Can digital solutions transform agri-food systems in Africa?

ABSTRACT

Digital agriculture solutions hold a promise to build agri-food food systems that are more efficient, environmentally sustainable, and inclusive, thereby contributing to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals. In most African countries, the rapid adoption of mobile phones and other digital tools have accelerated the deployment of agricultural services for farmers and other value chain actors resulting in enhanced access to information, knowledge, financial services, markets, and farm tools. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to fast-track the deployment of contact-free digital solutions along the agri-food value chains. Despite the numerous opportunities presented by the digital agricultural revolution, its potential to transform agri-food systems in Africa remains uncertain. With a broad perspective on Africa, this paper explores the emerging evidence on digital agricultural services including key drivers, evidence on impact, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper concludes with some implications for policy makers and professionals in agricultural economics.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital agriculture services
• smart farming
• Africa
• agri-food systems
• COVID-19
• smallholder farmers
• evidence gaps

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Note that there is a technical difference between “digitization” and “digitalization”. Digitization is the process of converting analogue information to digital format (e.g., handwritten farm records being entered onto a database) while digitalisation refers to the use of digital technologies to enhance business operations.

2 Unique subscriptions rate is lower than count of mobile phone per 100 people because some people own more than one phone.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported, in whole or in part, by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation INV-005049. Under the grant conditions of the Foundation, a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Generic License has already been assigned to the Author Accepted Manuscript version that might arise from this submission. This work is supported in part by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) grant AID-OAA-A-17-00033.