I am of the view of that ICT policy strategies for the agricultural sector is as important for any ACP country as there are general ICT policies to bring about intended change or development. The reality is most broader ICT policies failed to provide a comprehensive view of issues particularly for countries where Agriculture is the main contributor to GDP.
 
My rationale for ICT strategies target for the agricultural sector are;

1. There is much greater potential for Agriculture to benefit from ICTs if properly done. More than enough evidence currently show the potential and impact ICTs have on the agricultural sector ad hoc nature of policy directives
2. To realise the huge impact of ICTs in Agriculture, there MUST be systematic effort in planning to ensure judicious use of scare resource.
3. A two pronged approach to needed to facilitate and harness the fully benefits of ICTs in Agriculture. The first approach fuelled mostly by farmers, young enterprising individuals and the private sector is already in full force. The second, which is government lead is currently ad hoc and needs streamlining.

[quote="Lisa-Cespedes"] Question 3 (9 Dec.) What potential downsides (negative impacts) might be experienced when ICT is used in the agricultural value chain? How can we guard against the downsides? [/quote] Coming from a developing country, the concern is what additional cost is that ICT been used introduces to the agricultural value chain and who is to bear that additional cost? I can not more than agree with Jo, on the points he raised. The farmers lack resources to manage their farms hence adoption of these tools becomes a challenge. An interesting observation that the world has come to appreciate is the impact of mobile telephony and technology. The major reason for its high usage is basically because the cost of the device and usage is relatively cheap. The case in India, where Public private partnership is thriving brings much interesting models for adoption by other developing countries. My personal view on this question is that, so long as the cost of adoption and use of the ICT outweighs the benefit the farmer derives from its usage the more we will experience negative impact across the entire value chain that is other stakeholders (middlemen) benefiting at the expense of the poor farmer. It therefore behooves that Governments especially and private sector through PPP develops appropriate business models that makes it profitable for all stakeholders in the chain. There are lessons to be learnt from India etc..

Hello Everyone, My name is Worlali Senyo, a young graduate in the area of Agricultural Economics from the University of Ghana. I am very passionate about the role of ICTs in Agriculture. I currently work as a research analyst with an ICT research firm in Ghana. I trust that after this forum, experts and ordinary persons will bring to bear their experiences and knowledge on the topic at hand so we can better apprise the role ICT is playing and how best to use it in the Agricultural Value chain process to maximize value. Thank you.

The future looks brighter for mobile telephony and technologies because all factors point to the fact that mobile telephony and its technologies have provided relatively cheap and accessible alternates for communication and information exchange to the vulnerable of our societies. I would also say all stakeholders i.e World bodies (eg. FAO, UN…etc), Governments and in particular those of developing countries will have to see mobile telephony and its technologies as a relatively cheap alternative to educate and help alleviate poverty and thus provide support to Universities, Research institution and private sector to help develop application that are tallied to solving problems that face the under privileged of our societies who mostly are farmers. Already applications have been developed for mobile banking, drug authentication, remote vehicle control and tracking, electronic money transfer via mobile phones and just today Nokia press release has stated a new smart home platform to offer consumers new ways to control their homes with mobile device. This it states will open new era for networked home services and solution. The platform also will allow third parties to integrate their own smart solutions and services. I believe that these products will provide services which will cut across all aspects of social, economic and political landscape. Thank you

Hi Luca, Like most developing countries, the success factors for high usage of mobile telephone in Ghana are the same as those enumerated in the early post. The story in Ghana isn't much as compared to those of India, Philippines etc.. who have developed and implemented mobile applications for information exchange. Most of the mobile applications being developed and used in Ghana turn to serve mainly the urban dwellers. The active Mobile application which is providing Agricultural market information on mobile phone in Ghana and also some African countries is that of [url=http://www.tradenet.biz/]Tradenet[/url]. Laura of BusyLab Ltd a Subject Matter Expert on this forum can share more light on the Tradenet system. The system basically provides commodity prices and alerts for signed up members through sms. A research group, headed by the Coordinator of the Technology Assessment Project (TAP) of the University of Ghana, Legon, Dr Amos Anyimadu had a study tour of some selected Districts in the Central Region of Ghana with particular focus on fisher folks of Moree. It was established that the fisher folks use mobile phone to communicate with their agents and customers from various parts of the country to find out where the prices of fish were more competitive. The fisher folks also use the mobile device to establish the where about of their colleagues at sea. These information exchanges were largely communicated by voice. Information on weather, health etc.. are mostly provided to these fisher folks mainly by local radio stations. There are a lot of other mobile application services which are mainly for the multimedia companies (Radio, TV) and some private organization where individual text codes to special numbers provided by the mobile networks operators for promotional programmes. Ghana will be going to the polls to elect a new president and some political parties are raising funds through the use of mobile phone sms systems. Recently, Nokia introduced a new mobile internet course to a number of African universities, including Ashesi University College in Ghana. The Mobile Internet Programme (MIP), is an initiative borne out of partnership between Nokia and EPROM (Entrepreneurial Programming and Research on Mobiles), which aims to encourage University students to develop mobile phone applications for use in emerging markets such as Africa. Ghana need to act now to benefit from mobile telephony application as majority of its work force are engaged in agriculture and the need for timely and accessible information on prices, market, weather etc.. is very important to help alleviate poverty. The State and private sector will have to collaborate in this regard. The services that these mobile telephony applications will provide should be a public good.

