Accelerating Digital Transformation in Agriculture

Author: Sander Janssen

Publish Date: 11 October 2021

Digital technologies have strong potential to support the transformation of agriculture, building a resilient, sustainable and inclusive agrifood system [1]. As key enablers, digital innovations can play a catalytic role – especially in the wake of COVID-19 – by improving the capacity of small-scale producers (SSPs) to adapt to external shocks and increasing productivity and profitability. With more than 33 million smallholder farmers and pastoralists [2] already registered on such platforms, sub-Saharan Africa alone has seen a rapid increase in the adoption of digital solutions, recording an annual growth of 44 per cent over the three-year period ending in 2018. Despite a rapid expansion of the digitalisation for agriculture (D4Ag) sector across low-and-middle income countries, the reach and sustainable use of D4Ag solutions remains fairly low, especially among SSPs. Only 13 per cent of smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa are registered for any digital service and far fewer are actively using such services [3]. Inadequate access to the Internet and digital services, coupled with issues of affordability, disability and a growing digital divide, are among factors that have widened the disconnect. One of the main barriers holding back investment in D4Ag solutions and their impact at scale is lack of cost-effective ways of comparing and contrasting solutions, and making informed decisions on which ones will really work.

Promoting alliances and investments

Despite a highly complex and fragmented digital sector, there is significant potential for establishing sustainable partnerships and investments. For this reason, there is a growing need for greater coordination of D4Ag solutions and their overarching ecosystem, but how best to achieve this?

Stewart Collis from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), says that Digital Agri Hub (the Hub) can play an important role in driving D4Ag solutions for small-scale producers: “Evidence suggests bundled digital farmer services positively impact small-scale producers’ livelihoods by improving access to inputs, information on managing crops and livestock, obtaining climate mitigating finance and insurance and accessing markets. Digital Agri Hub will collate the essential data necessary to understand which combinations of services are reaching men and women small-scale producers at scale with impact, and act as a guide for investment and adoption of the most impactful digital agriculture products, solutions and services.”

Josh Woodard from The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) adds: "As the number of digital solutions in the agricultural sector continues to grow, the Digital Agri Hub will allow practitioners to make more informed decisions and bring clarity to a fragmented information landscape. We're excited by the potential for greater impact as a result of a more cohesive digital agriculture space."

Convinced of the scope for digital technologies in the agriculture sector, FCDO, BMGF and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are co-funding the Hub to monitor and track the development of digital for agriculture solutions, and their impact in helping to achieve a climate-resilient, sustainable and inclusive food system. Responding to the direct needs of the diverse stakeholder groups that play an active role in D4Ag will be an important focus for the Hub. To this end, it has conducted a needs assessment, with the aim of identifying, unpacking and addressing the major needs for each of the different actors on the pathway towards the sustainable growth of the sector.

The emerging issues

Across the nine identified stakeholder groups, made up of donors, (impact) investors, D4Ag solution providers, agri-food value chain actors, agritech companies, innovation repositories, policy makers and direct implementers (farmers’ organizations and non-governmental organisations), a broad range of issues has emerged. Tomaso Ceccarelli, the lead coordinator on this Ecosystem coordination activity from the Digital Agri Hub team, observes that: “Stakeholders have different perspectives and goals. But there is one trait that unites most of them, and this is the need for a structured overview on initiatives and reliable insights on the impact of D4Ag.”

Gigi Gatti from Grameen Foundation USA – one of the Digital Agri Hub partners – says that: “It is essential to work with existing D4Ag networks and Communities of Practice to understand how to best connect them to the Hub.”

Responding to these diverse needs is a key success parameter for the Hub, integrating such crucial and different perspectives in its programme of work. Simona Benvenuti from the Netherlands Advisory Board on Impact Investing (NAB) – a Digital Agri Hub partner – experiences that "to accelerate the mobilization of private-sector capital into D4Ag it is critical to provide impact-based data on existing D4Ag solutions and insights to mitigate investment risk, thus facilitating collaboration amongst the different types of capital providers and knowledge exchange globally across the value chain".

