While the importance of agricultural and food systems data is no longer questionable, unless concrete examples are provided, many decision makers will take a casual approach to data. Without data on quantities of agricultural commodities harvested (not just hectares planted) in a particular community, government can assume there is enough food to last a whole year when hectares planted have not translated to significant harvests. Equally important is data on how much is lost between production and storage as well as how much surplus can go to the market versus local consumption. These are some of the circumstances when correct figures are required.
We cannot motivate investors and new entrepreneurs with fragmented data
Fragmented data does not just limit the ability of existing businesses to scale and grow. It also creates enormous barriers to entry for new enterprises and fresh innovations. For instance, in order to buy new processing equipment, a processing company needs to know volumes of grain produced by farmers in a particular community. Low production will demotivate the company from buying new machinery when existing machinery is operating below capacity due to few quantities of raw materials. Young people from what are supposed to be high production zones end up migrating to cities in search of jobs that would easily be created locally if production was high enough to sustain local processing companies. Many rural communities are buying peanut butter and cooking oil from cities where their raw materials were first transported and brought back as expensive finished products merely because local processing was not viable.
It seems common sense that areas where avocadoes, banana and tomatoes are produced throughout the year should have processing plants, investors who don’t invest in those areas will have done their thorough homework from a business perspective. After assessing local consumption patterns, quantities available in the whole season and many other factors, an investor may decide not to set up a processing plant in a particular community. For instance, investors may notice that local consumers prefer raw tomatoes and fruits which they can convert into multiple menus compared to tomato sauce or tinned fruits whose mono-uses may not create room for indigenous cuisines. All these decisions are informed by data. In rural communities where processing plants have been abandoned, in most cases those investments were done by NGOs using donor money which does not require a lot of business sense.
Who should meet collect the data and how?
Several countries have statistical agencies or departments whose role is to collect national data that is used to guide policies regarding national food security and whether to import food or not. However, the fact that data is collected by a government institution does not guarantee the authenticity of the data. At a practical level, data sets from statistical agencies are only useful for macro insights but completely miss micro-level realities that are more trusted by farming communities because they are seen to be more inclusive and rooted in what happens daily on the ground. In most cases, by the time a national crop and livestock assessment report is presented, a lot will have changed so much that more than 70 percent of the data will be incorrect to the reality on the ground.
This is where social media like Whatsapp is becoming a more powerful grounded solution. Whereas statistical agencies use paper surveys and, off late, digital tools like Open Data Kit and Kobol Collect, Whatsapp enables many farmers and rural communities to participate in providing real time information. While formal statistical approaches are more extractive, social media is more interactive and data is not only collected but also returns value to the farmers. Government statistical agencies can learn a lot from how communities have adapted social media like Whatsapp to their contexts. When such experiences are shared, they will add more nuances and meaning to agricultural data. The beauty of Whatsapp is that by allowing the addition of audio messages, it brings on board talented blind farmers who cannot read or write on the phone key board nor watch a video but can listen to audios and learn a lot, enabling them to contribute their knowledge in uplifting ways.
Who owns the data and how can it be harmonized?
When communities have been capacitated participate in data collection, issues of data ownership can then be discussed from an informed and equal position unlike bringing the issues when there is no equal understanding of what data means. Besides government departments, many development agencies, farmer organizations and private companies have developed their own databases of farmers in line with particular commodities. To the extent such data remains siloed in those organizations, it is too fragmented to benefit the farmers. A national level framework should be set up by government to harmonize all these data sets. That is critical for avoiding duplications where, for instance, the same farmers belong to databases of several organizations. Such a national framework can also be responsible for updating the data to avoid making decisions based on stale data.
More importantly, research institutions and universities located in farming communities can be responsible for updating local data as part of their learning systems and contribution to local communities. While it is true that data collected by government agencies are a public good, it is important to think about who meets the cost of collecting the data. For instance, many traders invest in collecting data from farmers they deal with and building relationships that ensure authentic data continues to flow. If farmers meet you for the first time and suspect you have some ulterior motives, they may give you wrong information but the situation changes once trust has been built. Whilst the Government holds a big important responsibility, could we think that different uses may require different contributions? can PPPs be mechanism? can Agribusiness, who hold and need data, contribute to funding the processes and costs of data collection, updates, maintenance as they benefit from it?
There is no doubt that from a public sector mandate, a robust and trusted digital infrastructure will help deliver public programs more effectively, as well as include smallholder farmers who are often invisible to both government services and market opportunities. Data can also unlock economic opportunities for armers: This is the most crucial point. A verified digital identity and a record of farming activity (crops, yields, sales, loans repaid, community validation/benefit) can act as an economic passport, helping farmers build a credit history to access loans and insurance, or engage in trusted partnerships.
Charles@knowledgetransafrica.com / charles@emkambo.co.zw /
Website: www.emkambo.co.zw / www.knowledgetransafrica.com
Mobile: 0772 137 717/ 0774 430 309/ 0712 737 430