assessing the role of information and communication technologies to enhance food systems in...
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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”
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 %)
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
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.
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