Daniele Tricarico, from GSMA, also a Digital Agri Hub partner, has closely assessed the development of the D4Ag sector and worked with a number of different solution providers in collaboration with mobile operators. From his perspective, "it is exciting to see a growing number of D4AG services coming to market, but this fast-paced sector also experiences a high level of fragmentation and many short-lived initiatives. It is therefore crucial to quickly identify emerging best practices and highlight the operational and business models that can support truly sustainable, scalable solutions".

Inclusion for all stands out as a critical prerequisite for the sustainable development of D4Ag. In support, Eunice Likoko, from Wageningen University and Research (WUR), adds that: “For women and marginalised groups, improved access to D4Ag solutions will be stimulated by understanding and addressing the barriers they face in accessing digital solutions. Intervention strategies need to go beyond minimal participation of excluded groups, to adopt more empowering approaches that address underlying barriers to promote sustainable and realistic adoption of digital solutions for these groups’’.

A hub for inclusive agricultural transformation

To ensure the strong and sustainable growth of the D4Ag sector, a better tracking mechanism will be central to the success of Digital Agri Hub, while supporting the everyday decision-making process of D4Ag actors across the agrifood system. Whether the decision is to partner with another D4Ag solution provider, to invest in a D4Ag solution, to create awareness and stimulate the development of the sector in a particular country, or to invest in digital developments for societal impact, access to insights, data and knowledge is crucial. It is Digital Agri Hub’s firm intention to truly act as a hub, bringing partners together, creating capacity and connecting actors to one another, helping them to share their insights and best practices towards inclusive agricultural transformation.

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[1] World Bank, 2019. Future of Food: Harnessing Digital Technologies to Improve Food System Outcomes (available here).
[2] 13% of all sub-Saharan African smallholders and pastoralists and up to 45% of smallholder households, depending on assumptions used to calculate penetration.
[3] D4Ag solutions refer to the digitally enabled business models and technologies to address farmers and food system actors’ constraints (e.g. around market access, inputs, financing and climate).

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Author: Digital Agri Hub team

Publish Date: 15 November 2022

Digital innovations continue to reshape the face of agriculture across Asia, offering a vehicle to improve productivity and enhance information and market access. Accelerating digital transformation in agriculture is essential towards building resilient, sustainable and inclusive agri-food systems. Scaling digital solutions in agriculture, however, requires the support of Digitalisation for Agriculture (D4Ag, also referred to as ‘e-agriculture’) policies and strategies. In partnership with the Asian Development Bank Institute and in collaboration with Dgroups Foundation and Indonesia Commodity & Derivatives Exchange, the Digital Agri Hub convened a policy-oriented dialogue, which fostered conversations around D4Ag policies and implementation pathways in Asia. The existing policies and the potential for scaling digital agriculture solutions significantly vary among regions and nations, therefore, the dialogue took a deep dive at country level, with contributions for Papua New Guinea, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

Harnessing inclusion of the public sector

Sustainability and scale remain two predominant challenges for D4Ag. As mentioned by Gerard Sylvester from the FAO, ‘We need to realise that when it comes to D4Ag, it’s a multisectoral and multi-stakeholder effort to come closer to sustainability and scalability’. As digitalisation cannot happen in isolation, the public sector plays a pivotal, interconnecting role. To this extent, governments need to put in place a guiding framework to help rationalize both human and financial resources available at the country level. They also have a key role in promoting collaboration across ministries, above all between agriculture and ICT, and foster sustainable synergies with the private sector. Although there are existing, good examples at country level, including the Papua New Guinea national e-agriculture strategy and pilot project, many governments in Asia still require support in the development of relevant strategies. In Indonesia for instance, the government is struggling to expand its D4Ag ecosystem in remote islands and integrate smallholder farmers due to limited data infrastructure in hyperlocal geographies. To do so, they need to increase their capacity to design and implement e-agriculture policies in a dialogue with solution providers and other actors across the food system. However, governments alone cannot determine how pathways to D4Ag should be. Gigi Gatti, from Grameen Foundation, highlighted the fact that ‘Cooperation and orchestration are very important, it’s not always about the government taking ownership of everything. Making sure that the voices of the farmers are heard is very important’.

