Dear participants, I am signing off as the coordinator for day 2 after a long and very interesting day. Thank you all for your time and very useful and well thought inputs. 

My own take after reflecting for a while on very diverse comments is that, at the end of the day, I´d like to see a scenario where according to specificities and wide varying contexts in which small holder farms operate and live, they are able to make good, well informed and safe decisions regarding what they do and how they do it. Digital data, platforms, providers, I-phones, etc. may play a role as long as they respond to the farmer and are developed primarily for the farmers interest, and not of an external force (a company, a brand, a market, etc.). I also think data and information generated by farmers over centuries, is also invaluable and should be fitted into whatever equation is formulated - with the "data driven" variable in place. This which seems very obvious has, as we´ve seen, tremendpus complexities which hopefully, gradually will be overcome. Concrete examples and scaling up efforts, might be a good way of testing some of the ideas expressed durung session 2. 

Once again, thanks to all and very grateful for the opportunity to interact.   

Dear participants, this is really a fantastic discussion and in my mind, just for starters, shows how dispersed and different we are in thinking about "data driven agriculture" -  this dispersion is not a negative thing, I must add, but rather a very useful way of extracting constructive suggestions.  A couple of issues caught my attention:

1. Organizational aspects also seem to be recurrent in the chain of comments.  Thinking about very poor, small holder farmers in many parts of the developing world, their organizational capacities are very, very limited (in many regions at least). And incentives for grouping seem often weak and do not last very long. I wonder if associations/cooperatives/whatever-grouping-scheme are in some way a pre requisite for better integration into data flows and community management of data. My guess is: it depends on very specific contexts, including types of crop and destination of production.  

2. Mr. Uschena summarizes it well:  "Data, products and processes for digital [data driven]agriculture must be context specific, designed to suit the [very specific] conditions of farmers in poorer countries and improving local crops." I would personally focus on improving not only production but contributing to overall welfare and and improved livelihoods, including womens situation in the farmng family and educational, health and nutritional wellbeing of youngsters.  Better production and productivity may not always lead to improved livelihoods. 

3. Mrs. van den Burg comment on how to look at "success" from our own vintage point, pressess us to some re thinking. This is not simply a conceptual issue but one which has some very practical effects in terms of design and implementation of policies, tools, management schemes, etc. under which better innovation can be deployed and uptaken by small holder farmers.  

4. Mr. Babcock´s comment is highly informative and provocative. I have to admit I am not a blockchain expert and have always been intrigued about its concrete application in certain fields. I wonder how and IF it would be possible to deploy these technologies in certain small holder farmers contexts where extreme conditions (poverty, literacy, capacities, etc.) may be limited.  I have to say I CAN envision a positive scenario, maybe with more basic data/technology tools at hand. Very stimulating reflection ...

5. Mr. Maru´s "virtual aggregation" suggestions also seems very interesting to me. The notion seems flexible, and at the same time would seem (if I understand correctly) to enable the maintenance of certain local, cultural, technological values and assets already in play with farmers.

This is of course not an exhaustive comment ... and all comments could be part of detailed exchanges.  

I truly appreciate engagement and interactions.

Manuel 

Dear participants, thanks for the active engagment and very interesting comments by all. 

I do not pretend to capture the richness of the discussion so far just here, but I do seem to sense some broad common threads and issues which in some way link many of the contributions.

1. The notions of cooperation/collaboration, free flows and exchange of data, and management of data, seem to be at the core of a "data driven" agricultural system (and I mean by "system", concrete examples of small holder agriculture, whatever its features are).

2.  Data driven and precision agriculture should not be conflated; the way I read the background paper, data is one tool which can support what is widely being regarded as "precision agriculture". I don´t have a particular problem with the concepts in general. I do think the concept of "precision agriculture" in the conext of small holder farming can be problematic in terms of its preference for or ficus on efficiency as one of its driving forces. But that may be another interesting discussion some day. I would argue (and prof. Besemer nails it) that data-driven agriculture has alwas taken place albeit not always in the digital and technological revolution and form we seem to envision  as part of our discussions. In fact, and this is food for thought, I would raise the idea that data-driven agriculture may not even need to be associated necessarily with precisision agriculture per se.        

