WSIS Action Line C7: E-Agriculture

Summary

This discussion was a panel session on advancing human-centered, inclusive, and sustainable digital solutions for transforming agri-food systems, held as part of the WSIS High-Level Meeting’s Action Line C7 e-Agriculture side event. The panel brought together experts from various organizations including IFAD, ITU, the Digital Public Goods Alliance, and Amini to discuss digital agriculture challenges and solutions.

Brenda Mulele Gunde from IFAD emphasized the importance of human-centered design in ICT4D projects, noting that local context matters significantly when implementing digital solutions for smallholder farmers across 50 countries. She highlighted the challenge of moving beyond pilot projects to achieve scalable solutions, stressing the need for inclusive approaches that intentionally address women and youth access to technology, as well as the importance of building national capacity and monitoring for impact rather than just adoption.

Aminata Amadou Garba from ITU addressed connectivity challenges, revealing that about one-third of the global population remains unconnected, with rural areas having half the connectivity rates of urban areas. She advocated for integrated policy frameworks, open data initiatives, and practical training for smallholder farmers to bridge the digital divide.

Ricardo Miron Torres discussed digital public goods (DPGs) as open-source building blocks for creating adaptable agricultural solutions, emphasizing their role in democratizing access to technology and building sustainable digital public infrastructure. Clinton Oduor from Amini highlighted how AI and Earth observation can provide crucial environmental data for Africa’s agricultural sector, while identifying key barriers including connectivity issues, funding challenges, and regulatory ambiguity.

The session concluded with calls for increased investment in data infrastructure, capacity development, and intentional collaborative design focused on public good to ensure digital agriculture serves the 80% of food produced by smallholder farmers globally.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Human-centered and context-specific digital agriculture solutions**: Panelists emphasized that technology must be designed with local contexts in mind, addressing the specific needs of smallholder farmers rather than implementing generic solutions. This includes understanding cultural dynamics, gender access issues, and ensuring solutions add real value to farming communities.

– **Infrastructure and connectivity challenges**: A persistent barrier to digital agriculture adoption is the lack of reliable, affordable internet connectivity in rural areas. Statistics show that only about one-third of people in least developed countries are connected, with rural areas having significantly lower connectivity rates than urban areas.

– **Digital Public Goods (DPGs) and open-source solutions**: The discussion highlighted the importance of open-source technologies, open data, and digital public infrastructure as foundational building blocks for scalable and sustainable digital agriculture solutions that can be adapted across different contexts without vendor lock-in.

– **Youth as agents of change and innovation**: Young people were identified as crucial catalysts for digital agriculture adoption, both as technology adopters who can bridge the gap with older farmers and as entrepreneurs developing innovative solutions. However, they face barriers including funding challenges and regulatory ambiguity.

– **Data accessibility and AI applications**: The critical need for accessible, quality data to power AI-driven agricultural solutions was emphasized, particularly using satellite imagery and Earth observation data to provide farmers with insights about their land, weather patterns, and crop conditions over time.

## Overall Purpose:

This was a WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) side event focused on advancing human-centered, inclusive, development-oriented, and sustainable digital solutions for transforming agri-food systems. The discussion aimed to share lessons learned from implementing ICT4D projects in agriculture and explore how digital technologies can better serve smallholder farmers globally.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a professional, collaborative, and solution-oriented tone throughout. Panelists were pragmatic about challenges while remaining optimistic about potential solutions. The atmosphere was one of shared expertise and mutual learning, with speakers building on each other’s points and emphasizing the need for multi-stakeholder collaboration. The tone remained consistently focused on practical implementation and real-world impact rather than theoretical discussions.

Speakers

– **Paul Spiesberger**: Moderator from NGO ICT4D.at (Austrian chapter of the ICT4D movement)

– **Brenda Mulele Gunde**: Global Lead for ICT for Development at IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), a specialized UN agency focusing on investments and partnerships for rural development and agricultural sector advancement

– **Aminata Amadou Garba**: Works at ITU with background in ICT infrastructure and policy

– **Ricardo Miron Torres**: Works with Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA), expertise in digital public goods and digital public infrastructure

– **Clinton Oduor**: Head of Data Science at Amini, working on Africa’s environmental data infrastructure using AI and Earth observation

– **Henry van Burgsteden**: Representative from FAO Office of Innovation (speaking on behalf of Director Vincent Martin)

– **Jimson Olufuye**: IT specialist based in Abuja, Nigeria (audience member who asked questions)

– **Audience**: Various audience members who participated in Q&A

Additional speakers:

– **Kathleen**: Engineer who participated in the Q&A session

# Comprehensive Report: Advancing Human-Centred, Inclusive, and Sustainable Digital Solutions for Transforming Agri-Food Systems

## Executive Summary

This report presents a detailed analysis of a panel discussion held as part of the WSIS High-Level Meeting’s Action Line C7 e-Agriculture side event on the second day of the conference. The 45-minute session brought together leading experts from international development organisations, UN agencies, and technology companies to examine the challenges and opportunities in implementing digital agriculture solutions for smallholder farmers globally. The discussion, moderated by Paul Spiesberger from ICT4D.at (Austrian chapter of the ICT4D movement), featured comprehensive insights on human-centred design, connectivity challenges, digital public goods, and the critical role of youth in agricultural transformation.

The panel maintained a professional, collaborative, and solution-oriented tone throughout, with speakers demonstrating remarkable consensus on fundamental challenges whilst offering complementary perspectives on implementation approaches. Each panelist was allocated approximately 7 minutes for their presentation, followed by audience questions from online participants including Jimson Olufuye (IT specialist from Nigeria) and Kathleen (engineer). The session concluded with one-sentence recommendations from each panelist.

## Key Participants and Their Perspectives

### Brenda Mulele Gunde – IFAD Global Lead for ICT4D

Brenda Mulele Gunde provided extensive insights from IFAD’s experience implementing ICT4D projects across 50 countries, emphasising the critical importance of human-centred design in digital agriculture initiatives. Her contributions focused on the practical realities of working with smallholder farmers and the systemic barriers that prevent successful scaling of digital solutions.

Gunde highlighted that local context matters significantly when implementing digitalisation for agriculture, noting that different countries have varying priorities and challenges. She stressed that solutions must be adopted by smallholder farmers and add genuine value, rather than implementing technology for its own sake. A particularly striking observation concerned gender dynamics in technology access: “When it comes to accessing technology, they are not the first ones to be accessing technology. It’s usually the men that go for these trainings. They come home, and they don’t tell even the woman what they have been trained on. There’s one phone in the house, and the phone is accessed by the husband.”

Her analysis of pilot projects proved particularly thought-provoking: “We talk a lot about pilots being a double-edged sword. What I mean is sometimes you can pilot a solution for maybe 10,000 to 50 or 2,000 to 10,000 farmers, but it gets stuck in the pilot, it does not get to scale.” She argued that the pathway to scaling must be clear from the start, before beginning pilot implementation.

Gunde provided specific examples from IFAD’s work, including a Rwanda dairy value chain project and the use of soil sensors for pH levels and irrigation. She emphasised the transformative potential of youth in digital agriculture, noting that young people understand technology quickly and can help older farmers adapt to new solutions whilst providing extension advisory services as entrepreneurs. Her final recommendation emphasised that “80% of the food is produced by smallholder farmers, so we need to make sure that digital agriculture enables them to commercialise and increase their income.”

### Aminata Amadou Garba – ITU Infrastructure and Policy Expert

Aminata Amadou Garba addressed the fundamental connectivity challenges that underpin digital agriculture implementation, providing crucial statistics that frame the scope of the digital divide. Her presentation revealed that approximately one-third of the global population remains unconnected, with rural areas experiencing connectivity rates that are half those of urban areas.

