The poor rural farmers do not need to communicate towards ICT application however they are wondering reliable agricultural information in order to prevent their cultivated area and domestic animals against adverse situations such as the epidemic diseases; the scarcity of seeds or fertilizers; lack of pasturage; climate change and so on.

Indeed, the process of gathering trusted agricultural information has its cost and in the end, the trusted agricultural information arrives so late or doesn’t reach to the rural farmers who are not able to evaluate the rightness of an agricultural information as it is confirmed by former Burundi radio listeners who used to say that “the information is right because it has been broadcasted on the radio”, meaning that the producers of trusted agriculture information have to be backed by public and private partnership for the warranty of quality of the trusted services delivered to farmers such as the Central Banks ensure the value of their respective legal money in the economy’s exchange, so in order to avoid wide spreading the inaccurate or false agricultural information towards public or private channels of ICT application in disfavor of unaware smallholder farmers.

The user of ICT application for agriculture and livestock doesn’t reach necessary to the best farming production as a good researcher is not necessary a good teacher because maybe the agriculture information are inaccurate or misused whenever the mediator in sharing knowledge throughout the communication participatory approach is not available at the right time.

The ICT for mobile application for agriculture could push agricultural information to a well initiated person in ICT know how who lives most likely in city than in rural area. Additionally the rural farmers are faced to many tasks that they prefer to listen trusted agriculture information broadcasted freely by radio as it has been experienced on the National Radio of Burundi in the broadcasted magazine named “ Inka n’Imirima” in Kirundi language translated as “ The Cow and Agriculture” and which was presented since many years ago by specialists in livestock and agriculture who provided accurate agriculture information for preventing adverse situations among farmers and for the enhancement of agriculture and livestock towards the whole Burundi country. It is worth mentioning that a similar magazine with more innovative spots of interaction between farmers sharing best practices, is still available nowadays on the same medium which serves as an exclusive communication channel for warning the rural farmers on the sowing date according to the forecasting weather announced by the Meteorological service of the Geographic National Institute of Burundi; the availability of fertilizers; how to take cares of the farm animals; the standard uses in fishing; the new price of exported production such as the green tea or the coffee per kilogram; the sensitization for soil and environment protection by digging methods and by planting trees and forestry.

By the way, the strengthening of public institutions involved in supporting smallholder farmers such as the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock is mandatory in searching and spreading the trusted agricultural information in order to overcome to the cyclical hunger and poverty, and in the specific case, Burundi policy makers have already agreed that the role of this public institution is fundamental in backing poor rural farmers by increasing the budget of the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock and by raising the fertilizers subsides and also in sensitizing other public and private partners in delivering infrastructures and trusted services to the smallholder farmers as it has been done by some stakeholders like IFAD: http://www.ifad.org/operations/projects/regions/Pf/factsheets/burundi.pdf

In reality, the access to a trusted agricultural information is a public need and has to be backed by the involvement of the public and private partnership which should be emphasized by a public policy in implementing trusted agriculture contents towards ICT mobile application in order to promote the accessibility of trusted agricultural information among smallholder farmers living in the remote rural areas for allowing any smallholder to take best decision making of farming and agro-business.