3. The management, platforms, "organized data communities", rapid response, seem to also  be elements which permeate mre than one comment. 

I am afraid I do not speak/read French so Mr. Ahanda Sosthene´s comment I can´t really get into ... maybe someone can summarize in English so wecan integrate it into the discussion. 

Thanks again and will get back in a while. 

Have a good afternoon and morning for others in this region !

Cheers,

Manuel 

Dear all, wellcome.

My name is Manuel Ruiz Muller, and I´ve accepted the challenge of moderating this Day 2 of our webinar on Desired Scenarios for a Future where Data Driven Agriculture is Successfully Adopted by Smallholder Farmers. 

More precisely, we are requested to reflect on "describing specific desired scenarios for a future where data-driven agriculture is adopted by smallholder farmers and what would success look like in practical terms". 

A few ideas to get the ball rolling: 

Note of caution: I fully realize that smallholder agriculture is as diverse as agrobiodiversity, and  across the board solutions are not possible and may be even damaging to small holder farmers in certain contexts. So our premise is that we realize these differences and always qualify our broader statements or specify context. Just to give an idea: language barriers are often a limiting factor - many smallholder farmers in the Andes for instance are still illiterate ... 

1. When we imagine "scenarios" I would suggest we consider the socio-economic, policy, legal, institutional frameworks and settings which may be seen as "enablers" for data and information flows and different streams - as noted by the Background Paper paper by the organizers.  So, what are the very specific conditions or aspects for each dimension under which we may envision a succesful data driven agriculture scenario?

For instance, we may have a very good enabling policy environment, but poor technological capacities to deliver data - e.g. limited Intenet or phone coverage. Or we may have some excellent delivery platforms, but strong political and legal restrictions. Or we may also have an enabling regulatory framework but poor incentives for small start ups or entrepreneurs to engage in "micro" context data delivery situations ? Is there something we may learn form, for example, micro-credits and the whole Muhammad Yunus story lending to the poor ? 

Maybe we can come up with some form of "model" scenario, in the understanding that country specificities and context vary substantially, particularly in regards to smallholder farmers and their capacities, expectations, interests.

2.  Maybe we can also reflect a bit on what exactly do we consider "success" as. Are we limiting our analysis to increasing production and productivity and assuming this reflects immediately in better livelihoods, increased food security? Are availability of potent data platforms and uptake of tools a measure of success? It might be interesting to distill the concept a little and maybe fine tune a couple of indicators which could serve in this dialogue.  

3.  Finally, I´d like to also propose that we reflect on how "success" on the technological front interplays with cultural values and practices which for many smallholder farmers (e.g. Andean campesinos) are part of a heritage and essential "asset" often (not always) in tension with technological advances (not all forms). As data driven agriculture takes form (at the end of the day it is a technological development), how do we concile its potential with strong culture - which is not static, but dynamic and often receptive of change?  

We can start off with these ideas if you all agree.

Here are also a few references which I´ve found interesting read. Quite short and entertaining too. 

Pierpaoli, E. et al Drivers of agriculture precision technologies adoption: a literature review.  Procedia Technology   8  ( 2013 )  61 – 69   Available at, https://ac.els-cdn.com/S2212017313000728/1-s2.0-S2212017313000728-main.pdf?_tid=f12787db-0a5f-4594-8b92-bffa62413b37&acdnat=1527964064_9ac279873f03d70d772191ca9ac3804b

Mondal, P., Basu. M.  Adoption of precision technologies in agriculture in India and some developing countries: scope present status and strategies. Progress in Natural Science 19 (2009) 659–666 Available at,  https://ac.els-cdn.com/S1002007109000173/1-s2.0-S1002007109000173-main.pdf?_tid=de254c20-ac11-4586-823b-fae3cddb33c9&acdnat=1527964479_625bcc54ce1396ea8bce6b2e206aca42

Roach, J. (2016) Can data driven agriculture help feed a hungry world? Yale Environment 360. Available at https://e360.yale.edu/features/can_data-driven_agriculture_help_feed_a_hungry_world

Sparapani, J. (2017) How bid data and tech will improve agriculture: from farm to table. Available at, https://www.forbes.com/sites/timsparapani/2017/03/23/how-big-data-and-tech-will-improve-agriculture-from-farm-to-table/#4919e1ab5989