Abstract
Food security in Africa continues to be a big a challenge and one of the key constraints is lack of information on many facets of agricultural research and development to the key sector stakeholders. However, in recent years a wide range of Information Communication and Technology (ICT) platforms and mechanisms have been used across Africa in enhancement of exchange of agricultural related information for increased productivity and improvement of marketing of crops and livestock products. The purpose of the review paper was therefore to assess the nature, diversity and impacts of ICTs used in African agriculture and also highlight the key challenges hindering more widespread use of the technologies. A Kenyan case study has been used to typify the integrated nature of ICTs use in agriculture. The paper reveals that there is a very wide range of ICTs being used and these include web portals, mass media and different types of mobile telephone based services. Of all the ICTs, the radio service is the most effective in reaching a wide cross-section of agricultural research and development fraternity. It is evident that ICTs are making impact in increasing productivity and marketing of products but there are still several constraints including unconducive policy environment, insufficient communication infrastructure and inadequate farmer level capacities to use available ICTs. Public policy should therefore address these challenges and constraints within the sphere of rural development in general and agricultural productivity in particular. The review concludes that when mobile phones are combined with other ICT platforms such as mass media, the impact on agriculture is likely to be very high. Key words: Information Communication and Technology (ICTs), African agriculture, agricultural research and development, mass media, mobile telephones.
Highlights
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is a convergence of telecommunication and computing technologies for acquisition, retrieval and dissemination of information
The study revealed that there is a wide variety of ICT platforms that are currently being used to provide, exchange and disseminate different types of information and technologies to farmers and other agricultural research and development stakeholders in Africa
It provides a wide range of tools that are based on ICT advances in GIS, bioinformatics as well as data management in order to enable plant breeders, agronomists and farmers to acquire more useful data from field trials through the efficient field evaluation of improved varieties
Summary
Res. email, internet, television, videos and digital cameras as well as processing, storage, transmission and presentation of information in different formats such as texts, images, voice and data (Asenso-Okyere and Mekonnen, 2012; Aina, 2004). In the last two decades, the increased use of mobile telephones, the internet as well as personal computers has provided a diversity of choices in collection, storage, processing, transmission and presentation of information in various formats in response to different needs and user requirements (Asenso-Okyere and Mekonnen, 2012). The mainstreaming of ICT in agricultural stakeholder systems could spur economic development and growth by bridging critical knowledge gaps and increasing access to improved varieties and other technologies as well as the related information. The paper aims at highlighting the key challenges hindering more widespread use of the technology in the African continent
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