Adoption of ICT4D and its determinants: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Various Digital Agricultural Technologies (DAT) have been developed and implemented around the world. This study aims to estimate the overall adoption rate and identify the determinant factors for a better adoption perspective after decades of innovation and dissemination. A systematic review was conducted on published studies that reported adoption rates and determinant factors using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol. We used meta-regression and the partial correlation coefficient to estimate the effect size and establish the correlation between socioeconomic characteristics and the adoption of various technologies reported. Fifty-two studies with 32400 participants met the selection criteria and were included in the study. The results revealed an overall pooled adoption rate of 39 %, with the highest adoption rates in developing countries in Africa and South America. Socioeconomic factors such as age, education, gender, and income were found to be the main determinants and should be considered when designing technology for sustainable adoption. The study also found that young farmers were more susceptible to adoption. Moreover, farmers with higher income levels and educational attainment are more likely to use technology linked to agricultural production, market access, and digital advising, implying that high-income farmers with more education are more tech-savvy. However, this does not exclude low-income and low-educated farmers from adopting the technologies, as many models and strategies with socioeconomic considerations were developed. It is one of the reasons behind the underlying enthusiasm for digital agricultural adoption in low and middle-income countries.

Farming Systems, Food Security and Farmers' Awareness of Ecosystem Services in Inland Valleys: A Study From Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana

Inland valleys (IVs) in West African countries have increasingly been used for crop production, including rice cultivation. Though it is widely assumed that IVs have a high potential to contribute to food security of West African countries, a comprehensive assessment of farming systems addressing agricultural, institutional, food security, poverty, and ecosystem indicators is still lacking. This study characterizes IVs' smallholder farm households at the regional and farm type level using Rural Household Multiple Indicator Survey (RHoMIS) data collected from 733 randomly selected farm households in four agro-ecological regions, i.e., Bouaké and Gagnoa in Cote d'Ivoire, and Ahafo Ano North and Ahafo Ano South in Ghana. A farm typology is developed, and farm households are characterized with regard to demographic, agricultural, economic, and institutional indicators. Furthermore, farm households' food security and poverty status, and the importance of rice in the portfolio of crops, is assessed. Finally, farmers' awareness of different ecosystem services (ES) for their food security is examined. Four farm types are identified, i.e., farmers who rent all the land cultivated, farmers who own some land and rent extra land, farmers who own and cultivate all their land, and farmers cultivating only a part of the land they own. We find that the variation in farm households' demographic, economic, and institutional characteristics is greater between regions than within regions. Crop production, either for direct consumption or marketing, especially rice production, is the main contributor to daily energy intake, followed by wild food consumed. Still, a substantial percentage of the farm households (16–38%) in all regions cannot meet minimum daily energy requirements. Farmers of all farm types, and in all regions, attach high relevance to IVs' provisioning ES, particularly the ability to provide food. A majority of farmers in all regions highlighted the relevance of regulating ES, including climate regulation, water storage, and groundwater values for their wellbeing. In contrast, farmers attached relatively lower relevance to cultural ES. Interventions to improve national rice production need to acknowledge and preserve the diversity ES that IVs provide to smallholder farm households.

Assessing rice production sustainability performance indicators and their gaps in twelve sub-Saharan African countries

The benchmarking and monitoring of rice production performance indicators are essential for improving rice production self-sufficiency, increasing profitability, reducing labor requirements, optimizing fertilizer inputs, engaging youths in rice production, and increasing the overall sustainability of smallholder rice production systems in countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In this paper, we quantified five sustainability performance indicators (grain yield, net profit, labor productivity, and nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) use efficiencies) to benchmark rice production systems in SSA. Data were collected between 2013-2014 from 2907 farmers from two rice production systems (irrigated and rainfed lowlands) across five agroecological zones (arid, semiarid, humid, subhumid and highlands) in 12 countries (Benin, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Togo). The exploitable gap for each indicator (the difference between the mean of 10 % highest-yielding farms and the mean-yielding farms) was calculated across the countries, the two production systems and agroecological zones. The mean yield varied widely between 2.5 to 5.6 t ha^-1 and 0.6 to 2.3 t ha^-1 in irrigated and rainfed lowlands, respectively, with an average yield of 4.1 and 1.4 t ha^-1, respectively. Across the country-production system combinations, there were yield gaps of 29-69 %, profit gaps of 10-89 %, and labor productivity gaps reaching 71 %. Yield, profit, and labor productivity were positively correlated. They were also positively correlated with N and P fertilizer application rate, but not with N and P use efficiencies. Only between 34-44 % of farmers had desirable ranges in N- or P-use efficiencies in the two production systems. All sites for rainfed lowlands were characterized by low-yield and large gaps in yield, profit, and labor productivity, whereas irrigated lowlands in some countries (Madagascar, Mali, and Togo) have similar characteristics as rainfed ones. We conclude that there is an urgent need to disseminate precision nutrient management practices for optimizing nutrient use efficiency and enhancing rice performance indicators especially in rainfed lowlands as well as low-yielding irrigated lowlands. Furthermore, we propose recommendations for specific categories (i.e. farmer, rice production system, agroecological zone and country) to close performance indicator gaps and to allow the production at scale to achieve rice self-sufficiency in SSA.

