ICT supporting sustainable !food supply chains in !

developing & emerging regions

Simone Sala !Associate Director, Sensemaking Fellowship, Swansea University NSRC!!Research Fellow, University of Milan GeoLab

Taken-home messages (crossing fingers!)

•  Agriculture is a global game changer

•  Digital technologies are already transforming ���developing & emerging regions

•  Digital technologies have a huge potential to make inclusive and sustainable food value chains happen"

Agriculture: a game changer

•  Poverty reduction

•  Water security

•  Food security

•  Climate change mitigation/adaptation

•  Gender issues

Agriculture: a game changer for water security

Agriculture: a game changer for water security

•  Freshwater = 2.5% out of the Planet’s water [USGS]

•  Water use in agriculture = 70% circa [FAO]

•  Agriculture-induced water pollution = biggest responsible for lakes’ & rivers’ pollution and second one for wetlands’ pollution, among the main drivers of pollution of deltas & groundwater [US EPA]

Agriculture: a game changer for food security in light of climate change

•  Food production: decrease by up to 2% each decade for 21st century

•  Global food demand: increase by as much as 14% each decade

•  Extreme weather increase risks to food production

2014 IPCC report

Agriculture: a game changer !for climate change mitigation

•  Agriculture = major contributor of methane and nitrous oxide

•  Agriculture accounts as much as transport & industry emissions

Agriculture: a game changer for poverty reduction •  75% of world poorest (1.4 billion people) lives in rural

areas

•  Agriculture = 40% global work force, up to 75-80% in some LDCs

•  Growth in agriculture in developing countries is 5 times more effective in reducing extreme poverty than that of other sectors [uNu-WIDER, 2010]

•  313B US$ = estimated value of Africa’s food markets (could exceed US$1 trillion by 2030) [World Bank, 2013]

Agriculture: a game changer !for advancing gender issues •  Women’s land ���

ownership ���= 1% [UNDP]

•  Women = 43% of the agricultural labor force in DCs

•  Women could increase yields by 20–30% if had access to same resources as men do.

Agriculture: a game changer that needs narratives

•  Making agriculture attractive to the youth

•  “For Africa* to be able to feed itself, agriculture needs to become a more attractive option for youth” [CGIAR, 2014]

•  Bottom-up pressure at the policy level for a greener agriculture

à Digital technologies can help on both sides

* 200M between 15-24 years old; figure to double by 2045

Digital Technologies are already transforming !the Developing World

•  Increasing access to Internet

•  Expansion of mobile phones

•  Expansion of mobile Internet

•  Rise of the Social Web

Internet affordability around the World

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Internet affordability worldwide !and in Sub-Saharan Africa

ICT Price Basket, IPB* :

•  -18.3% 2010/2012 !(-18% developing countries, -23.5 developed countries)

•  SSA: -55% Broadband, -25% Mobile

Still SSA is behind other developing regions in Internet access

* ITU 2013"

Mobile subscriptions worldwide: global figures

Ericsson, 2014

Mobile subscriptions worldwide: the new ones

Ericsson, 2014

Social Media !in Sub-Saharan Africa

“Egypt, Russia, the Philippines and 14 other DCs outpace the U.S. in the proportion of Internet users who log on to social sites.”

[PEW Research Center]

Digital technologies for sustainable ���food chains in DERs

•  Alternative vs Conventional Food Networks: does it make as much sense in DERs?

•  Food expenditure: 6.4% in US, 36.5% in Peru, 44% in Kenya, 47.7% in Pakistan

•  How to create sustainable food supply chains in DERs? value

& inclusive

Digital technologies for inclusive ���& sustainable value chains in DERs

Food value chains in DERs

•  Paradox: strong demand, but very difficult for DERs (especially smallhoders) to participate and upgrade in these industries

•  Notable exception: e.g. cocoa, coffee

•  Barriers: many and strict quality & food safety standards to be met to gain and sustain access to these chains [Global level]

•  Barriers: higher tariffs barriers, even though less rigorous standards & less consolidated chains [Regional level]

[OECD, 2014]

Value chains (in DERs): a variety of information ���produced (and feedback loops)

