Originally written by Benjamin Addom in 2010. I conducted a study recently in over 50 rural communities from three regions in Ghana to understand how local farmer innovate. Below is the process that I have identified through interviews and focus group discussions. The local farmers usually make attempts to address their problems when faced with…
Category: Food Security
ICTs for “M&E” Component of the Ag. Value Chain
Access to timely and accurate data on farmers, their households and farm activities is key for policy, decision-making and quality control for development organizations, national governments, funding agencies, project implementers, field workers, researchers and farmers themselves. Demographic data (past and present) on farm households such as land sizes, assets owned, types of soil, weather conditions,…
ICTs for “Productivity” Component of the Ag. Value Chain
Smallholder farmers face agricultural productivity challenges in the areas of under-investment in R&D; the actual processes of agricultural research and communication; access and utilization of agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilizer, agrochemicals, etc. by farmers; and accurate information on field production practices. On the other hand, success stories of the use of information and communication…
Mapping ICT Solutions along the Ag. Value Chain
The agriculture and food security value chain system is known for its complexity with varied actors at various levels interacting among themselves and with their external environment to provide sustainable food security situation across the world. In this complex system, the key for success depends on how well the value chain actors collaborate and coordinate…
The Myth of E-Voucher Schemes for Enhanced Fertilizer Use
The future use of the information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as e-vouchers in delivering subsidized fertilizer (or other inputs) to farmers in the current information age is blurred due to the very high cost involved in setting up such systems and the anticipated power/energy problems. This was one of the revelations made by experts…
Reflections on mAg. Services: Mistakes and Pitfalls of MNOs/NGOs
NB: This is my personal analysis of contributions to question six from the forum. This post is the final in series of six, analyzing each of the six forum questions that were discussed. Question 6: What are some of the common mistakes or pitfalls mobile operators or NGOs run into when developing these services? Below…
Reflections on mAg. Services: Content Sourcing, Quality Assurance & Dissemination
NB: This is my personal analysis of contributions to question five from the forum. This post is the fifth in series of six, analyzing each of the six forum questions that were discussed. With my interest in this area, I began the discussion with a post which pointed out the need to source content from…
Reflections on mAg. Services: Financial Sustainability
NB: This is my personal analysis of contributions to question four from the forum. This post is the fourth in series of six, analyzing each of the six forum questions that were discussed. The fourth question for the forum was about financial sustainability. With a thorough discussion on partnership models in question 1, the focus…
Reflections on mAg. Services: Partnerships Between MNOs and APs
NB: This is my personal analysis of contributions to question one from the forum. This post is the first in series of six, analyzing each of the six forum questions that were discussed. Partnership, being one of the key criteria for selecting mFarmer Fund beneficiaries, the introductory question (below) for the forum was about partnership….
Reflections on Mobile Agriculture Services: Blog Series
The mFarmer Initiative, a partnership between GSMA, USAID and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) in collaboration with e-Agriculture, initiated an online discussion late November to early December 2011. The 2-week forum which was organized around six main questions, touched on critical issues from partnerships, barriers to scale, business cases/models, content, and mistakes committed by…
Digitalisation and Smallholder Agriculture 