Six fascinating talks exploring digital technology, agriculture and social change

Photo credit: Bonney et al., 2014

The digital transformation of agriculture and other sectors has been occurring for a while now but there is much potential still to be discovered. These video resources not only discuss new ways digital technology can be harnessed but the challenges we face in utilising Information and Communications Technology for broader social change.

 

1. Food Tank Webinar Series: Digital Agriculture with David Bergvinson

Danielle Nierenberg, co-founder of Food Tank, talks to Dr. Bergvinson on creating equitable opportunities for smallholder farmers to realize their full potential by utilising digital technology (mobile, cloud computing, social media, and big data analytics) along the agriculture value chain.

2. TEDx: How can Digital Agriculture Feed Nine Billion People

Jim Ethington, technologist and entrepreneur with 15 years of experience building data analytics and machine learning products, discusses how the use of big data can help solve world hunger problems. For the last 6 years, Jim has been focused on the problem of how we can apply data science to farming. As the VP of Product at The Climate Corporation, he leads product design and development for a suite of products that provide insights and recommendations to farmers that help them to grow crops more efficiently and effectively.

3. TEDx: Why digital transformation has little to do with technology!

Tobias Burkhardt, founder of the SHIFTSCHOOL for digital transformation, talks about our fears over an increasingly digital future. Exponential computing power and intelligent algorithms drive human productivity into another dimension and new technologies disrupt long established business models before lunch. He explores why only a small digital elite sees the potential while the majority of people are either afraid, ignorant or overconfident when it comes to a digital future. He explains that the answer is deeply routed in our middle class intellectual way of thinking of how to educate our children and how to live a successful life. It is not the technology but our mindsets that threaten our future wellbeing.

Key Agricultural Development Debates

In conjunction with World Food Day last week, the International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED), Overseas Development Institute (ODI), and Institute of Development Studies (IDS) launched a series of seven papers investigating the key agricultural development debates surrounding sub-Saharan Africa.

For many years the importance of agricultural development for poverty and hunger eradication was a key issue to be argued, debated and championed but more recently this message has been largely accepted with agriculture becoming a central theme on African and international development agendas. As World Food Day showed there is general agreement that smallholder and family farms play a critical role in providing food security, livelihoods, environmental protection and rural development.

Although investing in agricultural development, and smallholders specifically, is widely believed to help tackle poverty and hunger, the way of going about this is much contested, and debates over the right policies, technologies and investments are ongoing. It is these debates that these seven papers, the first of twelve, have explored, in particular looking at how such debates have changed since 2001 and the release of an issue of Development Policy Review entitled “Rethinking rural development“. This issue suggested that the role of agriculture in driving development and economic growth was diminishing with more people leaving the sector to pursue other jobs.

Today agriculture is largely seen as both critical to a country’s economic transition and, because the sector employs millions of people and families, as a route to improving the livelihoods of people around the world. Perhaps this is because the way agriculture is viewed has changed – within agricultural development spheres discourse is as often as not full of ideas such as market development, value chains, public-private partnership and enterprise. Agriculture in developing countries is being viewed as a business with risks but also with many opportunities. Recent rises in food prices, liberalisation of markets, the rise of regional trade and economic partnerships in Africa, and new African institutions such as the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) have opened the door for agriculture-led development and private investment.

Whether these developments will ultimately be good or bad for African development divides opinion. Do market-led approaches marginalise subsistence farmers, increasing their vulnerability to poverty? Will small-scale farmers ultimately have to leave farming as commercial farms capitalise on market opportunities? How much control over the development of farms and agriculture should individual farmers have? The seven papers presented aim to ignite debate on how African agriculture is changing and shed light on the way forward. The topics of these papers ranges from the changing African economic, political and social landscapes and its impact on food systems; the types of investment most appropriate for smallholder farmers, given their heterogeneity; economic diversification and the link between urban and rural economies; the potential of input subsidy programmes; and the role of ICTs.

Here we suggest some key agricultural debates currently taking place but we’d love to hear from you as to what you think the most important debates are in African agricultural development, and how you think resolution can be found.

9 ways to engage youth in agriculture

In Africa over 200 million people are aged between 15 and 24, the youngest population in the world. This age group according to the African Economic Outlooks is expected to double in number by 2045. Low profitability, poor security of land tenure, and high risks are just some of the reasons Africa’s youth are leaving rural areas to seek jobs in cities, a migration that could see Africa with a shortage of farmers in the future. Given that agriculture is one of the continent’s biggest economic sectors, generating broad economic development and providing much of the population with food, this poses a serious threat to the future of farming and to meeting the demands of a rapidly growing urban population. Growing youth unemployment, ageing farmers and declining crop yields under traditional farming systems mean engaging youth in agriculture should be a priority.

Recent articles highlight this key challenge and suggest solutions for making agriculture more attractive to younger generations.

1)      Link social media to agriculture

The rise of social media and its attraction among young people with access to the appropriate technologies could be a route into agriculture if the two could be linked in some way. Mobile phone use in Africa is growing rapidly and people are now much more connected to sources of information and each other. Utilising these channels to promote agriculture and educate young people could go a long way in engaging new groups of people into the sector.

2)      Improve agriculture’s image

Farming is rarely portrayed in the media as a young person’s game and can be seen as outdated, unprofitable and hard work. Greater awareness of the benefits of agriculture as a career needs to be built amongst young people, in particular opportunities for greater market engagement, innovation and farming as a business. The media, ICT and social media can all be used to help better agriculture’s image across a broad audience and allow for sharing of information and experiences between young people and young farmers.

3)      Strengthen higher education in agriculture

Relatively few students choose to study agriculture, perhaps in part because the quality of agricultural training is mixed. Taught materials need to be linked to advances in technology, facilitate innovation and have greater relevance to a diverse and evolving agricultural sector, with a focus on agribusiness and entrepreneurship. Beyond technical skills, building capacity for management, decision-making, communication and leadership should also be central to higher education. Reforms to agricultural tertiary education should be designed for young people and as such the process requires their direct engagement.

What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

How food scares galloped across Europe’s borders, Financial Times

Africa leaders urged to harness benefits of biotechnology to address food insecurity, Vibe Ghana

Torrential rain, lack of preparedness batter Tanzania, AlertNet

What you need to know about Genetically Engineered food, The Atlantic

How can the EU take forward the resilience agenda: a ten point plan, Simon Maxwell

Horsemeat scandal spreads across Europe, Financial Times

Bt Cotton is failing; Blame the farmers, Field Questions

Justine Greening: DfID to push for UK private investment in Africa, The Guardian

Africa: New Era of Food Scarcity Echoes Collapsed Civilisations, Africa Agriculture News

EU moves to reassure consumers on safety, Financial Times

EU sets ambitious US trade pact deadline, Financial Times

EU aid cuts: A short-term approach to a long-term budget, E! Sharp

Tanzania: Tissue Culture May Save Banana Farmers, All Africa

Gene breakthrough boosts hopes for sorghum, Phys.org

Deputy Prime Minister launches engagement with Africa ahead of G8, Cabinet Office of the Deputy Prime Minister

Food and nutrition security should be the top development goal, FAO Media Centre

Bringing the field to the farmers: how video is transforming agriculture, The Guardian

Less nitrogen could lift your potato yields, Farmers weekly