November 27, 2024, I had the privilege of presenting at the Malaga Agri-EXPO 2024 congress, one of Europe’s leading events on agriculture issues. This enriching experience was made possible thanks to Agustín Fonts , the Congress Director. My colleague, Inder Kumar also presented the innovative work of the Digital Agri Hub. My presentation focused on the challenges and opportunities within the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS), emphasizing their relevance not only in the European Union but also in broader global contexts.

This article is a follow-up to the webinar hosted by JengaLab titled “From Knowledge to Action: The Impact of Agritech Knowledge Sharing Platforms on Evidence-Based Policies”

The Digital Agriculture (D4Ag) landscape is undergoing rapid developments, generating transformative effects on global development across environmental, social, economic, and food security domains. At the forefront of tracking these developments and assessing the impact created by digital solutions lies the role of Digital Agri Hub. In 2022, the Hub reached a significant milestone, showcasing its dashboard offering transparent insights into D4Ag and digital innovations deployed in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This has marked a crucial step in the digitalisation of agriculture, providing a global perspective on digital innovations across various aspects such as production, market access, financial inclusion, and supply chain. Moving into the second phase of its development, the Digital Agri Hub’s dashboard has witnessed a substantial increase, with over 1200 digital solutions by 2024. This growth can be attributed to increased data contributors and the introduction of a new data entry tool for digital solution providers, streamlining the listing of entries on the hub’s dashboard. Consequently, the platform now spotlights curated and verified entries enhancing their visibility and credibility. This article delves into the emergence of digital solutions between 2019 and 2023, shedding light on market reforms, and regional variations, and offering a glimpse into the future trajectory of the D4Ag landscape by 2024.  

Scaling digital agricultural extension and advisory services for smallholder farmers in developing countries has proven to be a complex puzzle. Despite having the potential to provide valuable information to smallholder farmers and transform agricultural markets, many of these services have struggled to gain widespread adoption. Most of them remain in the pilot phase, facing substantial scaling challenges such as low digital literacy, limited infrastructure, and language barriers.  Across the agriculture value chain intermediaries act as facilitators and agents in a transaction that involves two or more parties. While there are many different types of intermediaries (organisational, technological), human intermediaries acting in the supply chain comprise individuals working directly with farmers, such as extension agents, middlemen, agro-dealers, and leaders of farmer organizations. These intermediaries are interesting to look at as they continue to play a crucial role in connecting smallholder farmers to markets. It is crucial to leverage their local expertise and strengths to design effective digital extension and advisory services. This raises the question of whether to combine the strengths of human intermediaries with digital technology to overcome challenges in scaling digital extension and advisory services for agriculture. This article explores innovative ways to involve intermediaries in the design of digital extension and advisory services, leveraging their strengths and local expertise. 

At the core of agricultural transformation in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region, the digitalisation for agriculture (D4Ag) plays an important role in its operations. Agriculture in the NENA countries is struggling with limited agricultural land and dwindling water resources, confronting the urgent demand for adaptation and efficient use of its resources in the face of climate change. The United Nations emphasize the immediate need to utilize digitalization as a pathway to address precision agriculture, efficient use of scarce land resources, market opportunities and the impacts of climate change. There is a significant knowledge and information gap in the agricultural value chains in the NENA region due to a lack of timely and comprehensive data on weather patterns, market prices, and crop management practices, hindering efficient decision-making for farmers and stakeholders in the agricultural sector. FAO and ITU hosted the Digital Agriculture Solutions Forum 2023 for NENA countries in Amman, Jordan (July 11-13, 2023) to actively engage D4Ag players in the region, by bridging the information gap through knowledge sharing, fostering collaboration and accelerating the adoption of digital technologies to address agricultural challenges. At the forum, the Digital Agri Hub spotlighted the current D4Ag landscape in the NENA countries while showcasing the role of digital solutions and technologies in promoting inclusive, sustainable and resilient agrifood systems, amidst the rising challenges adversely impacting the regional state of agriculture.

The debate on whether digital solutions are compatible with agroecology is divided into two sides. Some people believe that precision farming technologies, which use digital tools to improve agricultural practices, can be beneficial for agroecology. They argue that these technologies help farmers manage soil and crop health, reduce chemical use, and optimize resource efficiency. They also provide specific information for making field-specific recommendations.

Investing in women – an untapped opportunity? Well, because most agricultural deals are clinched by men in high-income countries and most finance is locked in by male entrepreneurs. Despite significant investments in the D4Ag sector over the years raising $26.1 billion by 2020, only 7 per cent of deals were bagged by women-led businesses. While this financing contributes to advancements in agriculture, it means many women are excluded from strategic financial opportunities. Similarly, companies are missing out on the huge, untapped strategic and market potential of women participation at the decision making level.

While improved agricultural productivity and income levels for small-scale producers (SSPs) especially in Low-and mid-income countries (LMICs) have been the primary goals of digital agricultural advisory services (DAAS), fostering environmental sustainability has been seldom an explicit focus. Yet, there are multiple environmental crises adversely impacting agriculture negatively.

