ONE of the major challenges in Africa’s digital agriculture space is that software developers try to develop digital solutions based on assumptions.
Much of the food production knowledge, including indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) about food, resides with the old generation.
The digital space is dominated by the young generation, mostly the urban young generation, that has never been to rural areas or practised farming.
These young developers don’t even know what you mean by a county or ward or village. Consequently, there is a lack of transition systems for knowledge and information from the source to inform the design of digital platforms.
How can digital solutions replicate face-to-face-marketing?
A lot of information sits on the production side, where farmers and other indigenous knowledge holders are concentrated.
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For a commodity that gets into the market to be what it is, a lot of knowledge was used. What systems do we have to capture that data, information and knowledge from the source, starting right from the seed? African academics and innovators are failing to harness knowledge that is embedded within indigenous seed due to the absence of investment in thoroughly gathering knowledge about diverse local seeds.
Without such knowledge, it remains difficult to express the unique selling proposition (USP) of IKS through digital platforms.
Digital platforms are failing to replicate or replace face-to-face marketing in which farmers interact with buyers, respond to questions, explain food preparation methods through diverse indigenous recipes and explain medicinal benefits that have been known to communities and elders for generations.
Foreign templates need local adaptation.
How do we close the information and knowledge gap between the old and young generations through digital packaging and digital platforms?
Most digital platforms are templates that were developed based on contexts in the global north, where the main software developers grew up.
How can such templates be used to place territorial markets like Mbare without losing their original indigenous identities, as well as trading processes that have worked for decades, so that farmers, traders, vendors, transporters, consumers and other users don’t see any difference from the physical market they have become used to for more than 60 years?
Should we use digital platforms to break relationships between farmers, traders, vendors, and transporters? It would be a wonderful USP if the digital platform enables the trader to better communicate and engage with farmers and other actors who have been part of his business ecosystem for decades.
The only addition could be reducing costs related to communication, transportation, long commodity shelf life and efficiency in delivery.
How can digital solutions enhance existing relationships?
To what extent can young developers understand and master intricacies and relationships within mass markets and replicate that ecosystem in digital platforms and systems?
Relationships between farmers, traders and transporters have allowed transporters to use their own fuel to move commodities from farming areas to the market and be paid after sales have been concluded. Can the digital platform enhance such relationships? Can the digital platform enable farmers to extend loans in the form of commodities to traders and be paid as the sale happens?
There is a definite need for platform developers to first understand how the mass market operates, including who is a trader and who is a vendor, including different types of farmers, traders, vendors, transporters, commodities and other actors.
Such an understanding can inform the layering of digital platforms according to each category of actor. Sub-platforms can be created within the digital platform so that traders who handle commodities worth US$100 are not put in a sub-platform for actors who trade commodities worth more than US$5 000 and big companies like National Foods.
Rather than a one-size-fits-all platform, digital platforms should be organised in layers so that smallholder farmers can interact with MSMEs and traders at their level.
That is also how the platform can help the mass market to aggregate commodities. A2 farmers and large-scale farmers can aggregate for big players like large manufacturers.
Big companies and large equipment manufacturers should have their sub-platform within the whole ecosystem. The same applies to small millers that should be separated from big millers.
There should also be a layer for formal institutions like hotels that expect orders with high-quality standards. That way, different economic actors go to platforms where they get a sense of belonging.
Walking the existing paths
Agricultural platforms should walk the path that has already been created by existing actors. That is how they can give market commodity associations a voice and track record so that they receive policy recognition and support, which they have not received for decades, despite handling more than 70% of the national food system. The most important value that can be brought by digital platforms to existing ecosystems is making markets more efficient and reducing losses by organising supply chains. Building strong market commodity associations requires massive education because diverse traders already have structures and systems. They get into groups for different purposes, such as financial access and getting supplies. Some get into groups because they stay in the same locality and others get into groups because they are all women.
All these undocumented networks have to be carefully understood together with their undocumented knowledge if they are to be part of a dynamic digital platform. Without such knowledge, there are a lot of gaps in the platform.
The cost-benefit-analysis of being on the digital platform should be expressed clearly narratively and financially.
Farmers should know how much they will save by trading on the digital platform when compared to face-to-face trading, which they have become used to for decades. There should be benefits in all activities, including transportation.