Agronomic gain: Definition, approach, and application

Meeting future global staple crop demand requires continual productivity improvement. Many performance indicators have been proposed to track and measure the increase in productivity while minimizing environmental degradation. However, their use has lagged behind theory, and has not been uniform across crops in different geographies. The consequence is an uneven understanding of opportunities for sustainable intensification. Simple but robust key performance indicators (KPIs) are needed to standardize knowledge across crops and geographies. This paper defines a new term 'agronomic gain' based on an improvement in KPIs, including productivity, resource use efficiencies, and soil health that a specific single or combination of agronomic practices delivers under certain environmental conditions. We apply the concept of agronomic gain to the different stages of science-based agronomic innovations and provide a description of different approaches used to assess agronomic gain including yield gap assessment, meta-data analysis, on-station and on-farm studies, impact assessment, panel studies, and use of subnational and national statistics for assessing KPIs at different stages. We mainly focus on studies on rice in sub-Saharan Africa, where large yield gaps exist. Rice is one of the most important staple food crops and plays an essential role in food security in this region. Our analysis identifies major challenges in the assessment of agronomic gain, including differentiating agronomic gain from genetic gain, unreliable in-person interviews, and assessment of some KPIs at a larger scale. To overcome these challenges, we suggest to (i) conduct multi-environment trials for assessing variety × agronomic practice × environment interaction on KPIs, and (ii) develop novel approaches for assessing KPIs, through development of indirect methods using remote-sensing technology, mobile devices for systematized site characterization, and establishment of empirical relationships among KPIs or between agronomic practices and KPIs.

Contract farming and rural transformation: Evidence from a field experiment in Benin

Contract farming has emerged as a popular mechanism to encourage vertical coordination in developing country agriculture. Yet, there is a lack of consensus on its ability to spur structural transformation in rural economies. We present results from a field experiment on contract farming for rice production in Benin. While all contracts have positive effects on welfare and productivity measures, we find that the simplest contract has impacts nearly as large as contracts with additional attributes. This suggests that once price risk is resolved through the offer of a fixed-price contract, farmers are able to address other constraints on their own.

Moving toward rice self-sufficiency in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030: Lessons learned from 10 years of the Coalition for African Rice Development

The Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD) was initiated as a policy framework with the aim of doubling rice production in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) over the period from 2008 to 2018. This paper assesses the contribution of the CARD policy to rice production and forecasts the local rice supply and demand to provide a better understanding of the policies needed to attain rice self-sufficiency by 2030. A combination of the autoregressive integrated moving average method and counterfactual approach was adopted using rice statistical data from 23 countries in SSA. The results showed that the contribution of CARD to paddy rice production in 2018 was 10.2 million tons, equivalent to 74% of the target. This contribution resulted from increases in area and yield of 23% and 19%, respectively. However, the yield growth rate was not sustainable in almost two-thirds of countries. Investments in supply-push factors such as fertilizer and irrigation development, which were the focus in the past, have limited effects on rice production. We conclude that sustainable investments in demand-pull factors such as the private-led modern milling sector and contract farming development should be prioritized to achieve rice self-sufficiency in SSA.

Policy options for mitigating impacts of COVID-19 on domestic rice value chains and food security in West Africa

Rice plays a strategic role in food security in West Africa. However, the region increasingly relies on rice imports due to a growing and structural deficit, and domestic value chains face constraints in technology, finance and coordination. As a result, West Africa is very vulnerable to international and local trade disruptions, such as the ones currently inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We build on evidence of the current state of domestic rice value chain upgrading in West Africa to anticipate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on rice value chains' resilience and their capacity to sustain food security in the region. Several policy options are proposed to help West African governments mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on food security.

The state of rice value chain upgrading in West Africa

Following the food price crisis in 2008, African governments implemented policies aiming at crowding in investment in rice value chain upgrading to help domestic rice compete with imports. We assess the state of rice value chain upgrading in West Africa by reviewing evidence on rice millers’ investment in semi-industrial and industrial milling technologies, contract farming and vertical integration during the post-crisis period 2009–2019. We find that upgrading is more dynamic in countries with high rice production and import bills and limited comparative advantage in demand. However, scaling of upgrading faces several challenges in terms of vertical coordination, technology, finance and policies. Our assessment can help value chain actors and policy makers refine upgrading strategies and policies to increase food security in West Africa.