By Prof Antoine Kantiza,-

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/antoine-kantiza/25/603/446

I think that the establishment of the same indicators is the beginning of a common language for the building of digital databases in order to monitor the impacts of ICT in agriculture and the forum alike is the best way for setting up the common understanding of those indicators nevertheless it has been proved that each sector of the Millennium Development Goals has its specific indicators. For my understanding, the  increase of productivity and income for small farmers remain the main factors to be monitored after the implementation of mobile applications in agriculture nevertheless the mobile applications are on horizontal line towards many sectors of development where the agriculture have its specific indicators and the business have to be measured with others indicators as it is shown by the indicators agreed by the World Bank: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator and of course the best farmer is not necessary the best trader.
Indeed, I think that the impact of mobile applications in agriculture is already a based evidence, as the mobile and interactive communication is being more and more the new way of living even for the poorest of the world meanwhile the exponential progress of mobile applications has no common measure with the low progress of agriculture but many relevant studies have shown that there is a causality between the penetration of mobile applications in the populations with the income driven by farmers in the agriculture and livestock: http://econ.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/houghton-daniel.original.pdf
Also, it is worth mentioning that such subject has been talked in the former forums and I remember that I wrote that the mobile applications in agriculture should not be the silver bullets for small farmers and that the manipulation could happened anytime in the canal of communication like mobile applications reason why we must arrive on the ground to remonitor what the remote sensors and others reports by ICT applications have evaluated remotely and I posted that“The right information is not shared among farmers and traders”: http://www.e-agriculture.org/.../question-1-market-information-users-mobile-technology
Besides, I do believe that the construction and the exploitation of digital databases related to the achievement of ICT4Ag are costly and are not in emergency nowadays for smallholders who need the minimum for surviving, by the way, I recall my  post named “The robust data collection is needed to boost farmers not dbases” available on the link below:
http://www.e-agriculture.org/forumtopics/question-1-icts-collecting-agr…-
economic-or-me-data-open-11-june
Prof Antoine Kantiza,-         

The financial inclusion in rural area is done nowadays through a nonbanking system driven initially by the Mobile Network Operators in transferring electronic money and payment facilities such as Ucom or Econet in Burundi, however, the credit savings and insurances are the basis of economy growth even in the rural area where farmers are established because rural farmers have a great need of loans not only for their farming inputs but also to restore their houses; to buy some foods mostly in the scarcity season, clothes, school kits for their kids and so on, nevertheless, commercial banks are not in speed for delivering loans to smallholders living sparsely in rural area, although some banks are more and more interested by the use of electronic money like the Commercial Bank of Burundi which launched on May 24th, 2013 Mcash, a financial product reliable to Mobicash international , prior, the Commercial Bank of Burundi got a new banking licence for electronic money from the Central Bank of Burundi but it is still working like MNO involved in transfer and payment facilities and has not yet delivered online credit savings nor insurances in rural area. Mcash should reach smallholders of remote area of Burundi in the upcoming days throughout the network of the Commercial Bank's stakeholders handling the biometric ATM patented RFID and it is projected that this kind of biometric ATM will be owned at least by one person living on each hill of Burundi.
By the way, credits and insurance have a positive and a negative value for the global economy, the positive value leads to the growth of economy and the negative value leads to the failure of economy, the two side must be balanced for avoiding the collapse of economy in inflation or in depression where the goods belonging to smallholders could drop for a long period.
I think that there are many difficulties of granting loans to the farmers of remote area even with electronic money as there is a lack of insurance companies for supporting smallholders seeking bank loans added that the online loans is a new financial product without a central checking point of electronic money flow in order to protect both the barrowers and the lenders. Indeed, I agree with the economic theory which asserts that loan lead to a kind of monetary creation, so the monetary mass created by the online loans delivered to the farmers through their handsets must be controlled by the Central bank which regulates normally the flow of money on the national level as well as on the international level.
I think that the Mobile Network Operators have to be self-regulated in their daily activities of credits saving or transferring electronic money to of from theirs customers; on the second step, an independent institution should monitor the electronic money transfer done by all nonbanks and banks operators and in the third step, the Central Bank has to be aware regularly of the state of electronic credit in the economy.
Besides, the mobile phones which are expected to play the role of cash-in and cash-out, increase the threat for people travelling and living near their handsets not only due of the new hackers but also from the danger on human health caused by the Wi-Fi waves as it has been proved recently, http://fr.news.yahoo.com/wifi-dangerosit%C3%A9-ondes-prouv%C3%A9e-%C3%A…
Also Governments from worldwide have the responsibility to take care of the safety of human or animal health and elsewhere the green agriculture which may be damaged by the new ICT devices, prior the dissemination of those electronic products in the clean rural communities because the smallholders have no means for checking those ICT devices but also should think that their mobile phones cause a little problem compared to the feed of their basic needs allowed by the ICT applications.

