Building E-Agriculture Framework in Kenya

Abstract

A B S T R A C TArguably, poverty is concentrated in developing countries due to poor capacity to develop, to access and to manage agricultural information and knowledge. This is owed to disconnect that exist between the eAgricultural products available in the market and the information needs of the farmers. To address this challenge, there is need to integrate information required by the farmers from the diverse to a single information access point. Such an access point need to be pervasive enough to provide anywhere, anytime and any device information access while meeting the need to avail timely, relevant, accurate and consumable information to farmers. In this paper we attempt to build such an information access point. Specifically, we establish information needs of farmers in Kenya and strategies to bridge these needs in attempt to improve agricultural productivity. We then illustrate that addressing these needs require strict considerations to interests of stakeholders in agriculture as we show that it is critical that the agricultural stakeholders cooperate and collaborate, that is working jointly toward maximizing whole-some agricultural output and individual benefits. And consequently we develop an integrated framework for eAgriculture adoption based on the agriculture-stakeholder consortium that models stakeholders' interests.

Factors affecting digital technology adoption by small-scale farmers in agriculture value chains (AVCs) in South Africa

“…believe digital adoption can play an important role in impacting rural resilience for agricultural livelihoods against external stressors. Furthermore, Awuor et al (2016) propose that to meet the need for information for small-scale farmers, two strategies, namely community participation, and the collaborative approach need to be applied. Bayer (2018) similarly argues that digital solutions are more likely to succeed if farmers see them as relevant and trustworthy.…”

“…They propose Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) to facilitate access to markets by fostering connections between competence centers, the farming sector, IT suppliers, digital technology experts, and investors (EIP-AGRI, 2017). Awuor et al (2016) developed an integrated framework for digital adoption based on stakeholders' interests. They integrate information required by farmers from the diverse to a single information access point to provide timely, relevant, and accurate information to farmers.…”

“…All stakeholders who participate in agriculture must formulate the digital AVC institutional model. Stakeholders in this context are farmers, government, research institutions, international organizations, and financial institutions (Awuor et al, 2016).…”

Smart Energy Control Internet of Things based Agriculture Clustered Scheme for Smart Farming

“…Initially a framework suggested by decision making theory was that the decision process was a sequence of serial steps that evaluate, identify problems, generate substitute solutions, select and implement them. In addition, these concepts were replaced by a novel and more difficult cycle-based decision-making process [9].…”

E-Agriculture Reviewed: Theories, Concepts and Trends

“…E-Agriculture frameworks can provide a platform to address these concerns by incorporating all the stakeholders in agriculture; the core objective of which will be to provide affordable, efficient and effective media for the exchange of information and knowledge supported by ICT (Awuor et al, 2016).…”