In a sector that is highly fragmented, synchronizing data prevents duplication of efforts while strengthening the potential of digital technologies and practices for agricultural development. Sowing the seeds of meaningful partnerships in the digital agriculture (D4Ag) sector is crucial to harmonizing data on digital innovations transforming agriculture. Anchored on the strength of each partner, Digital Agri Hub and  Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) have initiated a collaboration to leverage the Digital Agri Hub dashboard and DIAL's digital tools backed with the SDG Digital Investment Framework. This will make existing digital resources readily available to the broader audience working with digital solutions and services for small-scale producers (SSPs). This partnership ultimately aims to create a “one-stop-shop” for data and information, benefiting mutual stakeholders and thus mobilising D4Ag-based funding in low- and medium-income countries (LMICs) for investors and investees.

In Tanzania’s Tanga region, not far from the country’s business capital Dar es Salaam, Tanga Dairies Cooperative Union (TDCU) is a major buyer of milk from dairy farmers. With an extensive membership of over 6,500 mainly smallholder farmers, TCDU and dairy farmers face a major challenge as current milk production cannot meet the growing demand for dairy products by urban and semi-urban customers. To modernise operations, create efficiencies in the supply chain and support members to increase the supply of milk, TDCU has taken steps to digitise its farmer-facing processes.

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.

India is poised to undergo a major transformation of the agriculture sector, by tapping into digital tools. Contributing 27 per cent to the GDP and a source of livelihood for 58 per cent of the country’s population, agriculture remains the backbone of the Indian economy.

The Digital Agri Hub pioneered the development of a D4Ag dashboard which now hosts 726 active digital innovations deployed in LMICs with global coverage. This blog describes the journey towards that achievement and the current state of play.

In January, Digital Agri Hub organised the first in a series of webinars designed to help accelerate private sector investment in digitalisation for agriculture (D4Ag) solutions. The event offered an opportunity for a peer-to-peer conversation among seasoned impact investors, analysing the current landscape, together with the financing gaps and solutions required to increase the pace of investments. The conversations focused on the scaleability of the solutions provided, as well as opportunities for incentivising behavioural change in small-scale producers through Digital Climate Advisory Services (DCAS). Also, under discussion was the scope for investing in smart farming to generate impact beyond yield improvement. The event was well attended with more than 150 participants, including investors who shared valuable insights during panels and presentations.

Digital Climate Advisory Services (DCAS) are digital services (mobile apps, radio, and climate information platforms) and digitally enabled services (printed bulletins and extension services) offering climate information that target small-scale producers (SSPs), helping them to adapt to climate variability and change. DCAS are increasingly recognised as an essential component to drive agricultural transformation, especially from the perspective of the most vulnerable: the small-scale producers in Low- and Mid-Income Countries.

With numerous actors developing, implementing and using a range of digital agriculture solutions globally, there is an urgent need to strengthen partnerships and increase investments across the digitalisation for agriculture (D4Ag) ecosystem. To this end, Digital Agri Hub acts as the connecting glue, bringing together a broad spectrum of stakeholders, and facilitating conversations around D4Ag and the potential it offers for small-scale producers in low-and-middle-income countries.

Digital Climate Advisory Services (DCAS) are digital services (mobile apps, radio and climate information platforms) together with digitally-enabled services (printed bulletins and extension services) offering climate information that target small-scale producers (SSPs), helping users to adapt to climate variability and change. Digital technologies have transformative potential for climate finance, deploying effective climate services and bringing them to the last mile – small-scale producers. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has highlighted the existence of a significant gap in institutional (public and private sector) investments, climate science, and inclusive planning and policy for transdisciplinary co-design and co-production processes. This blog investigates the potential of Digital Climate Advisory Services to attract more private sector finance and leverage private capital to support SSPs in adapting to climate change. (Impact) investors have a growing interest in designing and deploying innovative investment solutions that embrace diverse business models and adjust to the local context (see, for example, www.acumen.org). Digital Climate Advisory Services fit well with principles applied by impact investors, as they can help small-scale producers and other value chain actors to build resilience to the climate impacts that threaten present and future agrifood systems. In addition, digital technologies and services have the potential to reach scale fast.

In a world where digitalisation is gaining traction at an unprecedented rate, it is important to look beyond smallholder farmers as a homogenous entity. In Low-and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), core agricultural actors, such as women and minority communities, are often excluded in digital agriculture solutions. Digital solutions are contributing towards transforming food systems and agribusiness, hence there is a growing significance for policies and strategies to provide equal opportunities for all. Digital agricultural solutions need to be designed to enhance productivity, income, and build resilience for the diversity represented in small scale farmers. Gender and inclusion approaches are thus a necessity for any digital agriculture  solution that aims to  deliver inclusive, sustainable growth, and environmental transformation of agri-food systems across the globe.

Digital technologies have strong potential to support the transformation of agriculture, building a resilient, sustainable and inclusive agrifood system. 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.