold, stop and reverse the decline of family farmers in this livelihood. ICTs cannot even maintain the status quo of today’s agriculture as this agriculture is largely influenced in its rapid evolution by global, highly competitive agricultural commodities markets and not by advances in technologies.
The use of technologies, be it biotechnological, nano-technological, materials related or ICTs will be influenced by these markets and not by what we as a group of very interested persons in the betterment of these farmers would want to happen. History tells us this again and again.
The discovery of Mendelian genetics applied to breeding of crops and animals, of urea, the development of the tractor and the genetically modified organism as seed or embryo all have contributed to the formation of an agriculture that has always challenged and replaced the existing farming system. But behind their effective use was change in economies. The settlement and growth of larger cities in industrializing Europe and the USA with their demand for food created the need to increase productivity and yields with the use of fertilizers and breeding more higher yielding corn that could not be done with traditional methods. Tractors came into being to replace the loss of labor in USA in the First World War. Similar shifts such as through highly competitive, globalized markets are happening now and will continue to happen in the future bringing the need for new agricultural technologies.
There are many signs that portend the decline of the family farmer. This is because current theories of economic growth force it. Current theories see rapid economic growth only through industrialization and growth of services. Because of these theories, public sector investment and that of government is rapidly declining in supporting and developing rural areas, except to set up industries and new cities, and especially for this type of farming and farmers. The private sector has no reason to support small family farmers as their participation in markets is more expensive and less profitable for the sector. The community sector is too weak to even protest against this phenomenon.
The investment by the public sector has also declined and is further declining in the development and use of scale neutral or small farmer biased agricultural technologies and measures as the state of Agricultural extension and research in developing countries shows. The policy maker in developing countries as already stated wants development of industries and services and that can only happen, according to them, through urbanization. This is what China, the largest and most populous country and India, closely following are implementing as policies. This is what Sub-Saharan Africa desires and wants to emulate. In my opinion, the world at least in the next few decades will continue to see this decline of smallholder family farmer till new farming systems (See some of these discussed here: http://www.egfar.org/documents/e-discussion-forward-thinking-ict-use-asi...) replace them. And along with these farming systems there will be a new type of farmer. Maybe she may not be a farmer as we have considered them but a knowledge worker using autonomous machinery, sensors and large knowledge based systems to manage these agricultural production systems.
In my opinion all that we can hope for is to somehow slow this decline of family farmers so that we and the small farmers do not face economic and social chaos which we see already emerging in the growing urban slums, urban poverty, hunger and malnutrition and total abandonment of rural areas is indicating to us in many developing countries.
We have not discussed how ICTs can contribute to ease and enable family farmers to cope with the current economic, social and environment related pressures on their livelihoods and quality of life in our discussions.
This forum did not discuss in detail necessary whether these farmers can afford to use these technologies and who will bear the costs for rural connectivity so essential for many of these technologies to work? Or how we will develop and provide access to the content that these farmers now need to cope as their environment, physical, economic and social change? What happens to their rights to privacy, the property rights of data and information they may produce or how we will create the necessary learning systems that will enable them to use ICTs effectively to cope with the problems and issues they face in their farming now be it in participating in markets or dealing with change in climate?
As I sign off from this discussion IMHO we must all ask ourselves how responsible we all are and will be in future in presenting all dimensions in their starkness in such dialogues when we offer a very optimistic future through the introduction of ICTs for family farming?
The vision for implementation of WSIS Action lines beyond 2015 was presented as follows:
As part of national ICT strategies, foster the development and implementation of national e-agriculture strategies focusing on providing reliable and affordable connectivity and integrating ICTs in rural development to support food security and hunger eradication.
Foster collaboration and knowledge sharing in agriculture via electronic communities of practice, including the e-Agriculture Community, in order to showcase and promote models, methodologies, good practices and the adoption of Open Access and interoperability standards, for effective and equitable use of ICTs for sustainable agriculture and rural development.
