The Role of Development Informatics in Wealth Creation among Smallholder Farmers: A Case Study from Kenya

Abstract

Development Informatics (DI) seeks to develop and disseminate theoretically-grounded and practice-oriented understanding of information and ICTs for socio-economic development. Good examples of DI application include integration of developmental ICTs in policy, economics, e-agriculture, e-governance, e-business and e-learning. Agriculture promotes the greening of the environment, a common feature in most rural agriculture. Seen from this perspective then DI focuses on technology solutions associated with systems and ICTs that bridge the efficiency gaps, resulting to growth in the economic and social good of all people. They are mechanisms and infrastructure for sharing and exchanging knowledge generated through research at national and regional levels and boosts human capital’s ability to rapidly absorb and use them. This paper reports on a DI initiative carried out to smallholder Diary farmers to enable them fetch better prices for their produce earns from the marketplace. This approach was to diminish the abuse of information asymmetries created by middlemen in the marketplace who use it to exploit farmers. This paper presents an in-depth analysis of how to change this scenario by promoting research in ICTs that integrate agricultural value chain activities of inputs, production care, harvesting, post harvest processing and management, and eventual marketing. The paper proposes the need to propagate research that integrates DI in smallholder farmer activities if knowledge and wealth are to be generated. This way DI emerges as a tool for achieving pro-poor empowerment and hence increases the wealth of a nation. The paper concludes that institutionalization of DI among smallholder farmer initiatives can provide an avenue for achieving success in sustainable DI implementation.