Garba advocated for integrated policy frameworks and emphasised that private sector telecommunications providers require financial incentives to connect remote areas with sparse populations. She highlighted the existence of universal access funds that often remain undeployed due to implementation challenges, representing a significant missed opportunity for rural connectivity improvement.

Her approach to addressing digital agriculture challenges emphasised the need for open data initiatives and practical training for smallholder farmers. Garba argued that open data and open APIs are essential to enable local innovators to contextualise solutions for their specific environments. She also stressed that capacity development for smallholder farmers and communities is essential for digital solutions to improve socio-economic benefits.

### Ricardo Miron Torres – Digital Public Goods Alliance

Ricardo Miron Torres brought a unique perspective on digital public goods (DPGs) as foundational building blocks for sustainable agricultural solutions. His contributions focused on the technical and philosophical distinctions between merely open-source solutions and true digital public goods that can democratise access to technology.

Torres explained that digital public goods are designed with human-centred principles and can be adapted to local contexts, enabling reusable solutions across different places without reinventing the wheel. He made an important technical distinction: “The difference between just open source and digital public goods is also that they are designed for privacy, that they use open standards and best practices for interoperability… if the underlying components to access that solution is not open, then you might risk being vendor locked in or have security risks that you might not know of.”

Torres mentioned the “Reboot the Earth” community launched by DPGA and FAO, and suggested practical solutions such as using SMS services to deliver AI-powered solutions in low connectivity areas. His vision for digital agriculture emphasised that digital public infrastructure requires public-private partnerships to enable local ecosystems and startups, moving beyond reliance on large corporations to create more distributed innovation networks.

### Clinton Oduor – Amini Head of Data Science

Clinton Oduor provided crucial insights into the data infrastructure challenges facing African agriculture, combining technical expertise in AI and Earth observation with practical experience in environmental data systems. His contributions highlighted the paradox that Africa holds approximately 65% of the world’s uncultivated arable land whilst being the most data-scarce continent globally.

Oduor emphasised that investment in data and creating visibility into agri-food ecosystems is essential before implementing AI solutions. He argued that AI and Earth observation solutions must provide visibility into what’s happening on farms to enable informed decision-making, but noted that the fundamental challenge is the lack of accessible, quality data to power such systems.

His analysis identified three primary barriers to digital agriculture implementation: connectivity issues requiring reliable, affordable, high-bandwidth connections; funding challenges particularly affecting youth-led startups that don’t fit current venture capital investment models; and regulatory ambiguity around data privacy and cross-border data sharing.

Oduor also provided important insights into youth innovation, noting that young innovators need better understanding of regulation importance, including data privacy considerations. He mentioned his involvement with TinyML4D Kenya and emphasised the need for better funding mechanisms for youth-led agricultural technology innovations.

### Henry van Burgsteden – Speaking for FAO Director Vincent Martin

Henry van Burgsteden delivered closing remarks on behalf of Vincent Martin, FAO Director, who experienced technical difficulties connecting to the session. His brief contribution highlighted FAO’s practical achievements, including their Digital Services Portfolio and FLAB app winning WSIS Champions Awards.

Van Burgsteden noted that FAO has supported 15 digital initiatives toward digital public goods certification, with eight already certified. He emphasised FAO’s commitment to developing a digital agriculture and AI innovation roadmap to guide inclusive and scalable transformation.

## Major Thematic Areas and Key Insights

### Human-Centred Design and Local Context

The panel demonstrated strong consensus on the fundamental importance of human-centred design in digital agriculture implementation. All speakers agreed that local context matters significantly when implementing digitalisation for agriculture, as different countries have different priorities and challenges. This consensus emerged from practical experience across multiple contexts, with speakers emphasising that solutions must be adopted by smallholder farmers and add genuine value rather than implementing technology for its own sake.

### Infrastructure and Connectivity Challenges

Connectivity emerged as a fundamental barrier to inclusive digital agriculture, with speakers providing complementary perspectives on the scope and nature of these challenges. The discussion revealed that one-third of the global population remains unconnected, with rural areas having half the connectivity rates of urban areas. Speakers agreed that connectivity must be reliable, affordable, and high-quality to be effective, requiring policy frameworks and financial incentives for private sector telecommunications providers.

### Digital Public Goods and Open-Source Solutions

The discussion revealed strong support for digital public goods and open-source approaches, with important technical nuances about privacy design, open standards, and interoperability best practices. Multiple speakers supported the principle that open data and open APIs are needed to enable local innovators to contextualise solutions, emphasising data accessibility as critical for innovation.

### Youth as Agents of Change and Innovation

The panel demonstrated unanimous recognition of youth as crucial agents of change in digital agriculture. Speakers emphasised youth as both technology adoption facilitators who can bridge gaps between advanced solutions and traditional farming practices, and as innovators and entrepreneurs facing systemic barriers including funding challenges where youth-led startups don’t fit current venture capital investment models.

### Data Accessibility and AI Applications

Data accessibility emerged as a critical foundation for digital agriculture innovation, with all speakers acknowledging its importance. The discussion highlighted that Africa holds 65% of uncultivated arable land whilst being the most data-scarce continent, emphasising that investment in data and creating visibility into agri-food ecosystems is essential before implementing AI solutions.

## Audience Questions and Responses

### Universal Access Fund Deployment

Jimson Olufuye, an IT specialist from Nigeria, raised an important question about universal access funds that have been “sitting unused in banks for years” in African countries. This highlighted a critical policy and implementation gap where available funding mechanisms remain underutilised due to bureaucratic and implementation barriers.

### Low-Cost Sensor Technology

Kathleen, an engineer, asked about wireless sensory nodes costing around one cent distributed via planes or drones. The panel acknowledged the potential of low-cost sensor solutions whilst emphasising the need for context-sensitive data collection mechanisms that farmers can actually use and maintain.

## Final Recommendations from Panelists

Each panelist provided a one-sentence final recommendation:

– **Brenda Mulele Gunde**: Emphasised that 80% of food is produced by smallholder farmers, so digital agriculture must enable them to commercialise and increase their income.

– **Aminata Amadou Garba**: Stressed the need for continued investment in connectivity infrastructure and capacity development.

– **Ricardo Miron Torres**: Advocated for building sustainable digital public infrastructure through collaborative partnerships.

– **Clinton Oduor**: Highlighted the importance of addressing data infrastructure gaps before implementing advanced AI solutions.

– **Henry van Burgsteden**: Reinforced FAO’s commitment to supporting digital public goods certification and inclusive innovation roadmaps.

## Conclusion

The panel discussion revealed a sophisticated understanding of digital agriculture challenges and opportunities, with speakers demonstrating remarkable consensus on fundamental issues whilst offering complementary approaches to implementation. The high level of agreement on core challenges – including connectivity barriers, the need for human-centred design, data accessibility requirements, and youth engagement importance – suggests strong potential for coordinated action across different sectors and stakeholder groups.

Key insights about gender barriers in technology access, the limitations of pilot projects that fail to scale, technical distinctions between open-source and digital public goods, and Africa’s data paradox provided crucial context for understanding implementation challenges. The panel’s emphasis on building sustainable digital public infrastructure, supporting youth innovation, ensuring inclusive access, and monitoring for real impact provides a comprehensive framework for advancing human-centred, inclusive, and sustainable digital solutions for transforming agri-food systems.

The discussion contributes to a growing understanding that digital agriculture success depends not just on technology deployment but on building ecosystems that support local innovation, ensure equitable access, and create sustainable pathways for smallholder farmer prosperity. This holistic approach offers promising directions for achieving the transformative potential of digital agriculture whilst ensuring that solutions serve the smallholder farmers who produce the majority of the world’s food.

