Smart farming solutions can play an important role in helping smallholder farmers in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) increase their productivity and resilience to disaster by opening access to assets and mechanisation, optimising the use of inputs, labour and natural resources and reducing crop and animal losses and waste. This report explores the emergence of smart farming solutions in LMICs and identifies opportunities to scale these solutions. It provides supply-side solution providers, such as agritech innovators and mobile operators, as well as the investors and donors that support them, with insights into the smart farming opportunity in LMICs.
Smart farming refers to the use of on-farm and remote sensors to generate and transmit data about a specific crop, animal or practice to enable the mechanisation and automation of on-farm practices and achieve more efficient, high-quality and sustainable production of agricultural goods. Smart farming solutions often rely on connectivity between Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled devices to optimise production processes and growth conditions while minimising costs and optimising resource use.
Although smart farming is one of the more recent digital agriculture use cases to emerge in LMICs, early results appear promising.
Digitalisation for agriculture (D4Ag) providers are reporting several benefits from the use of smart farming tools, including shorter production cycles, reduced land preparation and labour costs, lower use of inputs and scarce resources like water, higher yields, less spoilage and fewer losses from pests and diseases.
Still, smart farming solution providers face a variety of challenges to achieving scale, including low digital and technical literacy among smallholders, the high cost of devices, the high cost of connectivity and ongoing services and the lack of mobile and IoT network coverage in rural areas.
For this study, the Digital Agri Hub team examined more than 70 smart farming solutions being implemented in LMICs around the world. The solutions cover three sub-use cases, including smart crop management, smart livestock management and mechanisation access services.
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