Digital Agricultural Innovations and Rural Development: Enhancing Farmer Resilience through ICTs in Central Zambia

Abstract

Digital agricultural innovations have been developed and adopted across sub-Saharan Africa, largely through donor-funded projects. Such projects are often insufficiently scaled as they are not based on the needs of rural communities and fail to consider local languages, cultures or infinite farmer-resource endowments. This research reports on an attempt to design a digital agriculture framework informed by participatory action research conducted in collaboration with small-scale farmers in Central Province, Zambia. It aims to complement existing agricultural business development services in the province and enable the growth of digital agriculture services throughout the community. A preliminary framework for digital agricultural innovations is proposed, and the remainder of the paper details the PAR process conducted during the two-year research to establish local needs and identify necessary requirements for digital infrastructure. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research to refine and implement the framework.