Paul Spiesberger: Welcome and bienvenue on the second day of the WSIS High-Level Meeting. My name is Paul Spiesberger. I have the pleasure and the honor today of moderating this wonderful panel. I am from the NGO called ICT4D.at, so we are the Austrian chapter of the ICT4D movement. You are hopefully here for the WSIS Action Line C7 e-Agriculture side event with the title Advancing Human-Centered, Inclusive, Development-Orientated and Sustainable Digital Solutions for Transforming Agri-Food Systems. When I went through the list of panelists, I was quite impressed with the background and if I would not try to summarize their impressive backgrounds, I would definitely not do justice to their CVs, so I rather take the 45 minutes to give them the stage to share their expertise with us, which I think is much more interesting than me now reading out a lot of CV data. But you can trust me, they have a lot to share and I’m very happy to be the moderator today. So I kindly maybe ask you when I give you the floor to speak to also very briefly introduce yourself and maybe with one or two sentences share with us what you’re currently burning for while you’re sitting here and what is the most important thing you currently think should be shared with the WSIS Forum and everyone here. And with that, I would also like to welcome everyone online, hello. If you have any questions, I hope we will have some time at the end, please share them also in the chat and also within here I would like to then hopefully at the end invite you to participate in it. So, with no further ado, I would like to hand over to our online participant, Dr. Martin from the FAO, to give us some opening remarks, and if the technicians are working, we should hear and see him hopefully soon. Mr. Martin, can you hear us, are you online? Hello, this is Henry here from FAO, our director is still connecting, so he should be online any minute now. Apologies for the delay. No worries, but I would then propose to move forward, because otherwise we run out of time, or should we quickly? No, we don’t wait. All right, well then, I would then propose to start with our first speaker in the panel, and when Dr. Martin comes online, he can then share his opening remarks. If this is okay. Angelique, the boss, is okay? Good, I got to go. All right, so, our first speaker, Brenda, is, I have to rephrase the question a little bit, because we were supposed to have a speaker before, but the FAO Office of Innovation, one second, so, Brenda comes from the FAO Office, and the focus on innovation, and on how human-centered and inclusive approach has extended digital tools to even the most remote farming communities. In this context, could you share with us the key lessons IFAD has learned from implementing ICT4D projects that could help shape the future digital agriculture strategies and approaches to flourish? You’ve got seven minutes in total.

Brenda Mulele Gunde: Thank you so much. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Brenda Mulele Gunde. I’m a Global Lead for ICT for Development for IFAD. It’s a specialized agency under the United Nations where we look at investments and partnerships with public sector but also private sector to support road development but also looking at the advancement of the agricultural sector. So going to the question that you’ve asked for, human-centered design is a critical element of some of the projects that we implement, especially when it comes to digitalization for agriculture. We work with different contexts and different countries, 50 countries around the globe, meaning that those 50 countries also have different contexts, they have different, you know, priorities, they have different challenges that they’re dealing with. Although challenges sometimes might be similar, one country over another because maybe they share a border or they share trade, but local context matters when it comes to digitalization and innovation. Because technologies can be developed and designed for the greater masses, but when it comes to adoption and working with rural smallholder farmers, we really have to look at the context to make sure that one, the solution can be adopted, can be adopted by the smallholder farmers, it makes sense to the smallholder farmers. Secondly, it also adds value because if you’re looking at only ensuring that we implement technology for the sake of it, because we have the investments, we have the financing, we have the partnership, it may be those elephants that we see technologies that are there, you know, they work two, three years and then they don’t work anymore. The other aspect is that we talk a lot about pilots being a double-edged sword. What I mean is sometimes you can pilot a solution for maybe 10,000 to 50 or 2,000 to 10,000 farmers, but it gets stuck in the pilot, it does not get to scale. So, at the same time, pilots are also important because pilots help us to understand in terms of what are some of the local challenges that you need to deal with, what are some of the things that you need to ensure that as you go to scale, you have addressed those elements. So, it’s a double-edged sword, but it’s actually important. Pilots are essential, but the pathway to scaling up has to be clear from the start, before you start the pilot. How are you going to scale the innovation so that you reach more masses? The other part that we have talked about also, as I talk about pilot, we’ve done a lot of AI-based pilots, both from operations, but also in terms of our internal systems. What we have seen so far is that they have to be inclusive. They have to address also the needs of other beneficiaries, and they have to be intentional because it’s not often that we see women and youth being able to access technologies. When it comes to working in the field, you find that most of the countries that I’ve been to, the bigger number of farmers are actually women. They’re the ones who go into the field. They’re the ones who are also working on nutrition. But when it comes to accessing technology, they are not the first ones to be accessing technology. It’s usually the men that go for these trainings. They come home, and they don’t tell even the woman what they have been trained on. There’s one phone in the house, and the phone is accessed by the husband. If the husband doesn’t leave the phone, if extending extension advisory, nobody also has it. All those dynamics that we’re dealing with are part of human-centered designing. Then we’re looking at national capacity. Why are we talking about national capacity? As IFAD, we work in the public sector. We provide investments to governments, meaning that we also need to look at scalability and sustainability of these solutions. Solutions are designed by the private sector. Most of the private sector are the ones that innovate and develop these solutions. When it comes to implementation, we implement through public Sector. So we also need to ensure that public sector systems are strengthened. in a way that builds capacity over project management units so that can be abled to be implemented. And also looking into greater issues, the policy environment, enabling the environment for implementation. The last one is about monitoring for impact. It is easy to monitor for adoption. Looking at how many farmers have access, but what is the impact? is a critical element when it comes to development of solutions. So how is that farmer data available for private sector and public sector? And that data is available to be used for innovation. The last part is on youth. I think youth as agents of change. We’ve seen a lot of solutions, especially in agriculture, that are meant to support farmers. But when it comes to adoption and helping farmers to adapt, it’s the young people that, because they understand technology quickly, they’re able to work with the older generation farmers to explain the technology. And they’re also willing to do this as an entrepreneurship. So meaning that, for example, extension advisory, I’ve seen that in the daily value chain, where young people are providing, for example, extension advisory to farmers. And then they’re also supporting farmers to be able to adopt technology. So all these elements have to work in unison, designing for the user, but also, at the same time, driving for sustainability and scalability. Thanks.

Paul Spiesberger: Thank you, Brenda. I very much appreciate the demand-driven approach you take and really listen first to the user when you actually start working for them. And with that, I would like to ask a question to Aminata. In the same context, based on your experience at ITU and your background in ICT infrastructure and policy, how can we address the persistent challenge of connectivity, affordability, and digital literacy to ensure that inclusive digital agriculture becomes a reality, especially for smallholder farmers in underserved regions? The floor is yours.

