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South-South cooperation: Digital transformation and innovation in agriculture

The political dimension of the digital transformation of the rural world: advances and challenges

In the framework of FAO's first virtual fair "+Rural +Digital: Promoting the integration of the rural world", a discussion on the "Political dimension of the digital transformation of the rural world: advances and challenges" was held on 16 November.

FAO Dialogues

©FAO

16/11/2022

Santiago de Chile- In the framework of FAO's first virtual fair "+Rural +Digital: Promoting the integration of the rural world", a discussion on the "Political dimension of the digital transformation of the rural world: advances and challenges" was held on 16 November.

The activity was attended by representatives from Colombia, Chile, Brazil and ECLAC, who presented the challenges posed by the digital transformation of the rural world and its importance for the development of peoples. 

The virtual forum began with the words of Luiz Beduschi, Senior Policy Officer for Territorial Development at FAO, who introduced the panellists, including Monica Rodrigues, a researcher from ECLAC's Natural Resources Division.

According to Rodrigues, the region needs to develop specific national digital agendas for agriculture and rural areas in order to "put an end to the asymmetries that exist between them and urban areas, close the gaps in access and use of technologies between large and small farmers, and to generate greater skills in the agricultural workforce".

He considered that the digitalisation of societies, accelerated in recent years as a consequence of the development of the COVID-19 pandemic, encountered considerable barriers, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Citing figures from ECLAC's Broadband Observatory, Rodrigues commented that "with the exception of Uruguay and Costa Rica, where there is greater access to internet in rural areas, in general the region suffers from limitations in access to this important service, which is also accompanied by a lack of other basic services such as sanitation, education, health and social security". 

Rodrigues also explained that "on average, the price of the digital broadband basket - between fixed and mobile - in Latin America is between 12 and 14% of the family's income, although the recommendation is that it should not cost more than 2%".

He also gave the example of Brazil, which "does have a defined sectoral digital agenda for rural areas, while in the rest of the countries in the region, there are only generic digital agendas where rural areas occupy a minimal space". 

To reduce these inequalities, the expert proposed the development of specific digital plans for the sector that contemplate "not only infrastructure, connectivity, but also the consideration of prices and subsidies as well as digital skills", through the close articulation of the different actors involved such as "governments, telecommunications operators, content companies and IT companies, among others".

The case of Colombia

Following Rodrigues' speech, Ángela Penagos, President of the Colombian Agricultural Sector Financing Fund (Finagro), spoke about the challenges for rural financial inclusion in her country.

In this regard, she assured that "the indicator of access to rural credit in Colombia shows a growth in the participation of agricultural producers in Finagro credits that has reached 50% of producers".

He also stressed that "the challenge is to include around 750,000 agricultural producers who do not have access to the National Credit System".

However, he considered that "the smallest producers and those in the dispersed rural areas face greater difficulties" in accessing such credits. For this reason, he said it was necessary to "strengthen policies, adjust the regulatory framework and generate incentives for efficient provision and thus guarantee the sustainability of rural people's access to credit".

Chile's efforts 

Francine Brossard, Executive Director of the Fundación de Innovación Agraria de Chile (FIA), listed the government policies that support the management of information technologies: "food security and sovereignty, which aim to bring healthy and quality food to the population, and rural development, where the work we do is best framed". 

He marked 2006 as the year in which the work of digital transformation of rural areas began, because "that year the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Committee was created for the Ministry of Agriculture, a body in which the twelve bodies of the organisation still participate, with the aim of coordinating the work they do in this area".

At that time, Brossard said, a plan known as "Todo Chile comunicado" was launched, which, through the efforts of the government at the time and the private company ENTEL, sought to reach the greatest possible rural connectivity. Today I must say that the figure reaches 65% of the rural population and we are still working to achieve 100% connectivity".

In addition, the expert said that the gaps that have been achieved for the fulfilment of their objectives are: generational, education, income and gender. 

To address this situation, she said that they not only develop online training to reach youth, but have also conducted gender studies, which have revealed that "66% of rural women have greater access to technology and information networks, compared to 58% of men," said Brossard. 

"This is surprising, but it still speaks to a reality. Women are the ones who are close to young people, the ones who stay at home doing chores with the children, even more so during the pandemic, and they are the ones who had to get closer to information technologies to do so," she said.


Brazil's vision of the future

Finally, panelist Silvia Massrusha, a researcher at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), summed up her country's vision of the future of agriculture in eight mega-trends: "sustainability, adaptation to climate change, agro-digitisation, technological intensification and intensification of production, rapid changes in consumption and value addition, bio-revolution, integration of knowledge and technology, and greater governance and risks".

Researcher Massrusha said that the digital transformation of rural technologies and information in Brazil cuts across all areas of the agricultural production chain.

She also highlighted among the work being carried out to achieve this shift, "the SemeAr project, for the creation of agro-technological districts based on three pillars: innovative applications, internet connectivity and dissemination; and the Hubtech Family Agriculture, designed to implement digital rural extension to small and medium-sized producers," said the Embrapa representative.

On the figures for digital agriculture in her country, the panellist highlighted that "84.1% of producers use at least one digital technology" and that "today Brazil has 23% connectivity coverage in rural areas, with the use of 4400 towers or antennas", according to a joint study by the Ministry of Agriculture and Embrapa cited by 

Massrusha.

As for the main trends, challenges and opportunities in Brazil, he said they seek to ensure and deepen online digital services, management and monitoring of plant and animal production, as well as databases in rural areas.

 

1000 Digital Villages in Latin America and the Caribbean

In 2020, FAO launched the global 1000 Digital Villages initiative to promote the digitisation of services in rural areas.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the initiative was launched based on ongoing rural tourism experiences, leveraging connectivity, resources and digital solutions for thousands of people to improve their services, employment opportunities and incomes.