ICT in Agriculture e-SourcebookConnecting Smallholders to Knowledge, Networks, & Institutions

www.ICTinagriculture.org

Motivation for book

• Centrality of agriculture to development

• Challenges facing agriculture

Agricultural Context

• The rise of rural connectivity• Enormous diversity of on-the-

ground implementationsICT

Context

www.ICTinAgriculture.org

---ICTs hold great promise for transforming agriculture, but research and lessons learned are scattered and often anecdotal---

www.ICTinAgriculture.org

Creating Sustainable

in the Knowledge EconomyBusinesses

Expanding Our Knowledge

THE SOURCEBOOK IS:• Two-year long effort to synthesize and develop reliable information

about the impact of ICTs on agriculture and projects around the world• Effort to spark enthusiasm about promising applications and tools • Contributions from 50+ experts (internal and external)• Over 200 examples from five regions (including OECD countries)• Easy to use, modular structure—aimed at agriculture sub-sectors• Challenges, key enablers, lessons learned...

THE SOURCEBOOK IS NOT:• A cookbook!• An academic paper!• A policy report!

www.ICTinAgriculture.org

Module Topics

Forest Governance

Agricultural Marketing

Farmer Organizations

Financial Services

Agricultural Innovation Systems

Increasing Productivity

Gender Equality

The Role of Mobiles

Access & Affordability

Food Safety & Traceability

Risk Management

Supply Chain Inclusion

Land Administration

Governance & Participation

Cross-Cutting Themes

Enhancing Productivity

Markets & Value Chains

Public Service Provision

www.ICTinAgriculture.org

Sourcebook includes:

Key Findings and Themes

• Focus on the demand for services, not the technology

• Understand your users and their constraints (e.g.

language, time availability, literacy)

• The enabling environment matters

• Sustainable business models, partnerships and scalability

• Be aware of differential impacts (e.g. including gender, age,

socio economic status)

• Smart and higher capacity tools becoming more affordable

www.ICTinAgriculture.org

www.ICTinAgriculture.org

What’s next at the World Bank?

• Module on operational challenges

• Developing Regional Task Force

• e-Fora on selected topics with FAO e-agriculture community (first

one on “Strengthening Markets” conducted in December)

• Continuing updates of emerging good practices and lessons

learned on the website

-----> GOAL: enhanced development efficiency and effectiveness

through mainstreaming of ICT in agriculture operations

www.ICTinAgriculture.org