Is agricultural digitization a reality among smallholder farmers in Africa? Unpacking farmers' lived realities of engagement with digital tools and services in rural Northern Ghana

Simple item page
cg.authorship.typesCGIAR and advanced research institute
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Center for Tropical Agriculture
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversity of Guelph
cg.contributor.donorInternational Development Research Centre
cg.contributor.donorSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council
cg.contributor.donorCanada Excellence Research Chairs
cg.coverage.countryGhana
cg.coverage.iso3166-alpha2GH
cg.coverage.regionAfrica
cg.coverage.regionSub-Saharan Africa
cg.coverage.regionWestern Africa
cg.creator.identifierAbdul-Rahim Abdulai: 0000-0003-4699-2407
cg.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1186/s40066-023-00416-6
cg.issn2048-7010
cg.issue1
cg.journalAgriculture & Food Security
cg.reviewStatusPeer Review
cg.subject.actionAreaSystems Transformation
cg.subject.alliancebiovciatAGRICULTURE
cg.subject.alliancebiovciatINFORMATION SYSTEMS
cg.subject.alliancebiovciatSMALLHOLDER FARMERS
cg.subject.impactAreaNutrition, health and food security
cg.subject.sdgSDG 2 - Zero hunger
cg.volume12
dc.contributor.authorAbdulai, Abdul-Rahim
dc.contributor.authorTetteh Quarshie, Philip
dc.contributor.authorDuncan, Emily
dc.contributor.authorFraser, Evan
dc.date.accessioned2023-05-24T11:59:37Zen
dc.date.available2023-05-24T11:59:37Zen
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/130483
dc.titleIs agricultural digitization a reality among smallholder farmers in Africa? Unpacking farmers' lived realities of engagement with digital tools and services in rural Northern Ghanaen
dcterms.abstractBackground Digital technologies are promoted as transformational for smallholders in Africa through the potential to enhance access to knowledge, increase productivity and food security. Despite the anticipations for agricultural digitalization in Africa, smallholders' engagement with digitalization is empirically underexplored. Hence, we surveyed 1565 rural farmers in Northern Ghana to explore how farmers interact with digital tools and services, and the variations in their engagements. Results We found that despite the growing array of digital opportunities (with diverse tools and services available to farmers), farmers are mainly confined to simple devices (mobile phones, radio, and TV) as access to digital resources, including the internet remains limited. Meanwhile, the main sources of digitalization services for smallholders remain largely the highly subsidized, development-oriented. NGOs and private-sector projects, which generally leverage SMS, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), radio, or field agents to reach farmers. Nonetheless, participation in digitalization services remains limited, unimpressive at best, and often fades over time because of weak building blocks evident in low literacies, lack of digital competencies and the limited access to digital resources. Conclusions Thus, full-scale digitalization remains a distant goal, and transformation claims are disconnected from smallholders' lived realities. However, opportunities exist to create a ‘digitalization for smallholders’ that is sensitive to the current and future structural limitations of smallholder agriculture, including low literacy and limited access to digital tools, to make agriculture digitalization reach its full potential in Africa.en
dcterms.accessRightsOpen Access
dcterms.available2023-05-11
dcterms.bibliographicCitationAbdulai, A.; Tetteh Quarshie, P.; Duncan, E.; Fraser, E. (2023) Is agricultural digitization a reality among smallholder farmers in Africa? Unpacking farmers' lived realities of engagement with digital tools and services in rural Northern Ghana. Agriculture & Food Security 12:11. ISSN: 2048-7010en
dcterms.extent11
dcterms.issued2023-05
dcterms.languageen
dcterms.licenseCC-BY-4.0
dcterms.publisherSpringer
dcterms.subjectdigital agricultureen
dcterms.subjectdigital technologyen
dcterms.subjectsmallholdersen
dcterms.subjectrural areasen
dcterms.typeJournal Article

Files

Original bundle

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
AgriculturalDigitization_Ghana.pdf
Size:
2.21 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download

Collections

Alliance Bioversity CIAT Journal Articles
Alliance Research Lever 1: Food Environment and Consumer Behavior