Digital Platforms and Coordination in Agricultural Ecosystems in Emerging Markets

Abstract

Agriculture in emerging markets is faced with coordination challenges including fragmented production, weak market linkages, limited access to finance, and inadequate logistics. While digital platforms have attracted growing attention, existing literature has focused primarily on technology adoption, productivity, and sustainability impacts, paying limited attention to how platforms actively organize relationships among ecosystem actors. This study addresses that gap by examining how digital platforms create value through coordination within agricultural ecosystems in emerging markets. A qualitative multiple-case study design was employed to analyze five digital agricultural platforms across sub-Saharan Africa: AgroMall, Hello Tractor, Agrowex, Twiga, and Farmcrowdy. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with platform founders and managers at three platforms, supplemented by documentation and publicly available materials for all five cases. Drawing on platform ecosystem theory, platform governance theory, and socio technical embeddedness, the analysis examined coordination mechanisms, actor interaction dynamics, governance structures, and value creation outcomes. The findings reveal that the five platforms employ distinct coordination mechanisms such as supply aggregation, service matching, contractual structuring, logistics management, and financial embedding with each addressing a specific coordination problem within the agricultural value chain. Instead of functioning as generalized intermediaries, the platforms specialize in coordinating a particular layer in the ecosystem. The study further demonstrates that governance structure influences the effectiveness of coordination, platforms that employ stronger governance mechanisms achieving deeper coordination across the value chain. This study contributes a coordination centered perspective on digital agricultural platforms that complement existing adoption-focused accounts. It introduces a layered coordination configuration showing how platforms specialize across distinct ecosystem layers, demonstrates the relationship between governance intensity and coordination depth, and reconceptualizes digital agricultural platforms as coordination infrastructures rather than purely technological tools. These contributions carry implications for platform design, agricultural policy, and future research in emerging market contexts.