Digitize Rural-Urban Agriculture

Who can participate?

The Use Case is calling students, researchers, professionals involved in digital solutions for eco-agriculture and startups to innovate African agriculture.

Criteria & guidelines

Desired Outcome

At the end of the innovate2030 Challenge the desired outputs to be generated will be prototypes, based on identified uses cases and business models to show the profitability of the solution. A probable outcome of the challenge could be a technical and/or business architecture of a platform.

In the first qualification phase conceptual but profound approaches are suitable.

Criteria

• It is important for acceptance that the farmers have an “own” local network platform. Meaning, a platform serving the local needs. But also interfaces to other applications in smart cities are helpful. Open Source and Open Standards is therefore a requirement for the platform
• Focus on Sub-Saharan Africa
• You can choose the agricultural sector but the solution in a sector must be replicable to other sectors
• he government should be included in early stage for example by sharing an information’s dashboard with common selected KPIs to monitor government policies (sustainability goals, products used by the farmers etc..)
• Open source and open standard. To use the open source platform fiware is recommended
• Interoperability

Problems to tackle

Lack of revenue and food security is of course the overarching issue that should be tackled. To get to that point the platform should connect stakeholders and provide access to information and technology, which is one of the main reasons behind the described inefficiency of agricultural production.

Moreover, the access to funding could be improved through the establishment of sales channels and networks between suppliers, partners and consumers etc.

Existing platforms offer payment systems, credit scoring, individual data profiles, content services such as farming advice, weather information, market linkages and social media links (see Knowledge Base)
Who can participate?

The Use Case is calling students, researchers, professionals involved in digital solutions for eco-agriculture and startups to innovate African agriculture.

Knowledge Base

• Challenges for smallholder farmers in Africa | see document here
• Introduction: Understanding the Challenges of the Agricultural Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa | see via SpringerLink here
• Good overview on how digital innovations can enable development in rural Africa | see the document here
• Information on existing Agri-service platforms | see website here
• Strengthening Market-led Digital Agriculture Platforms in Malawi | see Africanews here
• An IoT open source platform that was co-developed by Atos | About Us - FIWARE
• Farming 4 Future: Sustainable rice cultivation in Africa | see website here
• How to support small-holder farmers through inclusive and equitable data and digital technology | see website here

Goals and vision of the use case

An open, adaptable and duplicable digital platform could empower African small farmers (and their ecosystem of actors) by allowing them to:

1. Better fulfil their multiple functions under challenging conditions in terms of efficiency, resilience, and emission reduction.
2. Try to map the entire landscape of the agricultural sectors through the platform
3. Consider technical and socio-economic aspects of the farming sector, its value chains and necessary harvesting infrastructure
4. Develop their productions in a more sustainable and efficient way by preserving traditional and cultural methods of production as much as possible
5. Promote educational exchanges among research partners and universities to tailor the platform according to the countries’ requirements

The scalability component of this platform needs to be highlighted - A specific use case should always serve to expand the services and offerings holistically in the long run or be eligible to integrate it into a higher-level open platform.

E.g. Other farming activities can be covered by such technology as well as transportation systems involved in the logistics of the sectors value chain. It is about giving the farmers access to the formal value chain of the sector which concerns them and thus structuring the whole ecosystem through the establishment of a platform whose financing could be ensured among others by the financial volumes that pass through it and through the monetization of the data generated - For individual digital offerings/use cases and equally for a possible holistic platform itself.

Potential Impact

The challenge is relevant in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals because it aims to improve production in quantity and quality, contribute to self-sufficiency and food security allowing cities to be supplied with local food thereby reducing dependence on imports (Covid-19 effect).

It also aims to boost the development of the domestic agricultural sector by providing job opportunities and perspectives that can help reduce the rural exodus, curbing urban overpopulation and the proliferation of slums. Furthermore, the challenge is relevant for environment preservation – improving crop productivity within the same farm size will avoid further deforestation, improve local biodiversity and reduce soil and water pollution as less pesticides and artificial fertilizers will be necessary.

Additional Evaluation Criteria

1. political relevance (strategic relevance)

• Does digital innovation contribute to solving a developmentally important core problem for target groups, differentiated by vulnerable groups or disadvantaged groups (gender, minorities), or to a development bottleneck of a partner country?
• Does innovation make a clearly defined contribution to the SDGs (which ones?)

2. scalability (probability of success)

Impact

• Are the impact goals defined and is it explained how they will be achieved (e.g., Theory of Change)?
• Has digital innovation already been successfully piloted and implemented? Is there evidence that the intended impact was achieved?
• How high is the degree of goal achievement (effectiveness, quality of goal achievement) compared to other options? (Ratio result/target)
• What are the economic, social, and environmental risks associated with innovation (especially with regard to the Safeguards+Gender areas of the environment, climate, human rights, conflict, and gender)?

Scaling intention

• Are initial scaling objectives and further scaling options coherently presented? 
• Is digital innovation sufficiently independent of context-specific determinants and local system requirements? 

Team

• Is digital innovation backed by a diverse team with a clear vision characterized by leadership and entrepreneurial thinking?
• Does the team have clear ambitions to scale their digital innovation?
• Target group centricity
• Is there broad knowledge of the target audience and stakeholder needs?
• Have elements of digital innovation been tested and developed together with the target group?
• Are vulnerable target groups (esp. women) or is the partner country able and willing to use the innovation in the long term (long-term demand)?

Sustainability

• What is the benefit or added value of digital innovation for target groups or the partner country? 
• Is there a comprehensible business model that ensures sustainable financing of the digital solution?