The digitization of food systems is well underway. The digital ecosystem and its actors have increasing influence over how food is produced, what food people buy, and the flow of information among farmers, supply chain actors, and consumers. Efforts to transform food systems towards sustainability, including climate change resilience and mitigation, similarly rely on digital resources and offer the opportunity to scale up best practices rapidly at low cost.

This guide seeks to address concerns with the current digitalization of food systems including:

▪ Many digital tools designed for food systems are irrelevant to smallholder farmers’ situations or have inaccessible content by use of paid subscriptions or not using local languages.

▪ Marginalized groups are often the last to benefit from new technology and at the greatest risk of privacy and data rights violations.

▪ Few tools include progressive sustainability practices such as low-emission agriculture, climate change adaptation or agroecology, or robust scientific evidence behind technical advice and performance assessment.

The guide also lays out principles to instruct development and implementation of socially inclusive digital tools with smallholder farmers. The principles are intended to increase social and livelihood benefits of digital tools for diverse and underrepresented groups of farmers. The co-creation of farm practices with farmers is framed as an element of social inclusion that ensures relevance to farmers’ livelihoods and the development of robust technical solutions.