Promote the creation and adaptation of content including in local languages and contexts from reliable and trusted sources, including, to ensure equitable and timely access to agricultural knowledge by resource-poor men and women farmers, foresters and fisher folk in rural areas.
Foster digital literacy of institutions and communities in rural and remote areas taking into consideration local needs and constraints by providing appropriate learning opportunities for all which will enhance individual and collective decision-making skills.
Promote the use of ICTs to reinforce the resilience capacity of states, communities and individuals to mitigate and adapt to natural and man-made disasters, food chain challenges, socio-economic and other crises, conflicts and transboundary threats, diseases, and environmental damages.
The recommendations are the following at policy level is :
Bridging e-agriculture with the policy audience. The regulators and ministries while responsible for infrastructure are not aware of the opportunities of ICTs for agriculture and their infrastructure and policy demand. Therefore there is a need to inform better the different ministeries in chare ge of agriculture, planning and telecommunications of the potential offered by ICTs.
Agriculture is an economic activity. As such, ICT is imposed on it as in our daily lives. ICT appear as a boon to agricultural development in Africa. Their inclusion would enhance productivity. The internet and intranet for example accelerate the flow of information. Open these networks to rural areas could help boost knowledge sharing. Applications like Facebook, Twitter and blog provide this speed in the dissemination of information. Wikis and blog could help revolutionize education and training in the agricultural sector. Thanks to the establishment of basic and contained important data and advantageous for rural. However, the application of ICT in agriculture in Benin is still a myth. http://tradefarmer.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/integration-des-tic-dans-lagriculture-quelles-strategies-pour-le-benin/
I'm really pleased to see how many people have already highlighted the important role of policy makers in enabling the envvironmen that is needed for family farmers to fully benefit from ICT.
My organization, APCICT is dedicated to developing ICTD capacity among policy makers in Asia-Pacific. You can read more about the programme online at www.apcict.org Based on our success in this region, a similar centre is just being established in Nicaragua to work in the LAC region.
Hi Michael you can tell us more about the new proyect of in Nicaragua, may be we can make a link between you proyect and some iniciative of gubernamental organizations try to do en last year
In the case of Madagascar, I would like to relate some observations that we have made.
I) it should be agreed that ICT has impacted and could have greater impacts on rural areas as well as on agriculture. For example, Mobile Banking System reduces the risks of highwaymen and pickpocket attacks on those doing ambulant trades and farmers that just saled their produces. In addition, mobile banking system leaves traces on financial transactions where traditional banking is very costly and/or unavailable to the multitude of small farmers and small producers. Furthermore mobile phone with local radio offers the opportunity to farmers to be abreast on agriculture market information and news. Some of the information broadcast on these local chains enables community leaders to stand out to abuses as well as to respond to development call for application.
II) what is less analyzed and communicated are threats that ICT brings into the livelihood of those who control rural economy as well as on opportunity of ICT to reduce ability of politicians to manipulate votes. For example, it is well known facts that bribed local officials have the ability to change local election results. Increasing the uses of wireless access, which is the most applied technology now, for rural and agricultural development, would not be supported by politicians because most importantly, they are the one who control the local economy and local governance….Their is immediate risk for them to be publicly denounced with proof on their misconduct and/or render to them more difficult to manipulate vote.
III) it is also observed that most of projects are carried out as “pilot” with limited consideration to sustainability as well as long term overall development.
Engaging youths in policy processes is essential. I recommend the approach IICD, CTA, FARA and the youth movement YPARD are using, and appeal to community media organisations/ associations/consortium to adopt a similar approach.
The provision of Community Media and ICT services has a lot of potential in empowering the youth and attract them to participate in the provision of these services. Deliberate policies and initiatives should be put in place to actualise this.
Conducting comprehensive research to understand the information, knowledge and
communication needs of government extension service providers, private extension
enterprises, farmers and telecentres across the agricultural value chain.