Success Factors of Mobile Telephony in Rural Areas (a) Affordability (Demand-Side): The many pricing models offer affordability and choice, even for very low-income customers (cheap handsets, micro prepayments, top-up cards). Innovative ways of mobile phone access, which allow sharing of phones through SIM cards and payments for air time through micro-prepayment, promote even more rapid adoption by the poor; (b) Affordability (Supply-Side): Establishing mobile masts is a relatively inexpensive way of serving large & remote rural areas, compared to last mile cable for fixed line telephony. (c) Flexibility: It is not pricing models that are flexible: usages are also. Mobiles can be used for text and voice and are two-way communications (i.e., more flexible than radio/TV). (d) Low Barriers to Entry: The mobile has become the most easily accessible and ubiquitous communications device in rural areas. Easy availability of low priced new handsets with basic features and emergence of secondary markets for used devices, whose prices are even lower, make them within reach for even the poorest of the poor Studies by the International Telecommunications Union indicate that of the world's mobile subscribers only 33% were in the developed world with the remaining 67% in the developing world at the end of 2006. Recent statistics has shown that Africa has now surpassed North America in terms of the number of mobile subscribers and similar growth trend is being observed across developing world. China is adding about 6-7 million new subscribers per month, India about 8-9 million (CITA) . It is projected that Africa's mobile penetration rate is expected to increase to 31% by 2011 from 15.37% in 2005. One contributing factor to this phenomenal growth has been the involvement of a competitive private sector which has invested $210billion in telecommunication infrastructure in the developing world from 1995-2002. Some examples of the uses of Mobile Telephony in rural areas of the developing world The use of mobile phones has reduced to a large extend information asymmetries, enabling users to access arbitrage, market or trade opportunities that they otherwise would have missed out on. Jensen (2007) in a recent study of fishermen in the Kerala state in India has shown that the use of mobile phones by fishermen in Kerala to arbitrage over price information from potential buyers and coordinate sales has helped them to increase incomes and reduce wastage. This study concluded that the use of mobile phones: (a) increased consumer surplus (by an average of 6%); (b) increased the fishermen's profits (by an average of 8%); (c) reduced price dispersion (by a decline of 4%) and reduced waste (which was averaging 5-8% of daily catch, before the use of mobile phones). Another study carried out by Jonas Myhr on "livelihood changes enabled by mobile phone' in Tanzania demonstrated that increased access to information through the use of mobile phones by fishermen in Tanzania resulted in empowering them through increased bargaining power, knowledge about market opportunities. There were little or no negative effects (Myhr 2006). The use of mobile phones has helped correct other market inefficiencies. An example is the Palliathya help line in Bangladesh which uses mobile phones to both increase access to information for both men and women living in Bangladesh's rural areas. The helpline services included; (a) preventing the exploitation by middlemen; (b) provide employment opportunities (particularly for rural women); (c) reduce information gaps; (d) save cost and time; (e) strengthen access of service providers to rural people. This initiative uses face-to-face contact, together with ICT, to empower women economically, as well as to share community-relevant information on: education, emergency situations, markets, weather, etc The use of mobiles has helped reduced the cost of transportation. Improvements in the information flows between buyers and sellers allow for the efficient trading of information without the traveling. Traders are able to ensure demand exists for their products, before setting out on a journey and also in some circumstances, mobile phones can allow the "middle man' to be cut out The mobile phone as a tool is used in: (a) aiding disaster relief; (b) enabling the dissemination of locally-generated and locally-relevant educational and health information; and (c) promoting social capital and social cohesion Please download the report from [url=http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTINFORMATIONANDCOMMUNICATIONANDTEC…]