Prof Antoine KANTIZA, Master Uticef,-

I think that the implementation of e-agriculture strategy is more difficult to achieve than its formulation which also is more obvious than the evaluation, indeed the implementation of e-agriculture strategies implies the involvement of external stakeholders in bringing theirs funds, so Governments of ACP countries could convince more likely external stakeholders in supporting the investment needed for implementing a regional e-agriculture strategy which should break the loneliness of farmers disseminated throughout in those countries.
The map of Africa, Caribbean and Pacific show a varied agriculture landscape however the  formulation of e-agriculture strategy should be formulated in the same way such as :” to acquire the facilities of joining farmers in real time in order to push or to get vital information through their mobile phones for taking a rational decision making since the farmers are aware of those vital information: the new agriculture techniques, the agribusiness, the weather forecast and so on” or  in choosing a model like the Digital Green Project http://www.digitalgreen.org/,  because this model has shown its success of farmers’ production in India when in the same moment the food production fell in Sub-Saharan Africa and in many other ACP countries.
The ACP countries are disseminated all over the world, they do not have the same opportunities in the agriculture and livestock, nevertheless the countries which are linked on the same border share the same likelihood in agriculture and livestock, in this case, those countries could share the same formulation of a regional e-agriculture strategy for supporting their farmers to get in hurry some vital information for their input but also to sell their output coming from agriculture and livestock.
If the formulation of e-agriculture strategies have to be done by the policy makers and farmers of ACP countries, its implementation and coordination around ACP countries need the partnership of developing countries and other stakeholders because this kind of implementation need the basic ICT infrastructures and has its renewable cost for gathering agriculture information in a database or for the maintenance of the platform of e-agriculture for agribusiness.
The final goal of implementing an e-agriculture strategy is to boost agriculture and livestock in Africa Caribbean and Pacific where many countries are still living with never-ending hunger, and for this big challenge of feeding the populations of those countries as it is well expressed on the page web below http://mondediplo.com/2004/12/15fao, the ACP countries need  heavy investments  which should be funded by stakeholders motivated by working together in what I call a Marshall plan focused in enhancement of agriculture production in developing countries, in this case, the funding of the implementation of a regional e-agriculture strategy in ACP countries should be used to monitor the achievement of this Marshall plan in supporting farmers’ production in those developing countries.
The Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries have not only a different agriculture landscape but also they are not on the same level of ICT infrastructures, it means that the ACP countries of the same area could share a regional e-agriculture strategy for sustaining each other in progressing together and in fostering the farming activities and agribusiness in the same space.
In a real case, the optimal exploitation of a common ICT highway like the backbone of optic cables linking the countries of East African Community will reduce the digital divide in the favor of smallholder farmers of Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda even if these countries have not set up yet a common vision of e-agriculture policy, the ICT infrastructures are in progress, meaning that there is no linearity in making strategy, the first step should be the implementation of ICT infrastructures because the application of ICT devices could change any time and I guess that in the upcoming years, the mobile phones should be used in driving space engines transporting goods to or from farmers disseminated all over the world.

By Prof Antoine Kantiza, Master  UTICEF,-

The problem is not to choose which ICT devices to adopt but to choose which content could circulate frequently in ICT devices of the producer organizations belonging to the smallholders and other supposed marginalized group like women. In fact a smallholder should send a message to another networked meanwhile, the education deficit or the reluctance should be contraproductive in the progress of the producer organization. By the way, a smallholder who asks another networked  to lend him some seeds, medicines or fertilizers could  get a silence  and otherwise receives a false response or a noise -multiple plausible responses instead of selecting only one optimal solution- , consequently in the hyperconnected world where should be uncontrolled means of e-communication  inside or outside  the producer organization, smallholders  and women are disoriented in the plethora of ICT devices  and do not know how to prioritize among listening the radio broadcasting farming information,  receiving and sending messages through ICT’s producer organizations and  understanding the messages submitted to or by close friends  or relatives via its own mobile phones. subsequently, ICT devices should turn up in wasting time and money for the reason that, those messages brought through ICT devices are sometimes irrelevant in disfavor of smallholders, as well as women.

