ICT enabled Agriculture

Source: The East African Standard, Kenya.        
Created By: Francis Mwathi on 26-Jun-2008 1:09 AM

 Agriculture is an important sector which majority of the rural population depend on.

In the wake of growing demand for food, the sector offers opportunities for producers to sustain and improve their livelihood. Unknown to many, Information and communication technology (ICT) plays an important role in addressing these challenges and uplift the livelihood of the rural poor.

How can achievements of ICT be used to develop agriculture?

The sector is confronted with the challenge of increasing production to feed a growing population in a situation of decreasing availability of natural resources. Of concern are water shortages, declining soil fertility, effects of climate change and rapid decrease of fertile agricultural land due to urbanisation.

However, demand for food offers opportunities for improving the livelihoods of rural communities. Technical innovation is required to cope with these challenges and improve the livelihood of farmers.

The role of ICT to enhance food security and support farming cannot be ignored.

Its role in agriculture — which includes use of computers, Internet, geographical information systems, mobile phones, radio and television — was endorsed at the World Summit on the Information Society 2005.

Increasing the efficiency, productivity and sustainability of small-scale farms is an area where ICT can make contribution.

Farming involves risks and uncertainties, with farmers facing many threats from poor soils, drought, erosion and pests. Key improvements stem from basic information about pest and disease control, early warning systems, weather changes, new varieties, ways to optimize production and regulations and quality control.

Electronic agriculture

E-Agriculture is a new term and its scope is expected to evolve with time. It involves conceptualisation, design, development, evaluation and application of innovative ways to use ICT on agriculture.

Stakeholders in agriculture industry need information and knowledge about agricultural and food production.

Any system applied for getting information for making decisions in any industry should deliver accurate, complete, concise information on time. The information must be in user-friendly, easy to access, cost-effective and well protected from unauthorised accesses. ICT can help achieve greater interactivity in communicating, evaluating, producing and sharing useful information and knowledge.

Improving market access

Awareness of up-to-date market information on prices for commodities, inputs and consumer trends can improve farmers’livelihoods substantially and have a dramatic impact on their negotiating position. Such information is important in making decisions about future crops and commodities and about the best time and place to sell and buy goods.

In many countries, initiatives exist that seek to address this issue. Websites that match offer and demand of agricultural produce are part of the agricultural trade systems.

These Websites tend to evolve from local selling/buying websites and price-information systems, to systems offering marketing and trading functions.

Price information is collected at the main regional markets and stored in a central database. The information is published on a website, accessible to farmers via information centres.

To reach a wider audience, information is broadcast via rural radio, TV and any other new media channel including the phone, thereby creating a ‘level playing field’ between producers and traders in a region.

The sustainability of these systems requires attention, with an important role for the private sector and organised producer groups. Web-based trading platforms offering one-stop shop facilities are emerging, especially for main commodities.

In recent years, short message and text services have taken up and effectively deliver prices and trading information via mobile phone to farmers, in Senegal, and Benin.

The set-up of price and market information systems has been piloted in many developing countries. Farmers and agricultural players are being linked to factories and mills, through the use of satellite, databases and mobile phones, thereby ensuring a fair income for producers and a steady supply.

Economies of scale can be realised through the use of shared platforms using common standards. Information should be presented in an appropriate format in order to be effectively used by rural communities.

Capacity building

Communities and farmer organisations can be helped through the use of ICTs to strengthen their own capacities and better represent their constituencies when negotiating input and output prices, land claims, resource rights and infrastructure projects.

ICT enables rural communities to interact with other stakeholders, thus reducing social isolation. It widens the perspective of local communities in terms of national or global developments, opens up new business opportunities and allows easier contact with friends and relatives.

ICT also plays a role in making processes more efficient and transparent. It helps in making laws and land titles more accessible.

Global positioning systems linked to geographical information systems, digital cameras and Internet, may help rural communities to document and communicate their situation. Rural communities benefit from better access to credit and rural banking facilities.

Farming communities

There is a huge gap between agricultural knowledge and rural communities. At local level, multi-stakeholder mechanisms are important to make relevant information accessible to end-users.

Intermediary organisations have to connect rural communities to available knowledge. Users will increasingly want tailor-made, quality answers through online advisory service. At national level, mechanisms need to be in place to ensure learning and information sharing.

Internet access

The type of ICT used by local communities is subject to rapid change. However, broadband Internet access is seen as central for societal innovation because storing of large datasets and live communication requires good connectivity.

Until recently, connectivity in rural areas was limited to slow dial-up lines. Satellite connections now make broadband access possible in remote areas. Use of mobile phones has seen an enormous increase in recent years, especially in rural areas in Africa.

However, big differences still exist in broadband access between developed and developing countries, with Africa having only three per cent of global broadband users. New initiaves like the digital villages with wireless technologies such as MESH and WiMAX, and new-generation mobile phone networks, will provide high speed internet services at sharply reduced costs, thereby dramatically increasing internet coverage in rural areas.

Win-win situation

Public and private partnership involvement component has proven to be the way forward in countries already utilising ICT in Agriculture development. Striking a win-win situation is a key to make public-private partnerships work.

This win-win situation enables the private sector to promote its products and the public sector to recoup some costs of running e-Agriculture initiatives and provide the communities and stakeholders with information and products.

This requires practitioners to clearly spell out roles and responsibilities and address the interests of the parties involved along with their explicit commitments toward a common goal, understand different incentives that drive the public and the private sectors.

Private sector has a profit motive for adding value and growing its customer base, which needs to be reconciled with the public sector’s interest of reaching large numbers of the intended beneficiaries. Both can be combined to form a common vision.

Political environment

The Government must realise the necessity to link ICT and agriculture and incorporate ICT in agricultural sector policies and programmes. The social and political environment within which ICT projects operate is crucial and supportive policies and measures are required. Raising awareness raising, developing functional systems and capacities of stakeholders are processes that require time.

Web Site: http://www.eastandard.net

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