Paper short abstract

Ethnographic research on Kenyan agri-tech startups examines how “sustainability” is defined in digital agriculture. Early findings show it is framed as commercial viability, reinforced by input-company partnerships, shaping who digital tools are built for and whose farming futures are prioritized.

Paper long abstract

Kenya is frequently positioned as a continental leader in digital agriculture, celebrated for its ecosystem of agri-tech startups and innovation hubs. Within ICT4Ag discourse these technologies are framed as pathways toward sustainability, productivity, and inclusive rural development. Yet the social worlds in which these digital futures are designed remain underexamined.

Drawing on extended ethnographic fieldwork among Kenyan agri-tech startups, developers, and intermediary actors, this paper examines how “sustainability” is conceptualized and enacted by those building digital agriculture systems. Based on semi-structured and informal interviews, participant observation inside startup offices, as well as on farms and with the startups' field agents, the analysis combines insights from anthropology and STS.

The paper asks how agri-tech actors understand sustainability, and how these understandings shape the design and targeting of digital tools. Early findings suggest that sustainability is frequently framed in entrepreneurial terms as commercial viability. This framing is materially reinforced through through partnerships with agricultural input purveyors that embed input marketing within digital advisory platforms. Environmental and social concerns enter the design process primarily when they can be aligned with these commercial imperatives.

Rather than presuming either success or failure, the paper traces how market-oriented definitions of sustainability become infrastructural, shaping who digital agriculture is built for and what forms of farming are made legible and valuable. In doing so, it situates Kenyan agri-tech within broader AR4D investments and asks whether digital agriculture is opening pathways toward inclusive rural development - or consolidating a narrower, market-centric vision of agricultural futures.

Paper short abstract

The transformative capacity of African agricultural platforms and data is simultaneously seen as an emancipator and an oppressor. Findings from Ghana and an analysis of apps show a more nuanced reality. Limited scale and market volatility confine any impact of platformization today.

Paper long abstract

Data generating technologies have increasingly been present in African. Agricultural platforms bundle advisory, finance, market, and due diligence services and gradually penetrate every aspect of the agricultural sector. Platforms can profoundly affect agricultural (pre-)production, value addition, and marketing, but demand vast, real-time, accurate data from many farmers and farms for this.

Our paper presents a mixed-method investigation of qualitative data from interviews with diverse stakeholder in Ghana’s agricultural and start-up sectors, and structural analysis of (web)apps targeting African agriculture. We assess the essential and non-essential data that is actively and passively collected. The start-up ecosystem and its influence on developers’ decisions about platform design and data practices are also analysed. As such, the paper interrogates two distinct discourses and their practical embedding: The techno-positivistic one (promising transformative positive impacts) and the data-critical one (warning about loss of agency, privacy, and data capitalism).

Research findings indicate that data generation is a central and defining feature of an agricultural platform’s business model. Yet, the agricultural sector’s complexity and increasing levels of uncertainty and volatility, combined with (smallholder) farmers’ incapacity or unwillingness to participate in the platform economy, provide a challenging and high-risk business environment for start-ups and investors. The current scale of operation of most start-ups and platforms limits actual capacity for big data collection and (transboundary) data flows and therefore either positive or negative impact. Arguably, neither the positivist nor the critical discourse thus matches with first-mile reality today, demanding policymakers, developers, and investors to revise their expectations and strategies.

Paper short abstract

Using 2016 IFPRI data and an Endogenous Switching Regression model, this study examines determinants of digital agriculture access and its welfare effects among smallholder and commercial farmers. Study finds that access is unequal, smallholder gain more, lower inequality among users, & (ATU>ATT).

