KNOWLEDGE CORNER
“Solutions must be adaptable, applicable and affordable, aligned with global standards, but tailored to local needs.”
OPEC Fund Quarterly : What are the main challenges and opportunities facing digital agriculture at FAO? How is the landscape evolving and how is your institution adapting? Daniela Di Gianantonio: Digital agriculture in Europe and Central Asia is driven by expanding internet penetration, particularly in rural areas such as the Western Balkans. That is happening despite infrastructural challenges and internet gaps, especially in rural parts of Central Asia. Aging farming populations, rural outmigration and labor shortages heighten the demand for productivity through digitalization and automation. Additional drivers include rising input costs – such as energy and raw materials – triggered by the war in Ukraine, the need for sustainable resource use in the face of climate change and the necessity of meeting EU standards that require strict food safety controls. Despite this, the dominance of small, fragmented landholdings hinder the scalability of digital solutions, together with limited availability, adaptability and affordability of digital tools for smallholder farmers. On the demand side, farmers often lack awareness, skills and confidence in adopting these technologies, creating resistance to change. OFQ : How is digitalization revolutionizing agriculture? Can you share some concrete examples, including “home-grown” initiatives? DDG: Digitalization is revolutionizing agriculture by transforming traditional farming, agrifood supply chains and markets. It allows farmers to access information and advisory services digitally, as well as improving government administrative processes and sector monitoring. To help all stakeholders
Guoqi Wu, Associate Vice-President, IFAD
But the “digital divide” also exists in other forms: In many countries the infrastructure is insufficient. Then there is an even more fundamental obstacle, most often affecting women: “It’s what we call the triple divide: They’re rural, they’re women and they’re illiterate,” said Gunde. And then there is access to finance: “One of the major challenges that we have in terms of finances for smallholder farmers is that they’re not bankable,” Ani Ghosh, Senior Scientist, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, pointed out. Addressing this challenge his organization created the digital payment platform M-PESA which today is a leading service provider across Africa. Participants agreed on the special role of multilateral development banks to overcome these challenges:
bullet. Gunde advocated “local-grown solutions, not South-South or Triangular solutions adopted from other countries. Localization is an important aspect in digital transformation.” IFAD Associate Vice-President Guoqi Wu added: “Solutions must be adaptable, applicable and affordable, aligned with global standards, but tailored to local needs.” The best technology and largest amount of money, however, will not deliver the desired results in a hostile environment: The main reason for hunger in the world today is war, as Arif Husain, Chief Economist of the World Food Programme reminded the panel: “Obviously you have to save lives when people are in trouble. But then there is a bigger problem. That problem is essentially about changing people’s lives.”
“A lot of financing needs to be channeled into digitalization in the agriculture sector and small and medium-sized enterprises,” said IFAD’s Gunde. “We need to come together and say, what are those solutions that have been proven to be working? Not just piloting, but finding out how we can scale-up.” A key requirement for the successful introduction of new technologies and
“Obviously you have to save lives when people are in trouble. But then there is a bigger problem... about changing people’s lives.”
Arif Husain, Chief Economist,
World Food Programme
navigate the uses and applications of digital
innovation is being adapted to local circumstances. While digitalization goes hand in hand with certain levels of standardization, which is, for instance, indispensable for open data exchange, a one-size-fits-all approach is not a silver
technologies in agriculture, the
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