IICD, 2014

Value chains in DERs: a variety of actors ���(with different ICT needs/solutions)

•  Institutions & rules

•  Core actors

•  Business service providers

CTA, 2014

Enabling value chains via ICT in DERs: ���the Jamaica Traceability System

•  Pest management & traceability of Jamaican pepper (Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute, CARDI)‏

•  Problem: pests jeopardizing export ���of black pepper to US (20M$/year ���in the Caribbean region, 50K ���workforce), 800 to 300 Tonnes/year ���between 1997 and 2001

•  Goal: monitor the spread of gall midge and other pests to re-establish full export to North America & Europe

Enabling value chains via ICT in DERs: ���the Jamaica Traceability System

•  GPS is used to map location of pepper producers (identified via unique code)‏

•  Details on all parties involved in the supply chain (farmers, export inspectors, exporters) are collected & recorded

•  When data gaps or presence pests is retrieved the system stores the information and request immediate action to concerned parties

•  As soon as pest is intercepted at the port the origin can be traced back ���to the farm

•  System enables identification of hotspots, pest-free periods (i.e. seasonal trends) and areas

Value chains in DERs: many ICT applications

CTA, 2014

Farmbook calculators

Mob Trans

Opp Bank

Pre-production Production Postharvest Marketing

Market planning

MIS and Inputs

Finance

Farmbook calculators

Brainhoney Training

Esoko Esoko / Reuters

Esoko /RL MIS

Digital Green

SMS voice

Cropster / Muddy-Boots

Esoko / RL AMITSA

MPESA - $$

Production tips

Transport

Finance ProductionFinance

Marketing decisions

Reuters/ Farm-radio

Feedback Polls

Market price decisions

Storage

Chain wide Market Linkage

Best Practices

Best Practices Product

Bulking

SM Biz performance

Financial flows

Insurance

Swiss Re WI

Traceability

Value chains in DERs: many mobile-enabled applications

World Bank, 2011

A (scary?) sneak peek at the future of digital-powered sustainable food systems

•  Optimization of irrigation, logistics, harvesting

•  Early warning (e.g. calls correlation with weather events, pests, diseases)

•  Yield performance (e.g. calls at marketing time in cocoa-producing region)

Fig. 13. Attack on the village of Zriglo.

On February, 21, 2012, the village of Zriglo is attacked, killing sixpersons and wounding many more. There is indeed an increase in thenumber of calls to this village for this day. This also becomes appar-ent if the individual antenna-to-antenna communication is inspected,showing an unusual peak (see Figure 13).

Cocoa is a key commodity in Ivory Coast. The country is theworld’s largest producer of cocoa beans, accounting in 2010/2011 fora total 35% of the world’s total production [17]. Because of such ahigh economic value cocoa has already a driving factor for conflict inthe country [12, 35].

Cocoa trees in Ivory Coast are harvested twice a year: a main har-vest happens between September to December, while a second minorharvest happens from April to June [11]. April/May is a particularlyimportant time for cocoa farmers, as two important events other thanthe aforementioned harvest happen: (a) it is one of the two times whenpesticides are applied on cocoa plants; (b) if precipitation has beenabundant farmers can establish new cocoa plantations or expand exist-ing ones (starting field operations in May). Moreover, yam varietiesgrowing in forest areas are planted in April and May [11].

Two main hypotheses can be thus made:

• Events happening in April/May (i.e. harvesting, marketing andinput supply) are likely to produce an increase in telephone trafficfrom the western cocoa-growing regions towards urban areas andother (market, logistics) hubs.

• Correlation with abundant (i.e. above normal) rainfall inMarch/April is likely to produce additional increase in telephonetraffic from the western cocoa-growing regions towards agricul-tural inputs supply hubs.

Two positive rainfall anomalies that may have impacted agriculturalactivities and may be linked with increased phone calls have beenidentified in two regions: Bas-Sassandra and Dix-Huits Montagnes(see Figure 14). In the Bas-Sassandra region it was reported a positiverainfall anomaly during the first decade of April (see Figure 15) and anincrease in telephone calls on April 8, 2012, was noticed in two differ-ent areas: (a) the area of Sassandra and San Pedro subprefectures; and(b) the area of Tabou, Grand-Bereby and San Pedro subprefectures.