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Rice value chain upgrading in West Africa is heterogeneous among countries.

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Upgrading involves milling technologies, contract farming and vertical integration.

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In 2019, 57 industrial and semi-industrial rice mills were operating in West Africa.

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Import bill, rice production and cultural heritage jointly explain 89% of heterogeneity.

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Challenges include vertical coordination, technology, finance and policies.

Dataset of the survey on e-registration and geo-referenced of rice value chain actors for the diffusion of technologies: Case of Benin and Côte d'Ivoire

The paper presents a dataset of the e-registration of rice value chain actors in Benin and Côte d'Ivoire for assessing the adoption of innovations and the diffusion of new rice technologies. Data were collected from actors after a census conducted in three steps. In the first step, main rice production regions and rice value chain actors were identified. In the second step, we updated the list of actors based on membership of actors' associations. In third step, we did the census of all individual actors and geo-localized all farmers' fields and villages using GPS device. Data were collected for the 2018 growing seasons. The dataset contains 17,639 observations (9,000 in Benin and 8,639 in Côte d'Ivoire) with 159 variables divided into six sections: (i) preliminary information on the respondents; (ii) socio-economic characteristics; (iii) information on the rice plots; (iv) knowledge, use and access to rice varieties; (v) knowledge, use and access to agricultural equipment and methods; and (vi) information on post-harvest activities. Six categories of actors were identified: foundation seed producers (420), certified seed producers (1,212), paddy rice producers (14,230), parboilers (1,735), millers (188) and traders (1,429). The dataset is available online at Mendeley data repository. The dataset is valuable for the diffusion at large scale of improved technologies and an effective monitoring of the dissemination. Data can be used by scientists to have better understanding of the rice value chains, rice production systems, the level of knowledge, accessibility and adoption of improved rice varieties and agricultural technologies, for further research regarding rice value chain development, technologies testing and socioeconomics study of rice value chain actors. Because of the large number of observations (17,639), data can be used as sampling frame for further experiment or surveys based on random samples. Moreover, the dataset has the potential of generating descriptive statistics at the most disaggregated level of administrative units or villages for different equipment, methods and varieties adopted by gender and country.

Addressing diarrhea prevalence in the West African Middle Belt: social and geographic dimensions in a case study for Benin

Background

In West Africa, the Northern Sahelian zone and the coastal areas are densely populated but the Middle Belt in between is in general sparsely settled. Predictions of climate change foresee more frequent drought in the north and more frequent flooding in the coastal areas, while conditions in the Middle Belt will remain moderate. Consequently, the Middle Belt might become a major area for immigration but there may be constraining factors as well, particularly with respect to water availability. As a case study, the paper looks into the capacity of the Middle Belt zone of Benin, known as the Oueme River Basin (ORB), to reduce diarrhea prevalence. In Benin it links to the Millennium Development Goals on child mortality and environmental sustainability that are currently farthest from realization. However, diarrhea prevalence is only in part due to lack of availability of drinking water from a safe source. Social factors such as hygienic practices and poor sanitation are also at play. Furthermore, we consider these factors to possess the properties of a local public good that suffers from under provision and requires collective action, as individual actions to prevent illness are bound to fail as long as others free ride.

Methods

Combining data from the Demographic Health Survey with various spatial data sets for Benin, we apply mixed effect logit regression to arrive at a spatially explicit assessment of geographical and social determinants of diarrhea prevalence. Starting from an analysis of these factors separately at national level, we identify relevant proxies at household level, estimate a function with geo-referenced independent variables and apply it to evaluate the costs and impacts of improving access to good water in the basin.

Results

First, the study confirms the well established stylized fact on the causes of diarrhea that a household with access to clean water and with good hygienic practices will, irrespective of other conditions, not suffer diarrhea very often. Second, our endogeneity tests show that joint estimation performs better than an instrumental variable regression. Third, our model is stable with respect to its functional form, as competing specifications could not achieve better performance in overall likelihood or significance of parameters. Fourth, it finds that the richer and better educated segments of the population suffer much less from the disease and apparently can secure safe water for their households, irrespective of where they live. Fifth, regarding geographical causes, it indicates that diarrhea prevalence varies with groundwater availability and quality across Benin. Finally, our assessment of costs and benefits reveals that improving physical access to safe water is not expensive but can only marginally improve the overall health situation of the basin, unless the necessary complementary measures are taken in the social sphere.

Conclusion

The ORB provides adequate water resources to accommodate future settlers but it lacks appropriate infrastructure to deliver safe water to households. Moreover, hygienic practices are often deficient. Therefore, a multifaceted approach is needed that acknowledges the public good aspects of health situation and consequently combines collective action with investments into water sources with improved management of public wells and further educational efforts to change hygienic practices.