Dear Moderator,
My contribution to this particular topic will focus on a critical and sensitive challenge.
Indeed, we all embrace the fact that ICT has lots of potential to enhance coordination of agricultural activities at both national and local levels and should be a basic vehicle for generating data to inform policies and development interventions. However, in many African countries, embracing of some ICT options still has a long way to go. Adoption of some ICT options such as UAVs (drones) which are very handy in gathering data over expansive loci in a short time for purposes of agricultural statistics and national planning has met resistance due to security reasons. The challenge is for the promoters to convince governments that while flying UAVs, the focus will only be on agricultural related data and that the resultant imagery will be treated with caution and guarded against landing into unsafe hands. It is, therefore, imperative that deliberate efforts of enhancing the role of ICT in contributing to poverty reduction and enhancing food security should start with the requisite awareness to the political class. This will stimulate adequate government support in terms of provision of an enabling operational environment.
M. Senkosi Kenneth