Establishing and strengthening public private partnerships involving different
stakeholders such as telecommunication companies, entrepreneurs’ associations,
government line ministries and departments, local and regional public and private
agricultural research institutions, farmer associations, community development agents,
local communities, telecentre networks, and government and private agricultural
extension service providers.
Develop an agricultural information and knowledge content management model for
community media initiatives where various key projects and organisations such as African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Service, Regional Agricultural Information and Learning System,
Dissemination of News Agricultural Technologies in Africa, FARA, CTA, FAO, local private and
public agricultural research and extension services and other related institutions
participate in content development and capacity building for Community Media.
Below are some interesting reads that adds to this write up...
http://www.slideshare.net/Co-Capacity/110518-telecentres-africafarming-s...
http://www.slideshare.net/swandila1/telecentres-as-agriculturalknowledge...
Sorry for the very basic comment: we are just Internet service providers and we are not "à la mode", we don't use mobile phones !!
Nevertheless, we have around thousand users all over Sub-Saharian Africa including some in the agriculture sector enjoying Internet access thanks to our service.
One of the main reasons why it is quite difficult to extend such service to a larger subscriber base are local taxes and duties. Our satellite terminal getting out of the factory at half the price of a smart phone gets 3 times more expensive after transport and most important import taxes often around 35% of the value of good PLUS cost of transport !!
Similarly, our local partners providing the service to the end user (so also contributing to local economy) are in too many countries confronted with yearly taxes per antenna which are up to 10 times the yearly price of the service, making it unaffordable for the smaller users.
If policy makers would remove import taxes and apply blanket licensing for micro-VSAT, as the kind of technology we use could be defined, this would alaredy give a lot more chances to small agriculture exploitation to have access to very decent Internet access services which is a conditio sine qua non to enjoy the benefits of ICT.
I am very glad that this issue is brought up. Indeed at government level, some countries have high taxes and duties which prevent from having equipement, infrastructure in place at a reasonable cost. I think that regulors need to be aware of such decisions. ICTs are not only a new juicy market, but an enabler of development. Taxing heavily thsi porming sector is killing the potential for nationla growth. it is therefore very important to have awareness campaing at politcal level, for policy makers and regulaors to understand better the decsions they take.
Government intervention is must to promote usage of ICT and improve rural communication services. Supportive policy will ensure respective organizations (both private and public sectors) and initiatives to focus more on relevant content and services targeting to the rural communicties. Incentives (Tax benefit & subsidy for connectivity, services etc.), engagement (iinvolve in local level decision making process) and recognition can be introduced to create positive impression among the actors.
The potential of ICTs, as this discussion by its proponents indicates, to contribute to improving family farming, especially of smallholders and resource poor as the majority of farmers are in Africa, Asia and South America are, is now accepted without much doubt.
The overwhelming notion that an individual may get from reading the opinions and perspectives addressed in this forum would be that ICTs are the panacea that has alluded this category of farmers for all their problems since the dawn of farming.
Is this notion true?
Or is it that ICTs will usher changes that will further diminish this type of farming and cause even a more drastic decline with smallholder farmers leaving this livelihood even more rapidly. And, what will be the consequences on our food systems and quality of life when such a phenomenon as the exit of these farmers from farming occurs?
First of all, it is a very romantic perspective that ICTs will hold, stop and reverse the decline of family farmers in this livelihood. ICTs cannot even maintain the status quo of today’s agriculture as this agriculture is largely influenced in its rapid evolution by global, highly competitive agricultural commodities markets and not by advances in technologies.
The use of technologies, be it biotechnological, nano-technological, materials related or ICTs will be influenced by these markets and not by what we as a group of very interested persons in the betterment of these farmers would want to happen. History tells us this again and again.