Paper long abstract

Digital agriculture is increasingly promoted as a transformative pathway for agri-food systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite growing investments, unequal access threatens to deepen existing inequalities, particularly among smallholder farmers in Malawi. This study examines the determinants of digital agriculture access and its welfare effects, distinguishing between commercial and smallholder farmers to assess heterogeneous impacts. Drawing on the Sustainable Livelihood Framework and using nationally representative 2016 IFPRI data (n = 3,006), we employ an Endogenous Switching Regression model to address selection bias. Digital access is measured as the receipt of agricultural information via mobile phones, SMS, radio, or television. Welfare is measured as log per capita annual expenditure. Results show that education, mobile phone ownership, social capital, and livestock assets significantly predict access, reinforcing socioeconomic divides. Digital access significantly increases welfare, with smallholder farmers experiencing gains of 65% compared to 26% for commercial farmers. Households with digital access exhibit lower inequality (Gini 0.547 vs. 0.599 for non-users), yet excluded households have greater unrealized welfare potential (ATU > ATT). The study concludes that digital agriculture can reduce inequality if policies prioritize access for non-commercial farmers through targeted subsidies for mobile devices and data, rural electrification, and digital literacy programs. Findings challenge the narrative that digital tools inherently widen rural inequality and demonstrate that smallholders who face the greatest information constraints stand to gain the most from digital inclusion.

Paper short abstract

This paper examines a participatory data tool used by smallholder farmers in rural India to support equitable natural resource planning and distribution. It provides evidence for the resources, capacities, relational and institutional shifts that underpin equitable participation and outcomes.

Paper long abstract

While the promise of data and digital technologies as tools for agricultural productivity and poverty reduction is attractive, they are often disconnected from the needs of communities which are most vulnerable to their impacts. Against this backdrop, this paper presents evidence from a participatory data tool called Commons Connect that is being used by small holder farming communities in rural India. Commons Connect uses participatory methods to integrate geo-spatial data, local landscape knowledge and decision support systems in order to enable equitable planning and distribution of critical water assets such as ponds, wells and check dams at the local village councils. It centres the voices of the most marginalised farming communities and aims to strengthen their agency to participate in and improve accountability and equity in village planning processes.

Through the lens of Commons Connect, this paper will propose a vision for critical data infrastructures as spaces for democratic participation and engagement where local socio-ecological realities can be centred, data or algorithmic outputs can be contested, localised, and reframed, and communities retain can autonomy and control over decision making. By showing how these approaches de-centre tech and address structural inequalities, it will provide empirical evidence for the resources, capacities, relational and institutional shifts that underpin equitable participation and outcomes. Ultimately, it aims to show how community participation and co-creation offers one way to reclaim data and AI tools from narratives of control, data extraction and surveillance, grounding them instead in principles of equity, solidarity and justice.

Paper short abstract

Digital agriculture shifts power over data, services and rural futures. Designed well, it builds inclusion, jobs and agency for youth/women; designed poorly, it deepens divides. Participatory models can rebalance trust and promote digital democracy.

Paper long abstract

Digital agriculture is often framed as a neutral accelerator of productivity, yet it actively reorders power over data, services, and rural futures. This paper draws on different strands of work at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI); starting with efforts in Africa to institutionalize agriculture data hubs, as climate-services digital public infrastructure (DPI) where it maps how governance, data ownership, and revenue incentives, decide who is included, who pays, and whose knowledge counts locally. The DPI is positioned not only to improve climate-informed advisories, but also to expand agency through new roles and livelihoods for youth and women (village-based micro-entrepreneurs, distribution and support networks, and allied businesses), while explicitly confronting exclusion risks tied to network, phone access/use and digital literacy. Pathways, that derive from a citizen-science crowdsourcing model, show that pastoralists and livestock keepers in remote and fragile contexts, can become contributors and interpreters of near-real-time market, rangeland, and food-security signals; strengthening trust and feedback while generating measurable improvements in information access, practice change, and livestock income. However, evidence from India’s livestock digitization landscape cautions that, without deliberate inclusion, digitization can deepen inequality, perpetuate the digital divide through high costs, limited localization, technological complexity, fragmented applications, weak gender-disaggregated monitoring, and uneven trust. We therefore conclude by asking what governance and participation principles are required for digital democracy so that digital agriculture expands agency, decent work, and resilience rather than extractive growth in the current uncertain world.

