E-Agriculture

Question 1

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Towards the establishment of a Digital Council for Food and Agriculture

Question 1

Question 1. What are the potential entry points for government to address challenges and foster the development of digital agriculture?

Proposed information for the concept note - The challenges that face our global food and agricultural system are enormous and some entry points that government have to address are:

  • Inadequate access to information: often, there is insufficient access to information and, in particular, to technical and not-technical knowledge of the agri-tech industry.
  • Inadequate digital literacy and new skills development: labour is not yet competitive in a world where digital technologies are able to replace human labour.
  • Inadequate access to financial resources: especially in poor and rural areas, these dynamics are worsened by the higher difficulty in accessing financing to obtain the initial investments needed to adopt digital solutions.
  • Inadequate infrastructures: the impossibility of relying on proper infrastructures undermines the diffusion and the benefits of any sort of innovation or technological development.
  • Inadequate support by the innovation system: digitalization in agriculture is also obstructed by the absence (or the inadequate awareness) of supporting elements such as policies, standards and regulatory frameworks.
  • The increase of socio-economic divides between developing and developed countries.    

Digital divide: gap between demographics and regions with access to modern ICTs and those that do not have access;    

  1. Gender divide: gap between genders in access to technologies;
  2. Geography divide: gap between different geographical areas.
  • Lack of investments in non-developed countries: Private sector organizations that are commercializing the latest technologies are often hesitant to begin working in countries that do not ensure sufficient levels of intellectual property (IP) and property protection.
  • Low affordability of new solutions: if not well regulated and managed, the development of new technologies and innovation will increasingly exclude the poorest because of their high costs of adoption, especially when it comes to ICT services.
  • Trust of information: the increasing number of digital platforms which make information available to actors of the agri-tech value chain (farmers in the first place) present issues of trust of the information source, as well as on the quality of the information provided, due to the underlying interests of the information provider .
  •  Data ownership: it is not always clear how information gathered from farming and in-field activities by digital tools and technologies are used by technology providers or other actors.

Further guiding questions related to Q1 for your consideration:-

  • Do you think the global challenges highlighted are conclusive?
  • According to you, what should be added or removed?

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Chris Ndungu
Chris NdunguBASFKenya

Life in rural areas is characterised with lack of electricity and bad roads. Yet some of these areas have very high crop yield. The result is low school enrolment and high poverty levels.

Internet connectivity tend to be high where road network is established and there is electricity. People need power to charge smartphones…Fibre optic cable is laid along public roads or follows electricity line….Unfortunately, these services are not avaiable in rural areas where agriculture is the main aconomic activity.

Roads and electricity, these are amenities the government should prioritise. Then private companies such as telecoms will see need to establish infrastructure due to perceived low risk. After that digital agriculture will then pick up. 

I have documented this urgument before in a LinkedIn post before; https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/internet-enabled-agriculture-chris-ndungu..

Chris Ndungu
Chris NdunguBASFKenya

Life in rural areas is characterised with lack of electricity and bad roads. Yet some of these areas have very high crop yield. The result is low school enrolment and high poverty levels.

Internet connectivity tend to be high where road network is established and there is electricity. People need power to charge smartphones…Fibre optic cable is laid along public roads or follows electricity line….Unfortunately, these services are not avaiable in rural areas where agriculture is the main aconomic activity.

Roads and electricity, these are amenities the government should prioritise. Then private companies such as telecoms will see need to establish infrastructure due to perceived low risk. After that digital agriculture will then pick up. 

I have documented this urgument before in a LinkedIn post before; https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/internet-enabled-agriculture-chris-ndungu..

Sophie Treinen
Sophie TreinenUNFAOHungary

The entry points can be summarized asking the A's questions, are digital technologies in rural areas :

- Available, in terms of infrastructure, connectivity and quality of the service but also availablity of content in the language users can understand, replying to their needs

- Accessible - do people have access to the equipment, devices, maintenance.  

- Affordable - is the price to pay for smallholder farmers, women, youth to have access affordable. 

- Appropriate - adapted: are the devices appropriate in terms of resistance rural conditions exposed to climate changes such a very hot and very cold temperatres, dust, high level of humidity, shocks, can it be read easily ...

- Allowed - are there rules, social barriers that would prevent rural users to use the digital technologies.   

- Ability: are users in rural areas prepared to use digital technologies, are there programme to make them trust the technologies, understand the benefits and developing their capacities to use them?

FAO has also highlighted in 7 success factors that should be taken into consideration to reduce the triple divide (digital, rural and gender):

  1. Provide adapted and reliable content from trusted sources.
  2. Develop capacities for three dimensions: the individual’s capacity, organizational capacity, and the enabling environment.
  3. Mainstream gender and diversity.
  4. Increase access and participation.
  5. Engage in partnerships, especially public-private.
  6. Identify the right mix of technologies.
  7. Ensure economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

 

Elijah Masika ndinyo
Elijah Masika ndinyoBukwo District Local GovernmentUganda

By enhancing E-extension services:- E-extension services can help raise farm profits and provide a cost-effective way to reach a greater number of farmers

The government can also enhance market information through digital technologies:- Under certain conditions, improved access to market information via mobile phone can help increase farmers’ sales and prices, and reduce price dispersions across markets.

Leanne Wiseman
Leanne WisemanGriffith University, AustraliaAustralia

Potential entry points for Government to address the challenges and foster the development of digital agriculture:

-development of digital agricultural strategy to guide Government policy development in the field of agriculture to assist in the adoption and uptake of digital technologies;

- whether this is policy development that facilitates open data sharing or not:

-once Government strategy is decided; then policy development can assist access to information; and focus priorites around capacity building for digital and data literacy within agricultural industries.

To build trust, governments must ensure frameworks are in place to ensure agricultural technology industries are treating ag data safely, securely and respecting the privacy of the farmers.  To do this Governments can examine a variety of regulatory options: unfair terms legislation; data codes of conduct that encourage best practice in data collection management and sharing.

Guillermo Martinez
Guillermo MartinezCentro de Investigación en Ciencias de Información Geoespacial, A.C.Mexico

It is relevant to focus on the equal better use of what is available today by the people in the different realities. It’s not only about accessibility to different things, because due to WWW huge amounts of data and tools are there awaiting to be used. The focal matter is to open opportunities to everybody to have the best benefit of them.

In most countries, it’s government’s duty to seek for the well-being of the population, but in most of them, society is able to participate through civil participation, NGO’s, etc. A possible useful strategy to address this is for decision takers to open the analysis process to different society’s actors, that can offer knowledge, plans and creativity to face this everybody’s problem.  

Agriculture has to be considered a local activity with global impact. Inside the sustainability development’s postulates, this activity has to provide products and inputs not only to population surrounding the parcels, considering we are living in a global village. Important global tools such as satellite imagery can benefit different countries that might be in a difficult situation to buy, develop or use other technological tools.  

A multinational council has the opportunity to focus correct efforts where are needed, because the local requirements have to be attended as so, having always in mind that each region is different in environmental, social and economic issues. This uniqueness can be better addressed by strategies emerging from de discussion of different points of view from inside and outside the areas.