Theme Specific Highlights - Locally led development
Sessions under this theme focused on highlighting the importance of local institutions and how better delivery and usage of technology by these institutions leads to locally-led development. Some key problems and potential solutions discussed under this theme are mentioned below:
1
Restricted growth of a local community/ organization
2
Lower involvement of local communities in disseminating information
3
Lack of synergy between corporate and agriculture supply chain
Challenge: Restricted growth of a local community/ organization
Agricultural challenges are very context-specific, and solutions often require localized expertise. The scattered stakeholder landscape makes the scaling up of innovations particularly difficult, and opportunities offered by digital technologies to unlock the potential of millions of farmers are not explored.
POTENTIAL SOLUTION: For ICT-enabled solutions to be effective at scale, it is important to seed and foster local entrepreneurship, rather than relying on the import of solutions. This may be achieved by following an ecosystem or platform approach by the program funding and implementing agencies. This approach includes three interlinked pillars: a data ecosystem for both governments and innovators; an AgTech/Start-up ecosystem for supporting content and solution creation and enabling effective service delivery; and institutional innovation by the government in collaboration with the private sector for data-driven decision making and the scaling up of innovation.
A) The World Bank is working with global public and private partners to develop frameworks for cooperation that leverage global knowledge and capacity to help countries leapfrog their way through the digital transformation of their agri-food systems.
For example, The World Bank’s Disruptive Agriculture Technology project in Uganda and Kenya identifies local startups through an open competition, and the selected startups get an opportunity to scale their solutions by providing services to a substantial number of farmers associated with the World Bank project at zero farmer acquisition cost. Secondly, the selected startup also gets grant support to validate and pilot their solutions. Finally, the startups also get the opportunity to bundle and scale with other innovators.
B) The Ministry of Agriculture, Ethiopia is collaborating with multiple stakeholders to transform Ethiopian agriculture from a value-chain based ecosystem to a digital-solutions based ecosystem.
As part of this digitization process, the Ministry of Agriculture, Ethiopia invited about 15 organizations (including Digital Green, IRI, Columbia University, FAO, Rockefeller Foundation, etc.) to map existing digital platforms, products, and services. This led to the development of a roadmap for the implementation of digital agriculture extension and advisory services that are context-specific. The objective is to establish a dynamic digital ecosystem that will act as an interface between the private and government sectors for data sharing. Moreover, it will also offer a blended finance facility.
Challenge: Lower involvement of local communities in disseminating information
Information processing and dissemination plays a critical role in the transformation of the agriculture sector. Lack of access to information on context specific practices from local organizations (such as research institutes / universities, corporates, and agtechs) by smallholder farmers results in lower adoption of digital solutions. There is a need to establish an ICT based information dissemination system in the LMICs which uses the knowledge and expertise of local organizations to disseminate context specific solutions.
POTENTIAL SOLUTION: A low-tech digital platform which onboard all stakeholders to efficiently disseminate information on varieties, weather conditions, farming practices, markets etc. might be the solution.
Agrilink and El-kanis are examples of knowledge sharing platforms.
Agrilink is an online platform that currently has 14,000 members across the globe and its newsletter has 27,000 subscribers. The platform creates multiple discussions/ monthly themes on local topics published by members of the community. This is followed by a webinar to stimulate conversation about the topic which benefits many from the knowledge of local communities. Agrilinks enables any individual, project or organization with a connection to food security and agriculture to create an account and share information. Through this model, Agrilinks democratizes and increases information accessibility on a global scale. With over 1 million pageviews per year from over 125 countries and an average of more than 1,000 registrants per webinar, this model empowers implementers, NGO staff, academics, scientists and government staff worldwide to exchange knowledge.
El-kanis is an agribusiness firm based in Nigeria that has a dynamic, diverse & innovative group of Agronomists, Veterinary Doctors, Project Managers, Business Developers, Scientists, Data Analysts and Tech-experts. El-Kanis developed an IVR based communication system for smallholder farmers to have their queries addressed by local experts.
Challenge: Lack of synergy between corporate and agriculture supply chain
Corporations globally have high sourcing standards and are often committed to sustainability goals, while focusing on profitability. This is also required to meet the regulatory norms. For example EU due diligence standards for companies to procure sustainably. By digitizing supply chains, ICT can play a key role in supporting corporates to meet their responsible procurement goals. At the same time, by partnering with corporates, ICTforAg enterprises can potentially scale-up operations faster, rather than through a business-to-consumer (B2C) approach. Different partnerships are possible between corporates, ICTforAg enterprises and local organizations that can help each other to achieve their individual goals while stimulating large-scale awareness and adoption of ICTforAg solutions. However, poor implementation of such partnerships has impacted the synergy between corporate and agriculture supply chains.
POTENTIAL SOLUTION: Selection of right stakeholders for the partnership is the key. There has to be a local partner who directly works with the farmers to make them understand the importance and usage of the digital solution. At the same time, this local partner must also have a detailed understanding of the ICT solution and its implications.
Remote sensing technology providers like Sateligence are partnering with Solidaridad to provide services to palm oil and cocoa processors like Henkel, Mondelez, etc.
For companies like Henkel, it is important that their beauty products are made from either sustainable palm or palm kernel oil and are responsibly sourced. This is also required to comply with EU due diligence and the regulatory framework to prevent deforestation. For this, it is required for Henkel to implement traceability in the supply chain and to guide farmers on the package of practices of regenerative agriculture. This is required as farmers have to get international sustainable sourcing certification from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) In order to improve traceability; Henkel has collaborated with Sateligence to track their farms. The digital solution by Sateligence helps corporations visualize and identify environmental risks across global supply chains, sourcing landscapes, and individual assets. The farmland of every smallholder beneficiary is marked on Google Maps using GIS technology. Acreage of each farm is also known to the producer and buyers. But the key challenge was the certification of the farmer's fields. For this, Henkel collaborated with Solidaridad Colombia. Solidaridad developed programmes to teach smallholder farmers how to use digital tools and educate them on the regenerative agriculture practices package. Such collaborations strengthen engagement among producers, suppliers, investors, and partners to meet commitments, legal compliance, and implement traceability at the farmer level.
