What case studies demonstrate the benefits and/or damages of the use of ICTs and Open Data?
What is the potential for open data in nutrition and agriculture? Does open data benefit and damage farmers, especially smallholder family farmers, women and the youth in developing countries? What case studies can demonstrate the benefits and/or damages of the use of ICTs and Open Data?
http://plantix.net/
Plantix is a plant diagnostic App developed by PEAT. The App provides users worldwide with customized information concerning best practices, information on preventive measures and independent options for action. Plantix offers the possibility to send pictures of affected plants directly via smartphone and guides through an identification process to determine the plant disease in a very simple manner. All pictures sent via the App are tagged with coordinates.
The resulting metadata provides valuable insights into the spatial distribution of cultivated crops and most significant plant diseases e.g. in form of high resolution maps. Furthermore Plantix aim to get a deeper understanding of the relations between plant diseases and geofactors by the intersection of the gathered information.
Institutions and policy makers may be supplied with this regionalized real time geodata addressing the spread of diseases and prognosis of crop shortfalls, allowing for fast and targeted policy intervention. Additionally, our tool can be used as an innovative solution for direct communication with small farmers through Push-Messages.
I think there are many examples out there where open data and ICTs have negative impact on vulnerable populations. We just don't hear about them as much as we should. I sometimes wonder if this is because of the incentive structures that exist within the sector. A lot of this work is still predominantly donor-funded and program managers are fairly reticent to admit failure due to perceived negative impact on their careers/KPIs/end-of-year evaluations. This contributes to the broader political economy of data resulting in uneven progress, disenfranchisement of the vulnerable and a faulty narrative on impacts where claims are unfounded and causal chains non-existent. Open data, at some point, may result in the reconfiguration of the balance of power which would invariably trigger push-back from those rent seekers exploiting the status quo. It is naive to imagine those only exist in the public sector and not in the development sector (including funders).
Having said that, there are examples that offer lessons we should all learn from. The key lesson, for purposes of this discussion, is not to pursue open data initiatives that are abstracted from the developmental agenda and the broader human rights framework. When little effort is made to connect open data and ICT initiatives to the core development goals we should be pursuing, we end up with projects/programs that reinforce inequalities and protect the current balance of power. It becomes about empowering the empowered.
A well-documented example of the impact of empowering the empowered is found in the 2007 paper Bhoomi: ‘E-Governance’, Or, An Anti-Politics Machine Necessary to Globalize Bangalore? by Dr. Solomon Benjamin and colleagues. Because those who could access the ICT platforms that held data on titles/land tenure were educated, mostly urban and able to access legal and financial resources, they translated this access into dispossession of land from rural farmers who didn't have the access, resources or education. A well-intentioned e-government program became a source of great misery for many in Bangalore.
Early on in countries where public procurement moved towards e-procurement and reduced or eliminated publishing of tenders in print media, those without the digital skills or access to utilize the online platforms were left at the mercy of intermediaries or missed out completely. The platforms didn't make things better except improve administrative efficiencies for the public sector. Other factors that affect access to e-services or public procurement such as access to credit, land tenure or gender equality were not addressed. Anecdotally, access to these opportunities simply mirrored existing inequalities where women and young people have less access to economic empowerment opportunities than men.
If an open data initiative serves to ensure people continue to be left behind, it causes damage rather than bring benefits to citizens.
Dear Dr. Muchiri,
I totally agree with you.
The case of inequality has being a great challenge from time as a result of quest for supremacy.
My question based on the daily changes that occur, what can be done to reduce inequality? Even with free education many seem to follow their thought without leveraging on the importance of education. What choices do we provide the so called oppressed as they often seem not to understand the choices they make? What approach should developmental partners apply for a paradigm shift from the way they look at their developmental priorities? How can Open Data help in reconciling this great divide as technology is moving the World faster than the speed of light?
Dear Dr. Muchiri,
I totally agree with you, many government agents and coordinators don't want to make known their weekness by sharing the required information for political reasons and in some cases don't have the reason because of poor structures put into place to manage the use of the resources at hand and in other cases embezzelment most especially in the develooping countries where some of this coordinators are appointed politically rather than by marrit
I feel honored to have been among the authors of this group, Open data can help to educate many farmers through ICT just i can say "reaching Unrechables " there are many challenges when we deal with Open Data.
When we deal with ICT applications here are some problems are access to data, interoperability, trustworthiness and timeliness. And none answer the questions of what to grow, when to grow, where to market, how to grow, where to market and how to market.
Dear Muchiri When we deal with Digital data their are many threats to the data like accidental damages, intensional, UnIntentional, virus threats many so we need to always take care of the data with various techonologies
Open data helps in improving agriculture production and food security eventually , but the agricultural stake holders like business man or entrepreneurs are the ones who are benefited much than the famers who remain in the fringes of the global technology hub. Scientific community are also benefited, open data enables them to carry out research at faster phase and foster the needs of farmers at right time.
One more problem farmers are facing with open data and ICTs is that they are confused with huge data that is available on internet .All the open data have to be more streamlined and put in simpler format that a common man can use and get benefited.
We can say that total justice is done to ICTs and open data only if it reaches the grassroots.
I have been anticipating that some examples of open data that is useful for and is used by smallholder farmers in developing countries would be given in this forum. Is it too early to go beyond opinions based on theoretical perceptions since there are no examples based on actual practice?
I am working on a project that intends to provide individual smallholder farmers decision support for their farms as also a single window for agribusiness, agriprocessors and agriservices that farmers need around finance, commodity and information. Apparently data from such a system has commercial value.
My main problem at the moment is to develop an appropriate (balanced) agreement in opening (and using) data for use among all actors and stakeholders from the project which has to be self-sustaining in about 3 years. I am slowly coming to a conclusion that generation and managing all data from the project will have to be considered as a "public" service just like any other service such as roads, water, electricity, health or education. Based on this assumption, users will pay a "toll" or a fee (based on use, its scale etc) to use the data even if the data is "open". Farmers may be subsidized (like fertiliser or electricity they use). Thus while all data will be "open"it will not be "free". Then an agreement is possible. I would be very happy to hear opinions on this issue.
ICAR sponsored AICRP (STCR) developed a bilingual (Marathi and English) App for plant nutrient application through targeted yield approach. The App helps to arrive at decision on plant nutrient application rates based yield target set according to resource endowment capacity of the farmers.
Dear Dr. Dey:
Please provide where and how the app you mention can be downloaded/used online.
Dear Participants,
Many thanks for the wonderful comments, we will let the forum run for 1 week more so that we can give all the chance to express themselves in the three aspects of the questions.
We salute your comments and wish for the best
Thembani Malapela, On behalf of the e-forum on ICT and Open Data