Higher data granularity was available only for the area of Sassandra.Rainfall was absent during the first decade of April, with the exceptionof an highly-anomalous storm on April 3 reported in Sassandra [5].Still this event does not explain the increase of telephone calls on 8April. It is important to highlight that April 8 2012 matched withEaster. Some sort of correlation with religious events may hence beassumed.

In the Dix-Huits Montagnes region it was reported a positive rain-fall anomaly during the second decade of April (see Figure 16) andan increase in telephone calls on April 13 and 16, 2012. Particularlythe increase in phone calls was localized in the Man sub-prefecture,which is an important center for both cocoa and coffee production na-tional and is the most important production area of coffee in the wholecountry.

Fig. 14. Increased phone calls correlated with rainfall anomalies.

Fig. 15. Rainfall activities in Bas-Sassandra region between 20 Marchand 20 April 2012 (10-day cumulated estimates) [4].

Fig. 16. Rainfall activities in Dix-Huit Montagnes region between 20March and 20 April 2012 (10-day cumulated estimates) [4].

5.4 Local event decreased call correlation patterns

In the events described below we found a strong correlation of de-creased call activity (majority of complete shutdown of call activity)and local events. Again, these correlations were clearly visible in thevisualizations while browsing the data. Once more, these events arediscussed in a chronological fashion.

On December 15th, 2011 the results of the legislative elections areannounced. There are no pro-Gbagbo supporters in this new cabi-net, due to boycotting of the FPI. On this day all cell towers in thewestern region (pro-Gbagbo supporters) appear to be shut down (seeFigure 17). Next, we identify the towers by using a hierarchical clus-tering on call behavior over time (see Figure 18). These cell towershave similar call behavior over time. If we inspect one of these towers(typically they all have this pattern) we see that these towers are notentirely shut down, but they remain to have an unusual low number ofcalls. Then, this low activity remains until the 4th of January, whenthey appear to be turned on again.

On January 15th, 2012, there were confrontations between commu-nities in Gagnoa resulting in the deaths of 16 people, injuries to manymore and the burning of several houses. On this day there is indeed aregional call change. The calls in this region drop to 0 (see Figure 19).

In early February, 2012 (no date mentioned) there were reports ofconfrontations between farmers and cattle breeders in Odienne. Thisled to injuries to several persons and the displacement of some 200people. On February 5th, 2012 a shutdown of towers in the regionaround Odienne immediately show up in the call change graph (seeFigure 20).

On March 3rd, 2012, near Daloa an incident is reported of a dispute

Increased phone calls correlated with weather anomalies (Van den Eltzen et al., 2013

Orange Telecom ���Data for

Development ���Challenge

Smallholder-inclusive value chains ���via Digital Technologies

ICT-powered strategies: a catalyzer to enable creation of partnerships

•  Include trusted channels and InfoMediaries

•  Set up ad hoc Communication systems (i.e. monitor production, facilitate transactions, enable traceability, support branding)

•  Integrate management tools (e.g. logistics, process management)

Producers AgriBusiness Companies

Sustainable Partnership

ICT-powered food supply chains: issues ICT-related issues

•  Still gaps in accessing ICTs

•  Content/Literacy issues preventing full participation

•  Lack of timely/customized information for farmers

•  Waste management & rush to natural resources to build ICT devices

•  ‘Solutions seeking problems’ approach

ICT-powered food supply chains: issues

ICT-related issues

•  Digital technologies are no panacea

•  “Technology is only a magnifier of human intent” ���(K. Toyama)

à “Revisiting the Fishers of Kerala, India” ��� (Srinivasan & Burrell, 2013)

ICT-powered food supply chains: issues

Supply chain-related issues

•  Most smallholder farmers in DERs are not part of value chains

•  How to ensure balance between smallholders & agribusiness?

•  Limited availability of extension agents to train farmers

•  Services cannot be free to be sustainable

Thank you, it was my pleasure! Simone Sala���

salas@mit.edu @hereissimone