ICT-Based Platforms as a Driver of the Transformation of Africa’s Smallholder Agriculture

For a number of years we have been observing the rapid growth and proliferation of ICT­-based platforms for small farmers all over Africa. These platforms could very well integrate large swaths of subsistence farmers into the formal economy, initiating a comprehensive transformation of Africa’s smallholder agricultural sector. We need to take a closer look at platforms in order to understand the trends and drivers behind this growth. There is a broad spectrum of platforms as far as their level of integration is concerned: Operating on the basis of mobile or smart phones, some platforms limit themselves to providing access to market information, farming knowledge and inputs. At the other end of the spectrum, we can see platforms that have turned into vertically integrated cooperatives covering extended value chains, which in tum bear great potential for creating new jobs for youths in rural areas. Given the lack of macroeconomic data, the project focuses on some prominent African ICT ­platforms. The study is designed to lead to a political recommendation as to how the development of agrarian platforms can be best supported and bottlenecks such as financing, eliminated.