Paper long abstract

Uruguayan agriculture is experiencing a transformation that involves the expansion of digital technologies. Public agricultural institutions have developed programs to promote an agtech knowledge base and generate technological solutions invoking productive efficiency and environmental sustainability. For the most part, the social sciences have been absent from the analysis and critical reflection of this phenomenon despite the social, economic, and cultural, possible implications of the digital transformation.

The objective of this presentation is to contribute to the critical understanding of agricultural digitalization based on the analysis of technoscientific narratives built around technologies. It reports an empirically based study analyzing the positions regarding digitalization in two different socio-productive contexts: family farming and large scale agriculture in Uruguay.

The research involved analysis of newspaper articles and empirical case studies. Fieldwork was carried out with actors involved in the development, use, and mediation of agricultural digital technologies.

Results reveal that most actors have positive representations regarding the utility of digital technologies with implications on both economic efficiency and environmental sustainability. Some actors were reluctant to share their productive and economic data in digital applications because of insecurity assumptions and lack of trust in the entities involved. However, no real critical visions were identified regarding the implications of digital technologies. Overall, a general optimistic view seems to nurture the narrative that digital transformation can alleviate workload, improve input use, and in general save time and money. Further, digital transformation appears as inevitable and thus we all need to catch up with it.

Paper short abstract

This paper examines how digital agriculture tools must themselves be scaled responsibly to support inclusive agricultural innovation. Using M-Shamba in Kenya, it shows how bundled digital strategies enacted scaling mis/ dis-intelligence over time, shaping success and failure.

Paper long abstract

Digital agriculture initiatives are widely promoted as scalable solutions for addressing persistent challenges facing smallholder farmers, including limited market access, information asymmetries, and poverty. Yet growing evidence suggests that many digital tools struggle to achieve sustained, inclusive scaling. This paper applies a responsible scaling perspective to digital agriculture, arguing that digital tools should be understood not only as vehicles for scaling agricultural practices, but as innovations whose own scaling trajectories require careful, context-sensitive alignment.

Drawing on the science of scaling literature, we conceptualise digital agriculture initiatives as bundled scaling strategies that combine core innovations (e.g. mobile apps, USSD platforms, AI-enabled systems) with complementary innovations such as human intermediaries, organisational arrangements, and communication practices. We introduce the concept of scaling intelligence to capture the capacity of actors to align these innovation bundles with socio-ecological contexts in ways that promote equitable outcomes, while avoiding unintended consequences. Conversely, we identify scaling mis-intelligence and scaling dis-intelligence as processes through which misalignment, exclusion, or loss of relevance emerge.

Empirically, the paper examines M-Shamba, a digital agriculture start-up deployed in Machakos County, Kenya, where it operated for six months through farmer groups and field officers. The case demonstrates how digital agriculture initiatives can simultaneously enact scaling intelligence, mis-intelligence, and dis-intelligence over time. By analysing this temporal unfolding, the paper advances responsible scaling as a novel and productive lens for understanding success, failure, and responsibility in digital agriculture.

Paper short abstract

This action research examines extension-led digital climate adaptation support for smallholder farmers in Zambia. Empowerment pathways relied on institutional arrangements for device access and sharing, social learning, and the role of extension workers in bridging technology and motivational gaps.

Paper long abstract

Numerous digital services in agricultural extension have increasingly targeted smallholder farmers in the Global South. However, empirical evidence on whether and how these tools are empowering farmers and their scalability remains limited.

This action research was conducted in Eastern Zambia between 2024 and 2025 in order to examine different delivery methods, involving 157 members of six farmer groups, most of whom lacked access to digital devices, as well as 24 individual smartphone users. Extension workers (EWs) provided smartphones to farmer groups for shared use and introduced an app designed to support climate change adaptation through step-by-step, video-led participatory tools translated into the local language.