Aminata Amadou Garba: Thank you. So maybe quickly, I will tackle the aspect of connectivity and then a little bit of technology in agriculture. If we look at the statistics now, the latest statistics by ITU related to connectivity, we have about one third of the population which is unconnected, about 30%. But when we go down to the least developed countries, you actually have about one-third that is connected. No,w when we look at the difference between the urban and rural areas, you have twice as many people connected if you are in an urban area, than if you are in rural. So what that tells us is that who is in rural areas are small farmers, and most of these people are not connected. Not even ¼ of them, and when they are connected, they do have the necessary skill to use that technology and advance their daily activity. which can be developed in order to improve the efficiency of the agricultural system and then to allow more people to have access to those technologies. One important point is if we look at the least developed countries, agriculture is the first priority economic sector because it is the sector, most of them, if not all of them. And yet, this gap between connectivity and skills is preventing the achievement of the potential of agriculture in these countries. And i think the solutions are there, there have been many solution that have been created by third parties. For example, that will provide the solution and then provide E agriculture as a service. In that case, they may not be adapted, they may not be scalable for what needs to be done. And therefore, I think one key, and I will jump maybe a little bit to the second part of the question, is that the need to have a framework, a strategy, and a policy framework, sectoral one, which is integrated within the national framework and the national policy, and looking into what are the impacts of the technology. How can we integrate technology? And the other solution, I think, is that most of the e-agricultural solutions are based on data. Today, when we look at it, they are based on AI, and data is key to have those solutions adapted. And data yet is not available, and Brenda just mentioned it. The lack of data sometimes, or the non-accessibility, not necessarily the lack of data, but the non-accessibility of data for the innovator, the local innovator or the new innovator who need to contextualize the solution, I think is key. And a solution will be having those open data, open API, which strategies but also policies which will enable this to be a reality. And focusing on local innovation, focusing on this training on the ground, a really small scale, we don’t need to have a degree in engineering to apply agricultural solution, but this practical training on the ground for those smallholder farmers, I think is important. So I think I will stay here and maybe I’ll complete this later. All right, thank you very much.

Paul Spiesberger: With this, I would like to go to our next speaker. Ricardo, how can digital public goods or short DPGs be leveraged to ensure equitable access to digital architecture tools for smallholder farmers, especially in rural areas where persistent challenges such as limited connectivity, low digital literacy and affordability of technologies continue to hinder inclusive development?

Ricardo Miron Torres: Thanks, Paul. And good afternoon, everyone. Maybe I’ll start by explaining what are digital public goods to begin with. These are open source technologies that are designed with certain principles in mind. And it’s not only software, but as Aminat already mentioned, data, content and other critical technology pieces used to build the digital infrastructure. And at the heart of global development is, of course, the backbone of our food systems. So we must ensure that these food systems are not left behind in the digitization of the world. And DPGs could serve as these building blocks to create solutions that are adaptable and adaptable, especially in local context, as Brenda already mentioned, being designed with human centers is a very important aspect of it. And also, just to maybe put what’s the difference between DPGs, open source and public interest technology, is that DPGs are designed for simplicity and could be implemented with this local context in mind, which is very important. And for example, alongside FAO, the DPGA launched Reboot the Earth, which is a community of innovators that helped the development of climate and agriculture solutions. And one of the projects that came out and one of the things that I learned was the access to information was a critical need for small farmers and agriculture. So using open satellite images and data, as long as other software technologies like AI, one of the solutions that was developed was this specific AI model that helped farmers do precision agriculture based on the specific needs of the land and the region they were working in. And this was only possible thanks to these open technologies, but adapted and delivered through an SMS services, which is critical for those low connectivity areas you were talking about. So adapting these solutions and make them reusable across different places is very important, not to reinvent the wheel, but to tailor those. And for this being open source is very important because that means that the developers and the communities building these solutions have access to adapt these technologies and they do not have to start from scratch. Because as we know, Both funding and time is very limited for these very critical issues. And then it’s not only about the accessibility, but also about democratizing the access to them. So the difference between just open source and digital public goods is also that they are designed for privacy, that they use open standards and best practices for interoperability. And also something very important, that’s platform independence and forgive me if I get a little bit too technical here, but the solution could be open source or the data could be open source. But if the underlying components to access that solution is not open, then you might risk being a vendor locked in or have security risks that you might not know of. And one example of this could be Google Maps. Google Maps is a very useful tool. I use it to get here today. But let’s say that a small farmer needs information about a specific area where they work on. They would probably not be able to use Google Maps because the incentives on how that data was collected on gather are for financial purposes. So there’s not enough data in rural areas, for example, in many countries. And this is why relying on certain services needs to be done on open data and be made available as digital public goods. And then the other part of the conversation is the sustainability of these digital solutions that Brenda was also alluding to with these pilots. And this is also why we need to build digital public infrastructure. But I’ll leave that maybe for the second part of this. So especially when considering the long term vision of building resilient digital ecosystems, and more specifically in the agriculture sector, how can these DPI and DPG serve? as foundational enablers for innovation, public-private collaboration and sustainable service delivery, especially in regions, again, where infrastructure and institutional capacity building challenges remain substantial. Sorry, I talked a little bit about these building blocks, which are the technologies, the digital public goods, and in order to implement a long-term vision for a resilient digital agricultural infrastructure, this needs to be a long-term vision. And this is some of the terms that we hear around DPGs and DPI. And while DPGs are the building blocks, DPI is more of an approach on how you implement this technology and the governance mechanisms and the security mechanisms for this. And one of the key aspects of this is that it’s public, so it needs to be for the public benefit. Some of the foundational layers are things like digital identity, digital payments, data exchange. And we know that for small farmers, having access to a formal identity and financial services is critical for the development and success that they would have. So having a verifiable and accessible digital correlation could enable things like opening bank accounts, having microloans or just receiving direct compensation for the products and services that they produce. And this is not only about the government taking all of the action on building these infrastructure layers. It’s providing the infrastructure, so also there could be public and private partnerships, for example, which would enable local ecosystem, local players and startups to also act and access these markets because it lowers the barrier. So in a way that not only big corporations are the ones that are available to access to these digital infrastructure layers. And of course, one of the best ways to build this digital public infrastructure for agriculture is through open source and digital public goods, not only because of the benefits of cost or licensing, but also because a matter of sovereignty and having ownership not only by the government, but by the society and people that use and benefit these solutions. And that’s why I think it’s very important that these solutions are accessible, but also governed in a way where it’s collaborative. And that’s also managed in a sustainable way in a long term plan.

Paul Spiesberger: Wonderful, I’m really pleased that Aminata before shared with us that the ITU doesn’t just stop by connecting people, but she’s going much further by building up skills, but also with the policymaking and also with this focus on this open data, open source and so on. And I think there’s a lot of synergies with Ricardo just shared with us that with the focus on partnerships, private sector, but also like UN bodies and also the community, which I see the open source movement a lot involved as well, play a pivotal role in e-agriculture. And I think with this, we come to you, Clinton. Your work at Amini leverages AI and Earth observation to address environmental challenges. In what ways can youth-led startups like yours contribute more effectively to building climate resilient and data-driven agri-food systems in Africa and beyond, while advancing human-centered, inclusive, development-orientated and sustainable digital solutions for agri-food systems?

Clinton Oduor: Thank you. I hope you can all hear me. So my name is Clinton Oduor. I’m the head of data science at Atamini. So Atamini, we are building Africa’s environmental data infrastructure, of course, starting with Africa, but with a goal of spreading all across the global south. So the platform is a data platform that aggregates environmental data from multiple sources, be it satellite imagery to track like how the earth is changing over time. And that can mean like how farmlands are changing over time. So the good thing about earth observation and satellites specifically is that we have settlers that have been orbiting the earth for the past like 30 years. So beyond just like having a state of what’s happening in our farmland or the current state, we can also get an understanding of what has been happening on those particular farms, let’s say over the last 30 years. And that can be really important because like they can be used to make like some informed decision. So if you look generally at Africa currently, Africa holds about 65% thereabouts of the world’s uncultivated area that can be cultivated. But again, it’s the most data-scarce continent in the world, meaning that we don’t have visibility of what’s happening, for example, for the farmlands. So it’s still more than 60% of the farms there are also smallholder farmers. So we need to have like some sort of visibility of what’s happening in the farms. What are they doing? Like what are the dangers that might be forecasted? For example, are the farms experiencing things such as water stress? Are they experiencing like infestation by pests and diseases and things of the sort? So if we have this visibility, if we have this information, it’s going to unlock like quite a lot of opportunities. The first one Of course, the farmers will have the necessary information at hand to make decisions during the planting of the crops. So there’s quite a lot of opportunities that can emerge when we have like a visibility in the entire agri-food system. And I think AI and Earth Observation is one of the few technologies that provides us that platform, yeah.

