A digital ecosystem for smallholder farmers

Namatshego Hanah Gumbi

Smallholder farmers play a vital role in global food security but face challenges such as climate change, low productivity, high production costs, limited credit access, and security risks. Despite these constraints, they account for about 90% of farmers worldwide and produce nearly 80% of the world’s food. In developing regions, especially sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture remains central to livelihoods and economic development. This makes smallholder farmers key to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and more specifically, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1 and 2: no poverty and zero hunger. Existing research primarily examines agricultural technology adoption in the Global North, with limited evidence from the Global South. Moreover, current studies often overlook the socio-technical, institutional, and policy factors that constrain adoption. For instance, technologies such as robotic milking in Germany and UAV-based weed management in China illustrate advanced integration absent in smallholder contexts. This study addresses this gap by proposing an integrated digital agriculture ecosystem framework tailored to smallholders, linking technocentric innovation with systemic realities to promote equitable and scalable solutions. The technological frames and cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) theoretical frameworks were used to develop the proposed integrated digital agriculture ecosystem framework. A qualitative ethnographic research method was adopted to make sense of the lived experiences of smallholder farmers. A case study of smallholder farmers operating within the agricultural sector of the Northern Cape Province in South Africa was utilized to develop the integrated digital agriculture ecosystem framework. Interviews, focus groups, and observations were used for data collection, while thematic analysis was adopted as a data analysis technique. The findings of the study revealed that a suitable digital agriculture ecosystem framework for smallholder farmers should incorporate stakeholder groups contradiction resolutions, political system, security and trust, affordability, government legislation, policies and regulations, digital innovations design, business model innovations, relevant key applications, smallholder farmers...

A digital ecosystem for smallholder farmers

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