Data governance is an essential component when we refer to D4Ag policies as it applies to how data is collected, stored, processed and disposed. Gerard Sylvester reiterates ‘Government needs to invest in strengthening data governance. Data is a double-edged sword and if aspects of data ownership, security, storage and sharing aren’t handled appropriately then sustainability and scalability become a major challenge’. Access to digital payments, digital lending and regulations that expand rural mobile coverage, as well as government funding that can help de-risk private sector investments are other key areas in which the public sector can take the lead. Finally, governments have an essential role to play when it comes to people. D4Ag requires a lot of investment in human resources for transitioning farmers from traditional to digital ways of getting information, e.g. using smartphones. Hence there is a need for an ecosystem that can lift their capacities, understanding and knowledge needed for enabling this transition.

Tailoring digitalisation for agriculture to the ecosystem

To contribute to scale and transforming agriculture, the private sector requires infrastructure and an enabling environment. An ecosystem approach is essential to bring forward diverse capacities from different stakeholders across the value chain and ensure sustainability. Grow Asia, for instance, is building public and private partnerships at a regional level for a more inclusive, sustainable, and resilient food system. The lead innovator of Grow Asia, Wei-Li Woo highlighted the fact that ‘Multi-stakeholder partnerships are essential in strengthening the agri-food sector, especially if we aim to incite positive change at the food systems level. Organizations like Grow Asia function as trusted, neutral conveners, in a space where an ecosystem approach is vital. Platforms like ours are designed to facilitate the implementation of complex partnerships where collaboration between agribusinesses, startups, service providers, NGOs and development actors are required’. At the country level, India is building a national digital ecosystem to elevate the agriculture sector and improve the welfare of farmers. Underlying this framework is the idea of an Agristack which is a unifying platform where multiple solution providers would be able to provide digital agriculture services to smallholder farmers. Tapping onto a best practice from a well-developed country, the government of Singapore is taking an active role in developing the agritech sector within the startup phase and has active programmes in place to encourage ecosystem players like accelerators and incubators to work closely with the government. Each country has a unique ecosystem approach which comprises key value chain players, systems and an enabling environment to foster a digital transformation of the agriculture sector.

Country-level spotlight: Papua New Guinea

FAO and ITU have assisted Papua New Guinea to develop the national e-strategy, steering partnerships with line ministries in agriculture and ICT, while facilitating resource mobilization and implementation of strategic projects. Challenges have emanated from the mountainous terrain of the country, which adversely affects the rollout of telecom infrastructure in most rural areas, making it difficult to create affordable ICT services. Low digital literacy of small-scale producers and poor localization of content into native languages have also been a challenge in developing and effectively adopting digital solutions. Despite these challenges, the 2018 e-strategy has really brought about exciting synergies between government, development partners and private actors, becoming an effective framework with different development projects pulling together resources and expertise.

Emerging insights

Consider the dynamic regional context and country diversity across Asia. Countries in South-East Asia (SEA) and South Asia, due to heterogenous agriculture profiles, require e-agriculture policies which are adapted to the dynamic regional context and country diversity.
To scale digital solutions, we need e-agriculture strategies where a lead stakeholder is clearly identified, there is a good understanding of where the resources are coming from, an action plan is developed accordingly, and a national task force is established which oversees these developments.
Governments have a critical role to foster cooperation through sound regulations, policies and enabling frameworks towards the digitalization of agriculture.
Once an e-agriculture strategy for any country is developed, it should not be cast in stone but should be flexible to adjustments as digitalization is fast-paced.
To push the strategy forward towards implementation, having adequate infrastructures (physical and data) and capacity (human and financial) in place is crucial.
Focus should move from small, isolated, and unsustainable projects to a larger ecosystem approach which requires assistance from governments and development partners to connect service providers with buyers and financial institutions.
When working with farmers, always think locally and develop tailor made interventions to improve uptake and adoption. Papua New Guinea is a great example of the uptake of a national e-strategy, with resource mobilization facilitated by the partnership among ministries and private sector.

We would like the following experts and institutions for their valuable contributions:
Tetsushi Sonobe, Asian Development Bank Institute; Gerard Sylvester, FAO; Gigi Gatti, Grameen Foundation; Michiko Katagami, Asian Development Bank; Wei Li, Grow Asia; Jeetendra Prakash Aryal, CIMMYT; Hera John, Government of Papua New Guinea; Lakshmi Iyer, Grameen Foundation; Arjun Goyal, Cropin Technology; Dr Tran Cong Thang, Director General, IPSARD, Vietnam; Pamitra Wineka, TaniHub.