Paul Spiesberger: So you talked about the positive aspects, but drawing from your experience with Armenian grassroots communities like TinyML and Kenya, what are the most pressuring barriers for young innovators such as you are facing in scaling digital agriculture solutions in rural areas and what support ecosystems are needed to overcome them?

Clinton Oduor: Yeah, I think most of these challenges already been talked about by my colleagues. And of course, like the main one is around digital infrastructure and connectivity to be specific. We can’t talk about digital agriculture when we cannot connect to the farmers themselves or the people who need that information. And as my colleague said here that, for example, in the developing world, the trends usually shift from a third to two thirds who lack the connectivity. So I think that’s something that needs to be addressed. And when we say connectivity, it’s not just connectivity on internet for the sake of, but it needs to be number one, reliable. It needs to be affordable and it also need to be high bandwidth so that it can open more opportunities to other farmers themselves. So of course, the second one is what many startups or around the Global South Asia Affairs around funding. I think the youth-grown innovation that’s coming around food agri-tech companies that are emerging, most of them are usually not yet fit to the current VC bucket of companies to invest in. So we should also see how we can elevate that. or find like other funding mechanisms to make sure that these innovations are seen from the ideation stage to the implementation stage. Because like a quite a lot of them are usually like a very promising but they never go beyond the ideation stage. And of course the last one is around the ambiguity around regulation and policy. So they quite a lot of disconnect between like what young people perceive to as regulation. So for example, most young people usually think that our regulation is there maybe not to make like innovation go forward but most of the time that’s surely not the case. So we also need to build like some capacity around like the importance of regulation and this include like things such as data privacy. For example, if you collect like a satellite data of a particular farm and you have that information for the past 30 years, what does that mean at a privacy point of view? It could also be something like the regulations around how we transfer our shared data between like our boundaries which is still like a very huge problem today. Yeah, thank you. Wonderful.

Paul Spiesberger: Thank you very much. I very much like that your startup is not only predicting the future with the weather forecast but you do AI time traveling back around 30 years. It’s pretty impressive. With this, we have some time left around 10 minutes to open the floor. And as you can see, we have here a quite distinguished panel of experts and I hope you have some questions for them and we have a debate. So we have two first questions here, please.

Jimson Olufuye: Yeah, it’s excellent panel we have here. Very interesting topic. My name is Jim Sindulfuye. I’m an IT specialist based in Abuja, Nigeria. Listening carefully to Brenda, Renata. and Ricardo and everybody, Clinton as well. I want to find out, you may emphasize inclusivity, okay? So how do you ensure that all stakeholders are inclusive, are included in the project? Okay, we have some methodology like sandboxes, maybe regulatory, operational, hybrid. Have you considered any of these around this because you emphasize inclusivity a lot. And then Aminata, like the productivity is very important. Okay, so how do we get people to have access? Because you need to know, how do you emphasize the issue for the capacity development, how do we get capacity? We’ve been talking about this for so long, and Ricardo talking about data. How do you get the data? It was mentioned that there was no, we can’t even get data. Can universal cyber provision fund help in this way? Because as an African, I’m concerned, how do we bridge the gap and fast track productivity? Thank you.

Brenda Mulele Gunde: Okay, let me start addressing the issue of inclusivity. I think when I was talking about inclusivity, it’s not just about that women, youth access the technologies. You’ve talked about how do we get all the other stakeholders involved? I think as the way we implement our projects, when it comes to the actual deployment of these solutions, before you even talk about, let’s go to the field and start collecting farmer data, registering farmers and getting this solution, it’s about bringing the rest of the other value chain actors on the same table. I’ll give an example, we’re doing a project in Rwanda. It’s for the daily value chain, it’s for milk production. So we’re looking at milk production, you’re looking at from the production from the farmer to the off taking. So you have a producer and a processor on the other side. and the actors in between. The actors that are collecting the milk, there are people that are actually selling the milk, there are actors that are looking at the quality of milk, then you’ve got government. So all these players have to be on the same table, understand what do we mean when you say we are digitizing the value chain across. What is the role each of these players are going to play? If there’s going to be farmer data, who is managing this data? Who is collecting this data? How is it going to be available? So all those questions are being asked through what we call ourselves, we call this startup project. So every point before it starts, we sit on the table and narrate all these issues so that you’re able to address them. And that’s how you get all the actors included. So that way you’re not just dealing with the women and youth inclusivity, but you’re also dealing with the actors ecosystem inclusivity. I hope that answers your question.

Aminata Amadou Garba: Let me maybe jump in related to the accessibility, the connectivity, how do we get people connected? As you mentioned, yes, I agree with you having the universal access can help. But we have seen that there has been an issue a little bit with the universal access in a lot of African countries where this fund has been sitting for years in the bank, but it has not been deployed. And when you look at the market of the telecommunication, the service providers are private sector. So they put the infrastructure in place, they put a lot of money to get that infrastructure in place, and they want to return to investments. So I take it as example, I’m from Niger, is a very vast country. And in the big North, you have to go thousands of kilometers to go and connect to those places. And yet you have a very few people in those regions. So if I am a private sector, I will just say, well, financially, it doesn’t make sense for me to go. I cannot put that much money and then not get enough people connected. That is when policies come.

Audience: Hello, my name is Kathleen. I’m an engineer. First of all, before giving my question, I want to congratulate you on how you described the problems and solutions that you came up with, because being an engineer, I do not speak diplomacy. In most of the panels, I struggle to understand something or where they are going, what they’re doing. Okay. Okay. Okay. Now I forgot my question. Okay. There are some technical solutions where they use some sensory nodes, a wireless sensory node that costs one cent or something like that. And I’m curious, and they use a plane to distribute the nodes. And I think that can be adapted with some drones, which are more cost effective. My question is, if you have any idea if in these communities, such a solution has been approached? Only one person, please answer. We don’t have time.

Aminata Amadou Garba: Okay, let me try to respond. I think for the soil sensors, I know soil sensors where we, on a horticulture project, where we use soil sensors to check the pH levels of the soil, but also to help farmers on precision mechanism for them to know when do they irrigate, how much do they irrigate. And these are, like you said, they’re low costs, but also at the same time, they have to be applied within the context that farmers can be able to use them. But they’re also some, they’re low cost, but they’re not…they don’t have data collection mechanisms.

Paul Spiesberger: Thank you, thank you very much. I have to be very strict. I would like to ask Henry for his closing remarks, if he’s still online and can hear us.

