Sustainable agriculture is a critical ingredient and a primary source of livelihood for most of the populations, especially those residing in largely-agrarian economies of the Global South. Digital agriculture, especially in the Global South, faces several persistent challenges in improving farm-productivity and profitability for farmers. These include fragmentation of digital agriculture practices, limiting the efficiency and scalability of such initiatives. Each country has its own agricultural ecosystem evolving at its own pace, managing for various unique constraints. While over the years, agri-tech platforms have uniquely evolved to address the needs of the farming ecosystem, we have to think of ways to integrate various incumbent agro-platform efforts, as no one system can solve all for all challenges.
Smallholder farmers often lack access to modern technologies, timely knowledge-assets and meaningful access to markets, hindering their farm-productivity and individual profitability. For instance, there are noticeable gaps in adequate market linkages and credit sources in several geographies, thereby making it difficult for marginalised farming communities to sell their produce at fair prices and invest in necessary commodities. The sector is also highly vulnerable to adverse climate events, depleting forest-cover and soil-water conditions; thereby necessitating a pressing focus on advocating for advanced, climate-resilient practices and tools. Farmers too, as a critical “beneficiary class” are not individuals in isolation. Given the oft-seen poor income conditions, the severe stress it lays on a farming family’s livelihood needs urgent attention. If we were to look at a farmer household (as a social unit of intervention), the intervention needs are several. These include policy and funding support for maternal health, scholarship benefits and lifelong learning access for their children, social protection cover and family-subsidies, holistic health and wellness benefits for the household, water-use efficiency and so forth. Additionally, if we expand this scope to a much larger ecosystem, the policy interventions can assume possibilities of reorienting rural youth livelihood programs, streamlining the supply chains of agri-produce processing, distribution and logistics, meaningful and responsible private-market participation for sectoral modernization in tandem with Governments, among others. Thus, the aim of well ordained agri-transformation missions shouldn’t just limit themselves to siloed farmer and farm-related needs, but take a conscious view to address these challenges (and the resulting opportunities) at a much-more expanded ecosystem view. Thus the possibilities to craft new models of agri-productivity and secure economic opportunities for the farming ecosystem, are immense!
All this is possible with a reliable and scalable digital infrastructure backbone; the lack of which impedes timely information-access and innovative agri-practices. To create an inclusive and innovative agricultural economy, it is imperative to empower the farming ecosystem with necessary tools and knowledge, along with necessary opportunities for market linkages and credit sources. Enabling open & decentralised DPI & AI-powered (but augmented by a reliable human trust infrastructure) Digital Agriculture Grids are an interesting proposition to take a closer look at. As is now evidenced in a few geographies, this DPI-lens to ongoing digital agriculture efforts worldwide is aiding the consolidation of several (current) fragmented and isolated interventions and help create farming ecosystem-focused solutions at a population scale, fostering significant societal transformation at large.
The Idea
To accelerate this DPI-AI pivot to Agriculture, the “Open AgriNet (OAN)” alliance is being established as a global network of Governments, Sectoral tech-think tanks, SDOs, NPOs, Private Ag-tech organisations, research & academic institutions, among others. Through collective actions of this community, the OpenAgriNet alliance seeks to open up several avenues of access to modern technologies and knowledge assets for implementers, while also having concerted efforts around unlocking several new models of market linkages and credit sources for the farming ecosystem. It aims to mitigate the impacts of climate change on agriculture by promoting advanced, DPI-led climate-based data management tools. A key goal of the OpenAgriNet Alliance include advocating for and guiding the implementation of Digital Agriculture Grids, aided by an ambition to inculcate a culture of global cooperation to support and guide implementers in this endeavour. Thus, it seeks to establish universally-applicable agri-tech best practices; such as open and standardised protocols, data standards, open-source digital goods, cost-effective AI tooling, open data sets and operational toolkits for establishing such Grids, and so forth. The Alliance will also establish global channels of collaboration to enable inter-practitioner exchanges of best practices and innovative solutions, ultimately creating a more inclusive, efficient, and resilient agricultural ecosystem.
The Future
This pivot presents a fascinating opportunity for the global community to advance the speed and efficacy of digital agriculture innovations in the years to come. The potential that this represents uncovers several exciting possibilities over a 5-10 year horizon, some being;
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Every in-country manifestation of the OAN blueprint presents a direct impact on 2.5 billion people, invested in the farming ecosystem worldwide. Thereby opening up new avenues for self-sufficiency and debt-free lives. Thus given the population impact, we can realistically aspire to see the gradual shift of a significant composition of LIC & LMIC nations (currently) towards middle-income status or beyond.
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Reinventing the global focus and dialogue from “Food Security for All” to “Stabilising Food systems and Ensuring better wellbeing for All”
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A multi-year leap in Agri-research using technology levers, and widespread on ground applications of forward looking ideas around soil & water security, remote farm monitoring and mechanisation, and so forth.
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Unlocking new models of Agri-financing for large-scale public investments, philanthropic capital and market infusion efforts.
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Creating a new social-tech infrastructure for Agriculture, a la “AgriOS” with underlying modular technology building blocks and widespread community contributions-uptake; to aid faster innovation cycles and value creation on-ground for the key stakeholders concerned.
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And ultimately to establish a connecting global transactional infrastructure between nations and multilateral-regional blocs, to encourage bilateral agri-trade and unfettered information highways.
True to the spirit that this ambition holds, OAN will be a collective for all who have an active stake in modernising agriculture and food systems worldwide, for the holistic betterment of our populations.
Rajeesh Menon
Founding Member & Chief of Innovation
OAN