Abstract
Mobile phone apps can be a cost-effective way to provide decision support to farmers, and they can support the collection of agricultural data. The digitisation of agricultural systems, and the efforts to close the digital divide and to include smallholders, make data ownership and privacy issues more relevant than ever before. In Central and South American countries, smallholders’ preferences regarding data licenses and sharing have largely been ignored, and little attention has been paid to the potential of nonfinancial incentives to increase the uptake of digital solutions and participation by farmers. To investigate incentives for smallholder farmers to potentially use an agricultural advisory app in which they share their data, a Discrete Choice Experiment was designed. Based on a survey of 392 farmers in Mexico, preferences for attributes related to its usage were revealed using a conditional logit (CL) model. To explore heterogeneity, groups and profiles were explored through a latent class (LC) model. The CL model results revealed, for example, farmers’ positive preference to receive support at first use and access to training, while negative preference was found for sharing data with private actors. The LC identified three classes which differ in their preference for attributes such as the degree of data sharing. Furthermore, for example, a farmer’s connectedness to an innovation hub was found to be one of the significant variables in the class membership function. The main contribution of the study is that it shows the importance of nonfinancial incentives and the influence of data sharing on farmer preferences.
Highlights
Mobile-phone-enabled agricultural information services are often considered a costeffective way for providing tailormade services to farmers while supporting the collection of more comprehensive and accurate statistics [1–3]
The farmers spent 170 MNX (8 EUR) per month on mobile phone credit, which can be used for calls, SMS, and internet, which provides a baseline for exploring further financial incentives, if available, to promote the actual usage of an app
Discrete choice experiment, this article analysed the effect of data-sharing rules and nonfinancial incentives on the use of AgroTutor, an agricultural advisory app
Summary
Mobile-phone-enabled agricultural information services are often considered a costeffective way for providing tailormade services to farmers (e.g., through agricultural advice helplines, SMS and apps, weather forecasts, market information, and mobile finance) while supporting the collection of more comprehensive and accurate statistics (e.g., crop yields and soil information) [1–3]. In Mexico, ICT innovations in the agricultural sector are gaining attention from government agencies supporting the development of mobile phone apps to connect farmers with buyers or to deliver advice on crop production to B-corporations with, for example, the “Extensio platform” (previously Esoko), which provides content to Mexican farmers through SMS, a call centre, and a smartphone app. Against this background, in an earlier study, the drivers of the intention to adopt agricultural advisory apps in general were investigated. Farmers can provide their own information regarding soils, management, and yields for use in crop models and for generating improved recommendations [37]
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