The results were mixed, especially for group members, while positive results were found for smartphone users. Many groups engaged their members in the training and most participants in these groups developed and implemented adaptation ideas or plans, however, this depended largely on the quality of group leadership and the group dynamics. The app and videos enabled some farmers to learn and carry out activities at their own pace and facilitated knowledge sharing with family and community members. Nonetheless, the study highlighted the challenges of empowering certain types of farmers who may require more in-person support, suggesting the importance of intermediaries to bridge socio-technological gaps.

This study underscores the need to critically assess whom digital technologies include and exclude in rapidly digitalising agricultural extension systems. This provides implications for the challenges and opportunities for future scaling.

Paper short abstract

This paper examines how digital agro-climate advisories can be scaled equitably. Applying AICCRA’s framework of technical excellence, investment and demand, and sustained use, it shows that inclusive scaling depends on institutional embedding and farmer agency, not technology alone.

Paper long abstract

Digital agro-climate advisories are increasingly promoted as scalable instruments for enhancing climate resilience among smallholder farmers. However, scaling such services without explicit attention to equity and farmer agency risks reproducing structural inequalities and dependency on externally driven digital systems. This paper examines how digital agro-climate advisories can be scaled equitably using the CGIAR Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) program as a case study, drawing on AICCRA’s scaling framework of technical excellence, investment and demand, and sustained use.

The paper argues that technical excellence—defined by the accuracy, timeliness, and local relevance of climate and agronomic information—is a necessary but insufficient condition for equitable scaling. In AICCRA, technical quality is complemented by investment in institutional partnerships with national meteorological agencies, extension systems, and research organizations, enhancing legitimacy and long-term viability. Demand generation is pursued through participatory design processes that engage farmers, address gendered and socioeconomic barriers to access, and deploy multiple delivery channels, including digital platforms, radio, and intermediary-mediated services.

Sustained use is supported through integration of digital advisories into existing advisory ecosystems, capacity strengthening of local intermediaries, and attention to data governance to protect farmer autonomy and trust. Together, these dimensions illustrate that equitable scaling is not achieved through rapid technological replication alone, but through adaptive alignment of technology, institutions, and user needs. The AICCRA case demonstrates that digital agro-climate advisories are more likely to deliver inclusive and durable climate adaptation outcomes when scaling strategies recognize farmers as active decision-makers and knowledge partners, rather than passive recipients.

Paper short abstract

Tractor scarcity and labour loss hinder Ghanaian farmers, with women facing added barriers. Research in Volta and Bono shows exclusion stems from intersecting factors beyond gender. Digital platforms aid coordination but aren’t a panacea; women use collective and informal strategies.

Paper long abstract

In Ghana, limited availability of tractors and a shrinking rural labour force pose significant challenges for farmers attempting to improve rural livelihoods and boost productivity. Mechanisation is an obstacle for all smallholders, but women face particularly pronounced barriers. Digital matching platforms – mobile applications that link tractor owners with farmers – hold promise, as their algorithms circumvent biases often found in informal networks. We investigate the barriers faced by women and explore the role of digital platforms in facilitating more equitable access. Five-month mixed-methods research in Ghana’s Volta and Bono regions challenges the assumption about gender as the sole determinant of women’s exclusion. Using intersectionality framework, we demonstrate how overlapping identities – gender, socioeconomic status, age, marital status, plot size/location – combine into multidimensional exclusion that cannot be addressed through a single, linear, digital matching intervention. We document entrepreneurial strategies – collective bargaining, appealing to communal ethics, roadside sit-ins, and pragmatic deception – employed by women to access tractors. We argue that digital technologies, such as digital communicators, have an enabling effect by improving communication and coordination. Our findings highlight the complexity of socioeconomic network dependencies that govern rural communities, problematising the widespread application of digital apps as a panacea for women farmers’ problems and underscoring the need for context-aware interventions.