Highlights:

Digitalisation has brought a vast array of opportunities to smallholder farmers in Africa, which, when coupled with the right investments, can help them transition to more sustainable agri-food systems. However, the diversity of services, advice and solutions provided can be overwhelming. There is often a lack of understanding about potential drivers and hindering factors and successful cases are generally context specific.

To support the transition for smallholder farmers, regulations and policies must be put in place to spur responsible digitalisation. Incentives and funding facilities for the production and deployment of farmer-owned digital tools must also be prioritised.

This knowledge brief outlines what digitalisation may mean for smallholder farmers in Africa and draws specific links between digitalisation and FAO’s 10 principles of agroecology.

This knowledge brief reviews the challenges of digitalisation for smallholder farmers in Africa.

Challenges:

• Weak enabling environment and infrastructure

• Illiteracy and economic constraints and lack of contextualised content

• Data extraction

• Digital rights

• Lack of genuine collaboration between farmers and ‘experts’

• New forms of dependence

• Contamination and environmental impact

The knowledge brief explores how digitalisation could support the agroecological transition in Africa.

Finally the brief analyses the knowledge and innovation gaps.