Henry van Burgsteden: Thank you very much. Yes, I’m here. Dear colleagues, partners and friends, on behalf of Vincent Martin, the Director of the FOWL Office of Innovation, I would like to sincerely thank you for attending this side event on the WSIS Action Line C7 e-Agriculture as part of the WSIS Plus20 Forum. Today, we reflected on two decades of progress and look forward to shaping a more inclusive, sustainable digital future for agri-food systems. Over the last 20 years, under FAO’s leadership and with strong partnerships, this action line has evolved from promoting basic ICTs to enabling cutting-edge innovations, for example, AI, geospatial tools, automated agriculture and digital public goods. These have empowered smallholder farmers, youth and rural communities globally. Initiatives like the e-Agriculture Community of Practice, the Digital Villages Initiative and the Global Network of Digital Agriculture Innovation Hubs show the power of human-centered digital ecosystems to drive food security, climate resilience and rural development. FAO, in partnership with ITU, also developed the e-Agriculture Strategy Guide, now used by 18 countries to shape their national digital agriculture strategies. ensuring local ownership and advancing climate smart agriculture. Together, FVO and ITU have also published the Agriculture in Action series, one on AI, another one on drones, blockchain, and more, providing practical guidance and policy support for digital innovation. But despite the progress, challenges persist. We heard many of the challenges today during the panel discussion. Limited infrastructure, connectivity, and digital literacy are still hindering access, especially in rural areas. And this is where digital public infrastructure and digital public goods play a critical role. FVO has already supported 15 digital initiatives towards DPG certification, with eight certified, including the Digital Services Portfolio, recognized last year during the WSIS 2024 Champions Award. And in 2025, we’re very happy that the FVO food loss app, shortly called FLAB, earned the same honor, highlighting innovation that drives sustainability and informed decision making. And a recent FAO DPI webinar emphasized that digital transformation must go beyond just technology, ensuring inclusion, equity, and alignment with those most at risk of being left behind. In that spirit, we are now developing a digital agriculture and AI innovation roadmap to guide inclusive and scalable transformation. And this roadmap aims to foster inclusive, scalable, interoperable, and context-sensitive digital ecosystems that support a sustainable transformation of agri-food systems. As we move forward, digital agriculture must align with broader development goals and the 2030 agenda. But that requires strong governance, inclusive policies, and multi-stakeholder partnerships. with people at the center. This session provided reflections but also calls for the continuation of co-creation and action for a future where digital agriculture is not only smart but is inclusive, affordable and sustainable. Thank you very much.

Paul Spiesberger: Thank you very much from the Senior Innovation Office of the FAO. With this we are one minute over but I thought of giving the panel one last time to say one sentence they would like to tell to the WSIS community of the future and how to move forward and how agriculture plays a role in the future of WSIS. We start with you. One sentence.

Clinton Oduor: Okay so my one sentence will be I think we need to invest in data and creating like a visibility into like the general like agri-food ecosystems. We talk about a lot of AI but there won’t be any AI without data so we really need to invest in data first. Thank you.

Brenda Mulele Gunde: Yeah my one sentence is the food that we eat is produced by 80% of smallholder farmers so our solutions need to address the needs of smallholder farmers to move them from just feeding themselves but also that they can be able to commercialize and increase their income.

Aminata Amadou Garba: I think my sentence will be to emphasize capacity developments for the smallholder farmers and then the community at large so that the digital will be used to improve the socio-economic benefits.

Ricardo Miron Torres: I think the path to equitable and resilient digital agriculture is not about technology it’s actually about intentional design collaboration and being just committed to the public good.

Paul Spiesberger: All right thank you very much. I’d like to take the opportunity to also thank our tech team. They did a wonderful job. and thank everyone who participated online and please join me with a round of applause for our panel and everyone else participated. Thank you. We would like to take a group vote if we can do that. Where should we should we place here? Do we still have time or do people want to move in? Did we still have time for group vote? Okay. Could you all line up in the in the front of the screen so we take a quick picture? Thank you very much. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Agreement points

Local context and human-centered design are essential for successful digital agriculture implementation

Speakers

– Brenda Mulele Gunde
– Ricardo Miron Torres

Arguments

Local context matters when implementing digitalization for agriculture, as different countries have different priorities and challenges

Solutions must be adopted by smallholder farmers and add value, not just implement technology for the sake of it

Digital public goods are designed with human-centered principles and can be adapted to local contexts

Summary

Both speakers emphasize that digital solutions must be designed with local context in mind and centered around human needs rather than technology-first approaches. They agree that successful implementation requires understanding specific local challenges and ensuring solutions add real value to users.

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Human rights

Data accessibility and availability are critical barriers to digital agriculture innovation

Speakers

– Brenda Mulele Gunde
– Aminata Amadou Garba
– Clinton Oduor

Arguments

Farmer data availability for both private and public sectors is critical for innovation

Open data and open APIs are needed to enable local innovators to contextualize solutions

Investment in data and creating visibility into agri-food ecosystems is essential before implementing AI solutions

Africa holds 65% of uncultivated land but is the most data-scarce continent

Summary

All three speakers identify data access as a fundamental challenge. They agree that without accessible, open data, innovation in digital agriculture cannot progress effectively, and that data infrastructure must be prioritized before implementing advanced technologies like AI.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure | Development

Connectivity and digital infrastructure are primary barriers to inclusive digital agriculture

Speakers

– Aminata Amadou Garba
– Clinton Oduor

Arguments

One-third of the global population remains unconnected, with rural areas having half the connectivity of urban areas

Digital infrastructure and connectivity are the main barriers, requiring reliable, affordable, and high-bandwidth connections

Summary

Both speakers identify connectivity as the fundamental challenge preventing inclusive digital agriculture, particularly in rural areas where most smallholder farmers are located. They agree that connectivity must be reliable, affordable, and high-quality to be effective.

Topics

Infrastructure | Telecommunications infrastructure | Development

Scaling digital solutions from pilot to implementation requires intentional planning and clear pathways

Speakers

– Brenda Mulele Gunde
– Ricardo Miron Torres

Arguments

Pilots are important but often get stuck without clear pathways to scaling from the start

Digital public goods enable reusable solutions across different places without reinventing the wheel

Summary

Both speakers recognize that while pilot projects are valuable for testing solutions, they often fail to scale without proper planning. They agree that scalability must be considered from the beginning and that reusable, adaptable solutions are key to avoiding repeated failures.

Topics

Development | Economic | Infrastructure

Youth play a crucial role as agents of change and innovation in digital agriculture

Speakers

– Brenda Mulele Gunde
– Clinton Oduor

Arguments

Young people understand technology quickly and can help older farmers adapt to new solutions

Youth can provide extension advisory services as entrepreneurs, bridging the technology gap

Youth-led startups face funding challenges as they don’t fit current VC investment models

Summary

Both speakers recognize youth as essential drivers of digital agriculture adoption and innovation. They agree that young people can bridge the technology gap between advanced solutions and traditional farming practices, while also identifying funding challenges that prevent youth-led innovations from scaling.

Topics

Development | Economic | Capacity development

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize that gender equity and inclusivity in technology access requires intentional design and capacity building, recognizing that women farmers are often excluded despite being primary agricultural workers.

Speakers

– Brenda Mulele Gunde
– Aminata Amadou Garba

Arguments

Women farmers often cannot access technology despite being the majority of farmers in many countries

Technology access must be intentional about including women and youth, not just assume they will benefit

Capacity development for smallholder farmers and communities is essential for digital solutions to improve socio-economic benefits

Topics

Human rights | Gender rights online | Development

Both speakers emphasize that successful digital agriculture requires intentional approaches that consider broader implications including governance, collaboration, and regulatory frameworks rather than focusing solely on technology.

Speakers

– Ricardo Miron Torres
– Clinton Oduor

Arguments

The path to equitable digital agriculture requires intentional design, collaboration, and commitment to public good

Young innovators need better understanding of regulation importance, including data privacy considerations

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Both speakers advocate for comprehensive multi-stakeholder approaches that bring together all relevant actors – from value chain participants to public-private partnerships – to ensure successful implementation and sustainability of digital solutions.

