[quote="Lisa-Cespedes"] How do you foresee ICT impacting the agricultural value chain in the future? What roles do the public and private sectors have in its success? [/quote] ICT will definitely highly impact the agricultural value chain in developing countries in the next ten years (as it already does impact the avc's in the rest of the world). The private sector will probably become the main driver of innovation, more than govt and development agencies. But for the poor farmers to benefit from this process, special attention needs to be given to them with awareness raising, training and empowerment on ICT.

[quote="RAY"] Harmonizing these issues for a better development approach could be impossible since ICT technology changes every miniute thereby rendering best practice of the moment irrelevant the following day before policy change is affected. Certainly there is value, but is dynamic and short lived. [/quote] Once more, I agree fully with Rabiu. The pace of change in the ICT sector is such, that we cannot afford any more to wait for evaluations of existing pilots. And lessons learnt from yesterday may indeed not be applicable any more tomorrow. That is, for the issues related to technology. Issues related to change management, human relationships, power etc., are probably more continuous and less affected by rapid change. Here, learning may prove longer lasting and very valuable.

[quote="michaelriggs"] Many of us in regional and international organizations have felt for several years now that part of the problem in the ICT for development field is a lack of comprehensive, rigorous review of ICT projects and programmes that are presented in a way that they become learning tools for other practitioners. [/quote] I believe that Knowledge sharing should take place all along the process of integration of ICT's - both as an internal tool for learning within the organisation, and as a tool to share and exchange with others. One of the reasons why it may be so hard to get real learning out of pilots, is that projects are conceived as a set of activities within a (often short) limit of time and with a number of expected results. This conception enhances a sense of failure if the results are not achieved, and a sense of success if they are. In a setting like this, the implementers and the donors will be ashamed to admit mistakes and failures. So often, we get misleading success stories rather than real insight in how pilots were conducted, what went wrong, how it was adjusted etc. Some organisations manage to maintain a self-critical attitude and are able to to describe their own mistakes, misconceptions etc. - but unfortunately those are rare. In a process setting, it may be easier to admit failure and to analyse it in order to get going. 'Learning by doing' then becomes one of the adagio's. On an international level, case studies and reviews of ICT pilots can help of course, if they are conducted in a rigorous, transparent and independent way. The only problem is that this learning has to be channelled back to the users, adapted to the local context etc., and that this whole process may take too much time. In the end, the real learning has to take place on the ground, and thus project/programme designers and donors should build in strong learning mechanisms and feedback loops in their designs.

[quote="Lisa-Cespedes"] Question 5 (14 Dec.) What suggestions do you have for integrating ICT into agricultural value chain development projects and programs? What consideration must be given to the people, institutions and processes that are impacted by the introduction/use of ICT? [/quote] Many good points have already been raised by other contributors on this issue. I'll try not to repeat them, and focus on general lessons we've learnt: 1. Try to approach the integration of the ICTs in a holistic manner: that is to say, taking into account all dimensions (human, cultural, geographical, technological, financial, political etc.). This undoubtedly costs time, but may help to avoid failure in a later stage. 2. Take the integration as a process rather than as a project: a process approach may be less clear cut from the start, but is more flexible and takes into account that change often only occurs after trying, learning, trying again, learning, trying again etc. before fully adopting a new way of organizing reality. 3. Local ownership and trust are essential: stakeholder involvement throughout the whole process (awareness raising, visioning, technology exploration, formulation, implementation, evaluation, learning) can help to ensure these. 4. Avoid isolated pilots: build (local, national and international) knowledge and peer exchange mechanisms. 5. ICT's are most succesfully integrated in situations where other variables have already been tackled. In other words: ICT's can enhance existing solutions and practices, but often fail when they're presented as THE solution to THE problem. Example: in Burkina Faso, IICD supported a project on awareness raising on water hygiene and sanitation problems in 20 remote villages. The NGO Sahel Solidarite which worked on this programme already had a sound methodology, involving local villagers in the campaigns, and had built a good trust base in the concerned region. Equippping the extension workers and the villagers with digital cameras and other ICT's, training them etc. then helped the campaign to become more succesful in terms of participation, reach, impact and behavioural change. I doubt this would have been the case if the project had had to start from scratch or if we'd had to tackle the trust and local customs issues too. A nice video on this project, quite similar to the Digital Green approach btw, can be found on: http://atelier.rfi.fr/video/1189413:Video:24293

[quote="Sea"] I strongly agree with Faureys statement, trust is really the key. Morality also will contribute, because when knowlegde is applied with understanding things work almost perfectly. [/quote] :P

[quote="Tasnim"] Security may be considered a vital challenge for the use of ICT(in value chains)in rural areas. Unless the safety and security can be ensured for the costly ICT devices,the realization of ICT in value chains may be very difficult. [/quote] Hi Tasnim, Yes indeed, the deployed ICT solutions should be adapted to the local situation in order to last as long as possible. And in some cases, well guarded too... However, I believe that trust is the most important issue to address when considering how to change behaviours - whether it's with ICT's or without. Without trust between the actors, even the best market price information system will not work. The same accounts for agricultural information: only when the beneficiaries trust the provider of the information will they accept it and eventually adopt it to their situation. This is one of the reasons why I believe that it is essential that farmers themselves become ICT-proficient: the strongest testimonies will come from their fellow farmers.

[quote="Lisa-Cespedes"] Question 4 (10 Dec.) What are the real drivers of success for the use of ICT (in value chains) in rural areas? What challenges are faced in these situations? [/quote] I posted the following link in the resources section to an article on the case of the use of ICT by FEPPASI in Burkina Faso and the success factors involved: http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/Feature-Articles/Farmers-teaching-farmers

[quote="sapnaaroranarula"] Your query is very pertinent but i would like to mention here that in case of developing countries, farmers will not be able to use these technologies unless these are funded by Government and other institutions. Sapna [/quote] Hi Sapna, Though there may be some truth in your statement, in the sense that market information should (partly) be a public good, I think that we could also look at different levels of ICT-access and -implication. Looking at price-cost relevance, it is clear for instance that in Africa access to computers and the Internet at this moment can only be afforded by larger farmers' organizations (10.000+ members), unions and/or federations. Further down the line (small farmers' organisations), access to phone/fax and/or mobile phone (+ multimedia: computer based projections of slides, videos etc.) can be envisaged, while at the level of individual farmers radio/television and mobile phones can be used (+ multimedia). No large subsidies are required to keep information systems running up till the level of regions and provinces. And probably a majority of farmers in Africa still operates mostly at this level. Further up, when you talk about national and international systems, of course more investments and and running costs are needed.

[/quote="Rabiu Yakasai"] In essence, all category of farmers especially digitally divided ones must be fully carried on board with respect to ICT deployment in the agriculture value chains. This implies ensuring ICT proficiency among the vulnerable farm producers to guard against the downsides. [/quote] Hi Rabiu, I fully agree. The priority should lie on ensuring ICT awareness and profiency amongst the most vulnerable producers.

[quote="RAY"] This is an overview, full details contained in a document (pdf) sent to [email protected] earlier on Kind regards Rabiu Yakasai [/quote] Hi Rabiu, Very interesting article - the RDB resembles very much the pilot project we are currently supporting in Leo in Burkina Faso with the farmers' federation FEPPASI. In fact, it is feasible to create highly connected 'hubs' in rural areas that can then pass on vital information to low connected areas/people via other tools. Our experience is that such a hub 'within' a community (e.g. a farmers' organization) performs much better than a 'generalist' telecentre. I can't find the pdf you refer to...