Marc Ghislain Bappa Se and Nestor Ngouambe discuss opportunities for farmers’ organisations to harness data-driven agriculture to facilitate market access for smallholder farmers in Cameroon. Taking the PIDMA project as an example, they argue that supporting farmers’ organisations’ capacity to capitalise on data is crucial for farmers to efficiently and effectively tap into the ‘data value chain’ sphere.
Information and communication technologies (ICT) are increasingly used to generate efficiency gains for farmers. There is an exponential increase in information and data associated with new applications, tools, actors, and business models for data-driven agriculture. Open data is, however, still a relatively new concept, and there remains a vast, untapped potential for data-driven innovation. Data for agriculture is expected to enhance agricultural productivity and resilience, reduce risks and make agri-food market chains more efficient and accessible.
Farmers’ organisations are considered key in enhancing farmers’ access to wider markets. The benefits of formal farmers’ organisation are most evident in high-value commodity value chains and long market chains. These chains, associated with high transaction costs, are less accessible for individual smallholder farmers, whereas a collective approach enables farmers to share and reduce costs and risks, access information and comply with supply requirements.
Harnessing the value chain data ecosystem
Beyond technological innovation, data for and from farmers has become a growth area, driving projects on big data, blockchain technology, precision agriculture, farmer profiling and e-extension all over Africa. On farm management level, commercial farmers record and monitor empirical business data throughout agribusiness processes, such as inputs purchasing, feeding, seeding and fertilisation, and metadata (‘data about data’, such as time, location, standards used, etc.). Such data is needed to monitor performance and make management-decisions to improve production. The flow between raw data, data analysis and decision-making forms the ‘data value chain’. At market level, data sharing among value chain actors not only supports traceability, productivity, monetary flows and transactions, but also creates opportunities to access new markets in new territories.
In Cameroon, most individual small-scale farmers and farmers’ associations are not yet harnessing data to increase their market access. Thus, it is critical to demonstrate the opportunities and potential that hide behind the use of data to ease farmer business operations and management, for improved productivity and profitability.
In this framework, the Agricultural Investment and Market Development Project (PIDMA) recently developed a new approach to enhance farmers’ organisations acquisition and use of data to improve market accessibility. PIDMA is a joint initiative of the Cameroon Government and World Bank, aimed at improving the productivity and competitiveness of maize, cassava and sorghum value chains and at scaling up production to meet the raw material demands of local agro industries. This ag-finance project invests in all value chain segments and strengthen the functional relationships between production, processing and marketing. The project aims to move from subsistence agriculture characterised by low productivity to commercial agriculture equipped with competitive value chains.
Cashing on cassava and sorghum
Cassava, among the top five high-value food crops in Cameroon, is a major staple commodity and since Cameroon’s independency, its production has tripled to average 2,109,040 MT per year. Embedding many business opportunities, cassava is a delicacy in many cultural dishes and farmers’ organisation are increasingly venturing into this value chain. Sorghum production in the far northern region of Cameroon, one of its most important production areas, peaked at 411,499 t in 2014 and should reach 2,000,000 MT by 2020.
By harnessing agribusiness data, farmers’ organisations can professionalize their business operations, enhance their credibility and capitalise market opportunities. However, for smallholders to benefit from data-driven agriculture, tools and applications need to be designed for their specific situations and capacities. They – and the organisations that support them – need to grow their capacities to become smart data users and managers; measures are needed to ensure that farmer-generated data is not exploited or misused; and smallholders, usually the least powerful actors of a value chain, must grasp every opportunity to be included in the collective data flows within agri-food systems.
Read More
Can access to data really transform agriculture for smallholders?
by Yanick Bakker , Jasmien Bronckaers , Fatma Ben Rejeb and Chris Addison
In order to feed 9 billion people by 2050, sustainable agricultural growth in needed, supporting an agricultural sector which produces enough food, which is inclusive and resilient, and which makes optimal use of innovation and digital solutions. Smallholder and family farmers must play a key role in achieving this. A 80% of the world’s food supply is produced by small-scale and family farmers, yet their full production potential is hardly reached.
Read MoreFarmer registration and development – the SACAU experience in Lesotho and eSwatini
Dispersed smallholder farmers in Sub-Sahara Africa are at risk of social and economic exclusion. Digital innovation and an enabling policy environment can help smallholders to transition out of poverty. The Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) considers farmers’ organisations to be the key to drive this change.
Read MoreValue addition through digitalisation for Ugandan coffee farmers
A digital farmer profiling initiative, which enables coffee to be traced back to its roots, is paying off for smallholder farmers in Uganda. NUCAFE’s David Muwonge describes how coffee produced under the scheme is fetching far higher prices, revealing the strong potential of geo-referencing as a marketing tool to guarantee authenticity and origin.
Read MoreAggregating farmers for markets and agricultural support services
Agriculture is back at the top of Africa’s development agenda, enjoying the support of governments and attracting heavy investments from private sectors. Many of smallholder farmers across Africa that are central to the agricultural transformation taking shape on the continent, however, struggle to benefit from these developments due to their dispersed, small-scale and unorganised nature. Aggregation of smallholder farmers’ needs may provide the solution, says Norbert Tuyishime of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation (EAFF).
Read MoreHarnessing datafication for improved market access by farmers’ organisations: a case of Cameroon
by Marc Ghislain and Nestor Ngouambe
Marc Ghislain Bappa Se and Nestor Ngouambe discuss opportunities for farmers’ organisations to harness data-driven agriculture to facilitate market access for smallholder farmers in Cameroon. Taking the PIDMA project as an example, they argue that supporting farmers’ organisations’ capacity to capitalise on data is crucial for farmers to efficiently and effectively tap into the ‘data value chain’ sphere.
Read MoreData-driven smallholder tea production in Uganda
A spatial data management system to profile tea farmers and map tea plots among members of the Igara Tea Growers Factory (IGTF) in Uganda has led to increased access to financial services for producers, and higher repayment rates for input loans. An immediate impact has been increased productivity and a dramatic fall-off in the practice of side-selling – so much so that other tea companies are now considering adopting the model.
Read MoreOn-the-spot, easy and affordable soil testing for Kenyan smallholder farmers
by Christy van Beek , Susanne Coolen , Berten de Leede and Angelique van Helvoort
Africa is facing an escalating soil fertility crisis and without immediate interventions, the continent continues to lose over €3,5 billion per year worth of nutrients. To increase productivity whilst decreasing soil fertility decline, balanced fertilisation is essential. Farmer cooperatives using soil scanners to provide real-time fertiliser recommendations to farmers may be part of the solution. AgroCares and Agriterra present their findings from a soil sensor services pilot for farmer cooperatives in Kenya.
Read MoreEnhancing pastoralists’ resilience in livestock value chains in East Africa
by Racho Godana Barille , John Mwikya and Frankline Agolla
The remote arid and semi-arid Lands of Northern Kenya are dominated by pastoralist livestock production and are constantly threatened by prolonged droughts. Destocking, restocking and moving their herd to grazing areas are a key coping strategy for herders. Yet in times of stress, herders often find themselves selling stock at low prices. The challenge of accessing information serves is a key constraint for pastoralist communities to make informed decisions and manage risks.
Read MoreSatellite data for agricultural index insurance
How can we ensure that drought is no longer an outright disaster to smallholder farmers in Africa, but instead a manageable risk? With low-cost satellite-based index insurance products that monitor climatic conditions in near real-time and automatically trigger a pay-out when conditions are below normal. This helps farmers secure necessary credit for inputs, recover faster from bad seasons and sustainably improve their livelihoods.
Read More