Speakers

– Brenda Mulele Gunde
– Ricardo Miron Torres

Arguments

All value chain actors must be brought together before deploying solutions to understand roles and data management

Digital public infrastructure requires public-private partnerships to enable local ecosystems and startups

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Economic

Unexpected consensus

The critical importance of monitoring impact rather than just adoption metrics

Speakers

– Brenda Mulele Gunde
– Henry van Burgsteden

Arguments

Monitoring for impact rather than just adoption is critical for development solutions

FAO has supported 15 digital initiatives toward digital public goods certification with eight already certified

Explanation

While one might expect focus on adoption rates and technology deployment, there was unexpected consensus on the need to measure actual impact and outcomes. This represents a mature understanding that technology deployment alone doesn’t guarantee development success.

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

The need for regulatory frameworks and policy support rather than viewing regulation as hindrance

Speakers

– Clinton Oduor
– Aminata Amadou Garba

Arguments

Young innovators need better understanding of regulation importance, including data privacy considerations

Private sector telecommunications providers need financial incentives to connect remote areas with sparse populations

Explanation

Unexpectedly, both speakers advocated for stronger regulatory frameworks and policy support rather than viewing regulation as a barrier to innovation. This shows recognition that appropriate governance is essential for sustainable digital agriculture development.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated strong consensus on fundamental challenges and approaches to digital agriculture, including the critical importance of human-centered design, data accessibility, connectivity infrastructure, intentional inclusivity, and multi-stakeholder collaboration. There was notable agreement on the need for sustainable scaling approaches and the recognition of youth as key agents of change.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with complementary expertise. The speakers approached digital agriculture from different angles (development finance, telecommunications policy, digital public goods, and youth innovation) but arrived at remarkably similar conclusions about core challenges and solutions. This consensus suggests a mature understanding of digital agriculture challenges and indicates strong potential for coordinated action across different sectors and stakeholder groups.

Different viewpoints

Role of private sector vs public sector in digital infrastructure deployment

Speakers

– Aminata Amadou Garba
– Ricardo Miron Torres

Arguments

Private sector telecommunications providers need financial incentives to connect remote areas with sparse populations

Digital public infrastructure requires public-private partnerships to enable local ecosystems and startups

Summary

Aminata emphasizes the challenges of relying on private sector for connectivity, noting that telecom providers need return on investment and won’t serve unprofitable remote areas without policy support. Ricardo advocates for public-private partnerships through digital public infrastructure that enables broader participation beyond just big corporations.

Topics

Infrastructure | Economic | Development

Approach to technology implementation – pilots vs systematic infrastructure

Speakers

– Brenda Mulele Gunde
– Ricardo Miron Torres

Arguments

Pilots are important but often get stuck without clear pathways to scaling from the start

Digital public goods enable reusable solutions across different places without reinventing the wheel

Summary

Brenda sees pilots as necessary but problematic double-edged swords that often fail to scale, requiring clear scaling pathways from the start. Ricardo advocates for building reusable digital public goods infrastructure that can be adapted across contexts without starting from scratch each time.

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Digital standards

Unexpected differences

Youth role in technology adoption vs innovation funding

Speakers

– Brenda Mulele Gunde
– Clinton Oduor

Arguments

Young people understand technology quickly and can help older farmers adapt to new solutions

Youth-led startups face funding challenges as they don’t fit current VC investment models

Explanation

While both speakers recognize youth as important agents of change, they focus on different aspects of the challenge. Brenda sees youth primarily as technology adoption facilitators and entrepreneurs within existing systems, while Clinton identifies systemic funding barriers that prevent youth-led innovations from scaling. This represents different perspectives on whether the solution is better youth integration or structural funding reform.

Topics

Economic | Digital business models | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The panel showed remarkable consensus on core challenges (connectivity, inclusivity, local context) but differed on implementation approaches and systemic solutions. Main disagreements centered on public vs private sector roles, pilot-based vs infrastructure-based approaches, and whether to focus on adaptation of existing solutions or building new foundational systems.

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level with high strategic implications. While speakers agreed on problems and goals, their different approaches to solutions reflect fundamental differences in development philosophy – whether to work within existing systems through pilots and partnerships, or to build new foundational digital public infrastructure. These disagreements are constructive and complementary rather than conflicting, suggesting multiple valid pathways toward the same objectives.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize that gender equity and inclusivity in technology access requires intentional design and capacity building, recognizing that women farmers are often excluded despite being primary agricultural workers.

Speakers

– Brenda Mulele Gunde
– Aminata Amadou Garba

Arguments

Women farmers often cannot access technology despite being the majority of farmers in many countries

Technology access must be intentional about including women and youth, not just assume they will benefit

Capacity development for smallholder farmers and communities is essential for digital solutions to improve socio-economic benefits

Topics

Human rights | Gender rights online | Development

Both speakers emphasize that successful digital agriculture requires intentional approaches that consider broader implications including governance, collaboration, and regulatory frameworks rather than focusing solely on technology.

Speakers

– Ricardo Miron Torres
– Clinton Oduor

Arguments

The path to equitable digital agriculture requires intentional design, collaboration, and commitment to public good

Young innovators need better understanding of regulation importance, including data privacy considerations

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory | Human rights

Both speakers advocate for comprehensive multi-stakeholder approaches that bring together all relevant actors – from value chain participants to public-private partnerships – to ensure successful implementation and sustainability of digital solutions.

Speakers

– Brenda Mulele Gunde
– Ricardo Miron Torres

Arguments

All value chain actors must be brought together before deploying solutions to understand roles and data management

Digital public infrastructure requires public-private partnerships to enable local ecosystems and startups

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Economic

Key takeaways

Digital agriculture solutions must be human-centered and adapted to local contexts, as different countries have varying priorities and challenges

Connectivity remains a major barrier with one-third of the global population unconnected, and rural areas having half the connectivity of urban areas

Inclusivity requires intentional design to ensure women and youth access technology, despite women being the majority of farmers in many countries

Pilots are essential but often fail to scale without clear pathways established from the start

Data availability and open data policies are critical foundations for AI and digital agriculture innovation

Multi-stakeholder collaboration involving all value chain actors is necessary before deploying digital solutions

Youth serve as agents of change who can bridge technology gaps and provide entrepreneurial extension services

Digital public goods and infrastructure enable reusable, scalable solutions without vendor lock-in

Monitoring must focus on impact rather than just adoption rates to ensure meaningful development outcomes

80% of food is produced by smallholder farmers, so solutions must address their needs to enable commercialization and income growth

Resolutions and action items

FAO is developing a digital agriculture and AI innovation roadmap to guide inclusive and scalable transformation

Need to invest in data creation and visibility into agri-food ecosystems as a foundation for AI solutions

Emphasis on capacity development for smallholder farmers and communities to improve socio-economic benefits

Continue co-creation and action for inclusive, affordable, and sustainable digital agriculture aligned with 2030 agenda goals

Unresolved issues

How to effectively deploy universal access funds that often remain unused in African countries

Funding mechanisms for youth-led startups that don’t fit current VC investment models

Regulatory ambiguity and policy frameworks around data privacy and cross-border data sharing

Technical implementation of low-cost sensor solutions and their practical application in rural contexts

Bridging the gap between private sector infrastructure investment incentives and rural connectivity needs

Ensuring long-term sustainability of digital solutions beyond pilot phases

Suggested compromises

Public-private partnerships to enable local ecosystems and startups while leveraging private sector infrastructure

Using SMS services to deliver AI-powered solutions in low connectivity areas as an intermediate solution

Combining open source technologies with proprietary platforms where necessary, while maintaining core openness principles

Balancing data openness with privacy concerns through proper governance frameworks

Utilizing youth as intermediaries to help older farmers adopt technology while creating entrepreneurial opportunities

We talk a lot about pilots being a double-edged sword. What I mean is sometimes you can pilot a solution for maybe 10,000 to 50 or 2,000 to 10,000 farmers, but it gets stuck in the pilot, it does not get to scale. So, at the same time, pilots are also important because pilots help us to understand in terms of what are some of the local challenges that you need to deal with… the pathway to scaling up has to be clear from the start, before you start the pilot.

