Participation, Empowerment and Power Dynamics in the Digitalisation of Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa; Ethnographic Research on the Smallholder Farmers’ Use of Mobile Platforms for Agricultural Development in Kenya

Abstract

Information and Communication Technologies, such as mobile phones, are hoped to contribute to rural development and poverty alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Based on that mobile platforms bundle diverse digital services, including financing, marketing, and value chain management, they are supposed to be of support to smallholder farmers. This thesis aims at bringing a farmer-centred perspective on the farmers’ participation in the digitalisation of African agriculture. By using ethnographic research methods that help to grasp the narratives and everyday politics of smallholder farmers in Meru County, Kenya, this thesis answers the question of how mobile platforms shape, and are shaped by, smallholder farmers’ practices so that they can contribute to empowerment. It found that mobile platforms have a limited scope in empowering rural farmers. Digitalisation is not a single process and depending on how mobile platforms are designed that farmers are excluded or encouraged to participate in digital markets or financing services. By tackling individual farmers, digital participation still adapts farmers to markets rather than structurally adjusting markets to farmers’ needs. Mobile platforms also provide input loans on packages that increase farmers’ dependence on input, and which can jeopardise farmers’ operations and participation in more globalised and competitive markets. Therefore, farmers still rely on traditional methods for financing their farming practices, while mobile platforms are perceived as emergency tools. Rather than regulatory organisations, mobile platforms are intermediaries subjected to price fluctuations, politics, and other macro processes, which require to be regulated to work for the benefit of farmers.