The discovery of Mendelian genetics applied to breeding of crops and animals, of urea, the development of the tractor and the genetically modified organism as seed or embryo all have contributed to the formation of an agriculture that has always challenged and replaced the existing farming system. But behind their effective use was change in economies. The settlement and growth of larger cities in industrializing Europe and the USA with their demand for food created the need to increase productivity and yields with the use of fertilizers and breeding more higher yielding corn that could not be done with traditional methods. Tractors came into being to replace the loss of labor in USA in the First World War. Similar shifts such as through highly competitive, globalized markets are happening now and will continue to happen in the future bringing the need for new agricultural technologies.
There are many signs that portend the decline of the family farmer. This is because current theories of economic growth force it. Current theories see rapid economic growth only through industrialization and growth of services. Because of these theories, public sector investment and that of government is rapidly declining in supporting and developing rural areas, except to set up industries and new cities, and especially for this type of farming and farmers. The private sector has no reason to support small family farmers as their participation in markets is more expensive and less profitable for the sector. The community sector is too weak to even protest against this phenomenon.
The investment by the public sector has also declined and is further declining in the development and use of scale neutral or small farmer biased agricultural technologies and measures as the state of Agricultural extension and research in developing countries shows. The policy maker in developing countries as already stated wants development of industries and services and that can only happen, according to them, through urbanization. This is what China, the largest and most populous country and India, closely following are implementing as policies. This is what Sub-Saharan Africa desires and wants to emulate. In my opinion, the world at least in the next few decades will continue to see this decline of smallholder family farmer till new farming systems (See some of these discussed here: http://www.egfar.org/documents/e-discussion-forward-thinking-ict-use-asi...) replace them. And along with these farming systems there will be a new type of farmer. Maybe she may not be a farmer as we have considered them but a knowledge worker using autonomous machinery, sensors and large knowledge based systems to manage these agricultural production systems.
In my opinion all that we can hope for is to somehow slow this decline of family farmers so that we and the small farmers do not face economic and social chaos which we see already emerging in the growing urban slums, urban poverty, hunger and malnutrition and total abandonment of rural areas is indicating to us in many developing countries.
We have not discussed how ICTs can contribute to ease and enable family farmers to cope with the current economic, social and environment related pressures on their livelihoods and quality of life in our discussions.
This forum did not discuss in detail necessary whether these farmers can afford to use these technologies and who will bear the costs for rural connectivity so essential for many of these technologies to work? Or how we will develop and provide access to the content that these farmers now need to cope as their environment, physical, economic and social change? What happens to their rights to privacy, the property rights of data and information they may produce or how we will create the necessary learning systems that will enable them to use ICTs effectively to cope with the problems and issues they face in their farming now be it in participating in markets or dealing with change in climate?
As I sign off from this discussion IMHO we must all ask ourselves how responsible we all are and will be in future in presenting all dimensions in their starkness in such dialogues when we offer a very optimistic future through the introduction of ICTs for family farming?
With warm regards,
Ajit
Ajit Maru, GFAR Secretariat
The vision for implementation of WSIS Action lines beyond 2015 was presented as follows:
The recommendations are the following at policy level is :
Bridging e-agriculture with the policy audience. The regulators and ministries while responsible for infrastructure are not aware of the opportunities of ICTs for agriculture and their infrastructure and policy demand. Therefore there is a need to inform better the different ministeries in chare ge of agriculture, planning and telecommunications of the potential offered by ICTs.
Agriculture is an economic activity. As such, ICT is imposed on it as in our daily lives. ICT appear as a boon to agricultural development in Africa. Their inclusion would enhance productivity. The internet and intranet for example accelerate the flow of information. Open these networks to rural areas could help boost knowledge sharing. Applications like Facebook, Twitter and blog provide this speed in the dissemination of information. Wikis and blog could help revolutionize education and training in the agricultural sector. Thanks to the establishment of basic and contained important data and advantageous for rural. However, the application of ICT in agriculture in Benin is still a myth. http://tradefarmer.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/integration-des-tic-dans-lagriculture-quelles-strategies-pour-le-benin/