Nowadays, the facility of acquiring ICT devices and the level of education are the facts which mostly marginalize in e-communications.  Indeed, a woman well educated and who use with rightness the ICT tools in the process of producer organization is never marginalized. Furthermore, a competitive producer organization does not marginalize women, moreover, the positive discrimination is the new concept in vogue in favor of supporting women in many cases.

The viable producer organizations in farming are those which are involved in the optimization of their farming activities like Mutoyi producer organization of Burundi,  which  is well known in Burundi country in empowering  smallholders and women by integrating them in the production process. I think that Mutoyi centre is the best structured producer organization of Burundi, it is supported by a non governmental organization from Italia and  has implemented its proper system of communication through modern ICT devices and a specific system of accounting for monitoring the value chain of its production, transportation, transformation, commercialization in the main cities of Burundi and payment of returns to the smallholders and women who have seen their way of living rising since the installation in MutoyI , a countryside of Bugendana commune, in  Gitega province with a label of high quality named “Mutoyi products”  and  remains the reference in the production process and in bringing welfare to the peasants and women around Mutoyi centre where the profits generated by Mutoyi products have been partially used to build basic infrastructures like hospital and primary schools since many years ago.

When you visit a shop of Mutoyi producer organization in Bujumbura city, you should believe that the famous Mutoyi centre belongs surely to a gender statute because you cross more women than men working inside at the key posts using ICT devices. Undeniably, women are not marginalized because Mutoyi producer organization is built on a skill of competitiveness and efficiency with the goal of increasing the added value of its products by improving its value chain of development since the step of production, transformation, transportation until the step of commercialization with the same label of brightness in agribusiness.

It is worth mentioning that I did publish many comments related to the content which should be mostly relevant for farmers like the post entitled ‘ICT not to waste time but for taking right decision’ available on the link below:

http://www.e-agriculture.org/.../what-most-effective-wa..-.e-agriculture.org/.../what-most-effective-wa..

Prof Antoine KANTIZA, Master Uticef,-

The education is the added value for women using ICT devices in interacting with other members of the same POs or in seeking information necessary for its daily activity of farming. As it has been proved that ICT devices save time and money, women of developing countries need mostly enough time to deal with farming activities and to accomplish their daily domestic works, and so, if ICT tools bring welfare to the men, it allow happiness to the women by sharing essential information and improving  their own production and increasing in fine their income drawn by the best management of its producer organizations due to the optimization of ICT applications.

The problem is not to choose which ICT devices to adopt but to choose which content could circulate frequently in ICT devices of the producer organizations belonging to the smallholders and other supposed marginalized group like women. In fact a smallholder should send a message to another networked meanwhile, the education deficit or the reluctance should be contraproductive in the progress of the producer organization. By the way, a smallholder who asks another networked  to lend him some seeds, medicines or fertilizers could  get a silence  and otherwise receives a false response or a noise -multiple plausible responses instead of selecting only one optimal solution- , consequently in the hyperconnected world where should be uncontrolled means of e-communication  inside or outside  the producer organization, smallholders  and women are disoriented in the plethora of ICT devices  and do not know how to prioritize among listening the radio broadcasting farming information,  receiving and sending messages through ICT’s producer organizations and  understanding the messages submitted to or by close friends  or relatives via its own mobile phones. subsequently, ICT devices should turn up in wasting time and money for the reason that, those messages brought through ICT devices are sometimes irrelevant in disfavor of smallholders, as well as women.

Nowadays, the facility of acquiring ICT devices and the level of education are the facts which mostly marginalize in e-communications.  Indeed, a woman well educated and who use with rightness the ICT tools in the process of producer organization is never marginalized. Furthermore, a competitive producer organization does not marginalize women, moreover, the positive discrimination is the new concept in vogue in favor of supporting women in many cases.

