Assessing the Role of Information and Communication Technologies to Enhance Food Systems in Developing Countries:

A Focus on Eastern and Southern Africa

Charles SteinfieldMichigan State University

What is the GCFSI

• One of 7 “development labs” funded by USAID through the Higher Education Solutions Network– Goal of HESN – foster new approaches to

development problems that• Involve the whole of the university, not just traditional

development disciplines• Involve students to encourage more to work on

development issues– Student internships, innovation grants – open to any students, not

just from our university

– http://gcfsi.msu.edu

GCFSI core areas

• Understanding food system challenges arising from three interrelated sets of trends

– Climate change, coupled with population growth, causing increased pressure on land

– Urbanization and rising incomes, and resulting changes in food distribution and consumption patterns

– Skill gaps in the foods that need to be addressed to meet these challenges

• Our role – examine where and how ICTs can help

Overview

• ICT access gaps• Applications of ICTs to support small-scale

farmers – ICT4Ag• Research examining outcomes• Highlights from our field work

Access to ICTs

• Many publicly available data sources

– ITU ICT Indicators Database

– GSMA Intelligence• Freely available data sites:

– http://www.itu.int/net4/itu-d/icteye/

– http://data.worldbank.org

• GSMA Intelligence “Dashboards”

Foundational issue: access to electricity – especially in SSA

Global Growth in ICT Use

Wide variability in developing regions

Growth in household access to computers

But less than 10% of households in Africa have computers (note: exclusive of Arab States)

Strong growth in Internet access

Again – limited household Internet access in African countries

Outlook for mobile looks better

Even in Africa – estimates of 2 of every 3 people with mobile subscription

But note serious estimation problems due to • purchase of multiple SIM cards, including by many who don’t have a phone• Significant amount of sharing/borrowing phones• Use of population figures as base – includes very young, very old

Developing world falling behind in broadband Internet via fixed lines

Situation even worse when considering quality of broadband access: developing world – lower speeds, higher costs as % of monthly income (1.7% vs. 30.1 %)

Very low broadband penetration in Africa

Active Mobile Broadband

Active: 256K or better, and used to download data via IP in past 3 months

Despite growth in mobiles, Africa lagging in active mobile broadband

Infrastructure Summary• Multiple strategies required – with radio and TV

channels a part of the mix• Home access to Internet still too limited – reliance on

shared community approach still needed (e.g. tele-centers, village kiosks)

• Simple mobiles – voice and text – still offer the best option to reach individuals at BOP– Smartphones coming, but still low in places like SSA– And, as shown later, simply having a phone not enough

Applications of ICT4D in many domains

• Health• Education• Fostering micro-enterprises• Agriculture

– Especially critical given the predominance of farming as the primary occupation among the world’s rural poor

– 70% of world food needs supplied by “smallholder” farmers (typically 2 acres or less)

ICT applications for small-scale farmers start with an understanding of information needs

Figure From Mittal,Gandhi, and Tripathi, 2010

Examples of ICT4Ag

• Traditional media – TV and radio remain important – should not focus only on computers, mobiles, and Internet

– Farm Radio International, Farmer Voice Radio– Shamba Shape Up– Rukaa Juu from Femina– Digital Green

• Essential features– Participatory, local involvement– Integrated with other

media – e.g. SMS, social media,local viewing strategies

– “edu-tainment” – Need a strategy for local village TV viewing as rural access to TV low

Rural TV Access Challenge

Proliferation of Mobile ServicesType of System Basic Focus Examples

Farmer advisory and information services

Providing ag info directly to farmers, two-way interaction with ag extension officers

Market information systems

Address information asymmetries that disadvantage small farmers, provide real time market prices

Financial information services

Platforms that allow use of mobiles to store, send and receive money. Also micro-lending, micro-insurance services

Decision support services

Typically involve collection of some information from farmers that drives algorithm-based recommendations, precision ag

ICTs, intermediaries, and collective action

• Can equip an intermediary with more advanced tools, data, to provide locally relevant advice– E.g. Grameen Foundation’s Community Knowledge

Workers• Crowdsourcing via mobile devices for early

warnings of outbreaks, other types of crowdsourced data– E.g. Digital Early Warning Network of the Great Lakes

Cassava Initiative

Limited Research on ICT4Ag Outcomes

• ICT is a means to an end, not the goal itself• Evidence of impact is mixed – e.g. studies of market information

and mobiles– Lower price dispersion across markets after mobile phones

• But through personal calling, not a market information service– Fafchamps and Minton study of RML – subscribers didn’t receive

higher prices than non-subscribers– Many ways that price information circulates, don’t need MIS– Subscription doesn’t always mean use – adoption rates low– Aker studies: Benefits are highly nuanced – vary by type of crop,

quality of roads, distance to market, competitiveness of markets– Burrell and Oreglia – market prices taken out of context, not the same

as having actual ability to sell at a particular market at a particular price

Gender and ICTs• Women’s access to all types of ICTs is lower

– Less likely to listen to radio each week or view TV in demographic surveys

– Globally, 16% fewer women access the Internet than men– GSMA reported that women were 21% less likely to have a mobile phone

than men in 2010 (26% for women at the “bottom of the pyramid” in terms of income

• But evidence that mobiles benefit women – Aker studies: where women have mobiles, more crop diversity, more likely to grow a cash crop

• Evidence of different usage patterns – used to strengthen local relationships, not expand network

Brief overview of our field work

• Assessing rural farmers use of a mobile market information system – M-Farm, in Kenya– Service has received a lot of attention and awards,

but little systematic evaluation of impact

• 76 Farmers (44 men; 32 women)

• 9 group interviews

• To avoid male dominance during group interviews, we talked to men and women separately when possible.

Findings

• A “social item”• Red and green button use/ unfamiliarity with

SMS• Phone charging and costs• Little pre-paid credit• Many phones in poor condition• No awareness of M-Farm

• difficulties using M-Farm after being exposed to it• literacy, language

You asked something about mobile phones, we use them, I myself I use it. In the first case we were using them as a social item, maybe to pass this message to a friend, maybe to get some information from a family member.

“Red and Green Button Use”

Next Steps

• Strategies to improve smallholder farmer mobile phone competence• Use Digital Green participatory video

approach, focus on mobiles for agriculture• Work with Shamba Shape Up to incorporate

mobile phones into their program• Combine the two approaches to bring

Shamba Shape Up episodes to rural villages