Speaker

Brenda Mulele Gunde

Reason

This comment addresses a critical paradox in development work – the necessity of pilots versus the challenge of scaling. It challenges the conventional wisdom that pilots are inherently good by highlighting their potential to become dead ends, while simultaneously acknowledging their value for understanding local contexts.

Impact

This insight reframed the discussion from simply implementing technology solutions to thinking strategically about scalability from the outset. It influenced subsequent speakers to consider sustainability and long-term vision in their responses, particularly Ricardo’s emphasis on building digital public infrastructure rather than just individual solutions.

When it comes to accessing technology, they are not the first ones to be accessing technology. It’s usually the men that go for these trainings. They come home, and they don’t tell even the woman what they have been trained on. There’s one phone in the house, and the phone is accessed by the husband. If the husband doesn’t leave the phone, if extending extension advisory, nobody also has it. All those dynamics that we’re dealing with are part of human-centered designing.

Speaker

Brenda Mulele Gunde

Reason

This comment provides a stark, concrete illustration of how gender dynamics create barriers to technology access in rural communities. It moves beyond abstract discussions of ‘inclusivity’ to reveal the specific household-level power structures that undermine digital agriculture initiatives.

Impact

This observation grounded the entire panel’s discussion in real-world social dynamics, making subsequent speakers more conscious of addressing practical barriers rather than just technical solutions. It reinforced the human-centered design theme throughout the remaining presentations.

The difference between just open source and digital public goods is also that they are designed for privacy, that they use open standards and best practices for interoperability… if the underlying components to access that solution is not open, then you might risk being a vendor locked in or have security risks that you might not know of.

Speaker

Ricardo Miron Torres

Reason

This comment introduces crucial technical nuance by distinguishing between merely being ‘open source’ and being truly accessible as digital public goods. It highlights often-overlooked issues of vendor lock-in and hidden dependencies that can undermine the sustainability of digital solutions.

Impact

This technical insight elevated the discussion from general advocacy for open solutions to a more sophisticated understanding of digital infrastructure requirements. It connected to Brenda’s earlier point about sustainability and influenced the conversation toward thinking about long-term digital ecosystem building rather than individual applications.

Africa holds about 65% thereabouts of the world’s uncultivated area that can be cultivated. But again, it’s the most data-scarce continent in the world, meaning that we don’t have visibility of what’s happening, for example, for the farmlands.

Speaker

Clinton Oduor

Reason

This comment presents a striking paradox – the continent with the greatest agricultural potential has the least data about its agricultural systems. It reframes the discussion from technology implementation to fundamental data infrastructure needs.

Impact

This observation shifted the conversation toward data as a foundational requirement rather than an afterthought. It reinforced the earlier themes about building infrastructure first and influenced the final recommendations where Clinton emphasized ‘we really need to invest in data first’ and other panelists echoed the importance of data visibility and access.

Most young people usually think that our regulation is there maybe not to make like innovation go forward but most of the time that’s surely not the case. So we also need to build like some capacity around like the importance of regulation and this include like things such as data privacy.

Speaker

Clinton Oduor

Reason

This comment reveals a critical disconnect between young innovators and regulatory frameworks, suggesting that the problem isn’t just regulation itself but a lack of understanding about its purpose and importance. It challenges the common narrative that regulation simply hinders innovation.

Impact

This insight introduced a new dimension to the discussion about barriers to innovation, moving beyond infrastructure and funding to include regulatory literacy. It suggested that capacity building needs to work in both directions – not just helping regulators understand innovation, but helping innovators understand regulation.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by moving it beyond surface-level technology advocacy to address deeper systemic challenges. Brenda’s insights about pilot scalability and gender dynamics established a foundation of practical realism that influenced all subsequent speakers to ground their technical solutions in social and operational realities. Ricardo’s technical distinctions about digital public goods elevated the conversation’s sophistication, while Clinton’s observations about Africa’s data paradox and regulatory disconnects provided crucial context about implementation challenges. Together, these comments created a progression from identifying problems (gender barriers, pilot limitations) to understanding technical requirements (true openness, interoperability) to recognizing foundational needs (data infrastructure, regulatory literacy). The discussion evolved from individual technology solutions toward systemic thinking about digital ecosystems, ultimately culminating in the panelists’ final recommendations that emphasized data investment, smallholder farmer focus, capacity development, and intentional public-good design.

How can we ensure that all stakeholders are inclusive in digital agriculture projects, and what methodologies like sandboxes (regulatory, operational, hybrid) can be considered?

Speaker

Jimson Olufuye

Explanation

This question addresses the critical need for comprehensive stakeholder engagement in digital agriculture initiatives, seeking specific methodological approaches to ensure true inclusivity beyond just end-users.

How do we get people to have access to digital agriculture technologies and emphasize capacity development to bridge the gap and fast-track productivity?

Speaker

Jimson Olufuye

Explanation

This question focuses on the practical implementation challenges of scaling digital agriculture solutions, particularly in developing countries where capacity building remains a persistent challenge.

How do we obtain and access data for digital agriculture solutions, and can universal cyber provision funds help in this regard?

Speaker

Jimson Olufuye

Explanation

This addresses the fundamental challenge of data availability and accessibility for digital agriculture innovations, exploring potential funding mechanisms to support data infrastructure development.

Have wireless sensory nodes (costing around one cent) distributed via planes or drones been approached as solutions in rural communities?

Speaker

Kathleen (engineer)

Explanation

This technical question explores cost-effective sensor deployment methods for precision agriculture, which could significantly reduce implementation costs in resource-constrained environments.

How can the universal access funds that have been sitting unused in banks for years in African countries be effectively deployed for connectivity?

Speaker

Implied by Aminata Amadou Garba’s response

Explanation

This highlights a critical policy and implementation gap where available funding mechanisms are not being utilized effectively to address connectivity challenges.

How can we address the financial viability challenges for private sector telecommunications providers to extend services to sparsely populated rural areas?

Speaker

Implied by Aminata Amadou Garba’s response

Explanation

This addresses the market failure in telecommunications infrastructure deployment in rural areas where return on investment is insufficient for private sector participation.

How can we develop context-sensitive data collection mechanisms for low-cost agricultural sensors that farmers can actually use?

Speaker

Implied by Aminata Amadou Garba’s response

Explanation

This addresses the gap between available low-cost sensor technology and practical implementation that considers farmer capabilities and local contexts.

How can we move beyond pilots to achieve scalable implementation of digital agriculture solutions?

Speaker

Brenda Mulele Gunde

Explanation

This addresses the critical challenge of scaling successful pilot projects, which is essential for achieving widespread impact in digital agriculture initiatives.

How can we ensure that women and youth have equal access to agricultural technologies despite existing social and economic barriers?

Speaker

Brenda Mulele Gunde

Explanation

This addresses persistent gender and age-based digital divides in agricultural technology access, which is crucial for inclusive development.

How can we develop sustainable funding mechanisms for youth-led agri-tech startups that don’t fit traditional VC investment criteria?

Speaker

Clinton Oduor

Explanation

This addresses the funding gap for innovative agricultural technology solutions developed by young entrepreneurs in the Global South.

How can we address regulatory ambiguity and build capacity around the importance of regulation, including data privacy concerns for agricultural data?

Speaker

Clinton Oduor

Explanation

This addresses the need for clearer regulatory frameworks and better understanding of regulatory importance among young innovators in the agricultural technology space.