The viable producer organizations in farming are those which are involved in the optimization of their farming activities like Mutoyi producer organization of Burundi,  which  is well known in Burundi country in empowering  smallholders and women by integrating them in the production process. I think that Mutoyi centre is the best structured producer organization of Burundi, it is supported by a non governmental organization from Italia and  has implemented its proper system of communication through modern ICT devices and a specific system of accounting for monitoring the value chain of its production, transportation, transformation, commercialization in the main cities of Burundi and payment of returns to the smallholders and women who have seen their way of living rising since the installation in MutoyI , a countryside of Bugendana commune, in  Gitega province with a label of high quality named “Mutoyi products”  and  remains the reference in the production process and in bringing welfare to the peasants and women around Mutoyi centre where the profits generated by Mutoyi products have been partially used to build basic infrastructures like hospital and primary schools since many years ago.

When you visit a shop of Mutoyi producer organization in Bujumbura city, you should believe that the famous Mutoyi centre belongs surely to a gender statute because you cross more women than men working inside at the key posts using ICT devices. Undeniably, women are not marginalized because Mutoyi producer organization is built on a skill of competitiveness and efficiency with the goal of increasing the added value of its products by improving its value chain of development since the step of production, transformation, transportation until the step of commercialization with the same label of brightness in agribusiness.

It is worth mentioning that I did publish many comments related to the content which should be mostly relevant for farmers like the post entitled ‘ICT not to waste time but for taking right decision’ available on the link below:http://www.e-agriculture.org/.../what-most-effective-wa..-.e-agriculture.org/.../what-most-effective-wa..

Prof Antoine KANTIZA, Master Uticef,-

The education is the added value for women using ICT devices in interacting with other members of the same POs or in seeking information necessary for its daily activity of farming. As it has been proved that ICT devices save time and money, women of developing countries need mostly enough time to deal with farming activities and to accomplish their daily domestic works, and so, if ICT tools bring welfare to the men, it allow happiness to the women by sharing essential information and improving  their own production and increasing in fine their income drawn by the best management of its producer organizations due to the optimization of ICT applications.

The problem is not to choose which ICT devices to adopt but to choose which content could circulate frequently in ICT devices of the producer organizations belonging to the smallholders and other supposed marginalized group like women. In fact a smallholder should send a message to another networked meanwhile, the education deficit or the reluctance should be contraproductive in the progress of the producer organization. By the way, a smallholder who asks another networked  to lend him some seeds, medicines or fertilizers could  get a silence  and otherwise receives a false response or a noise -multiple plausible responses instead of selecting only one optimal solution- , consequently in the hyperconnected world where should be uncontrolled means of e-communication  inside or outside  the producer organization, smallholders  and women are disoriented in the plethora of ICT devices  and do not know how to prioritize among listening the radio broadcasting farming information,  receiving and sending messages through ICT’s producer organizations and  understanding the messages submitted to or by close friends  or relatives via its own mobile phones. subsequently, ICT devices should turn up in wasting time and money for the reason that, those messages brought through ICT devices are sometimes irrelevant in disfavor of smallholders, as well as women.

Nowadays, the facility of acquiring ICT devices and the level of education are the facts which mostly marginalize in e-communications.  Indeed, a woman well educated and who use with rightness the ICT tools in the process of producer organization is never marginalized. Furthermore, a competitive producer organization does not marginalize women, moreover, the positive discrimination is the new concept in vogue in favor of supporting women in many cases.

The viable producer organizations in farming are those which are involved in the optimization of their farming activities like Mutoyi producer organization of Burundi,  which  is well known in Burundi country in empowering  smallholders and women by integrating them in the production process. I think that Mutoyi centre is the best structured producer organization of Burundi, it is supported by a non governmental organization from Italia and  has implemented its proper system of communication through modern ICT devices and a specific system of accounting for monitoring the value chain of its production, transportation, transformation, commercialization in the main cities of Burundi and payment of returns to the smallholders and women who have seen their way of living rising since the installation in MutoyI , a countryside of Bugendana commune, in  Gitega province with a label of high quality named “Mutoyi products”  and  remains the reference in the production process and in bringing welfare to the peasants and women around Mutoyi centre where the profits generated by Mutoyi products have been partially used to build basic infrastructures like hospital and primary schools since many years ago.

When you visit a shop of Mutoyi producer organization in Bujumbura city, you should believe that the famous Mutoyi centre belongs surely to a gender statute because you cross more women than men working inside at the key posts using ICT devices. Undeniably, women are not marginalized because Mutoyi producer organization is built on a skill of competitiveness and efficiency with the goal of increasing the added value of its products by improving its value chain of development since the step of production, transformation, transportation until the step of commercialization with the same label of brightness in agribusiness.

It is worth mentioning that I did publish many comments related to the content which should be mostly relevant for farmers like the post entitled ‘ICT not to waste time but for taking right decision’ available on the link below:http://www.e-agriculture.org/.../what-most-effective-wa..-.e-agriculture.org/.../what-most-effective-wa..

Prof Antoine KANTIZA, Master Uticef,-

The sustainability in using ICT for agriculture innovation pro smallholder implies that incomes driven from agriculture or livestock do not regularly dropped, so, it is supposed  that a smallholder makes profit each harvest season. nevertheless, in the normal case,the farming activities do not drain profits for smallholders of developing countries for many well known reasons such as the unforeseeable weather; the lack of good seeds,medicines or land fertilizers;the availability of basic infrastructure like good quality of roads and markets in close proximity of the smallholder disseminated in the inner of developing countries.

It is obvious that the concept “smallholder sustainable” in the appropriation of ICT devices, means somewhere that the small farmer is self-sufficient in long term, he must be able to buy an accurate information related to the agriculture innovation without free external support like the toll-free or the famous Digital Green Indian’s project.

Nowadays, the ICT tools are advantageous to the challenger smallholders  http://www.e-agriculture.org/forumtopics/question-12-other-challenges and  the access on ICT devices doesn’t lead necessary to the autonomous of smallholder particularly in the Africa area which is still in the darkness even if the African inhabitants have rushed in speed for using ICT tools where among them, the radio broadcasting is the most used to acquire the latest agriculture information throughout African smallholders.

I think that in short term, the problem of darkness will be solved for the ICT tools in the Africa which is exploiting more and more its potentiality of solar energy, for example the Econet mobile phone company operating in Burundi has launched in the beginning of the third week of September 2012, a  portable solar lantern called “Econet solar” for providing light and for charging in energy the mobile phones for a cost of almost sixty US dollars which is nothing for many storekeepers living in rural area of Burundi but which is still a big amount for a small farmer living in the same area  http://solarenergy.einnews.com/country/burundi. It is manifest that in fine, the availability of the cheaper solar energy is a new opportunity for the raising of global development in rural area of Burundi.

By the way, if the access of ICT devices for all smallholders of Africa should be solved in  the upcoming days with the plausible integration of solar energy supply incorporated directly in the mobile phones, another problem could happen in selecting relevant information because it is not easy to get right information in the middle of a tank full of useful information like Internet even for well educated person, it means that mediators similar to those seen in Digital Green Model are needed for supporting in seeking the right information and in improving production within those ICT based agriculture innovation. I wonder who will continue to pay the needed free mediators in the competitive economic. May be that the farming sector remains outside of the real economic in some developing countries and if so, the states and the qualitative organizations focused on fighting the hunger and the reduce of poverty in the developing countries have again a long pathway of supporting the “smallholder sustainable” located particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Prof Antoine Kantiza, Master Uticef,-

E-mail:[email protected] or [email protected]

I think that I could add some quantitative details in my latest post but it takes long to collect; to analyse and to validate quantitative data before publishing it. In fact, such quantitative data could be collected in Burundi or any other developing country with the support of projects focused on the collection, treatment and validation of quantitative data of rural community and agriculture matters. I thank for Ehud Gelb for his link which shows the involvement of ICT in the agriculture issues I remember to have posted a comment “ ICT not to waste time but for taking right decisions” below the insight posted by Ehud Gelb in the question entitled :”What is the most effective way to measure the impact of ICT for development (ICT 4D) initiatives” which is still available in the forum mentioned by the link http://www.e-agriculture.org/forums/forum-archive/forum-challenges-and-opportunities-capturing-impact-ict-initiatives-agriculture I look forward to share further knowhow in ICT for development. Prof Antoine KANTIZA, Master UTICEF,- E-mail :[email protected] or [email protected]