The future of Africa’s agricultural sector depends on its ability to leverage data for innovation, efficiency, and resilience. Smallholder farmers, who produce 70-80% of the continent’s food, face numerous challenges, including climate change, soil degradation, loss of biodiversity, and volatile market dynamics. These farmers often lack access to reliable market options and have little bargaining power, which undermines their ability to improve their livelihoods.
Digital tools and data-driven solutions have emerged as key drivers for agricultural transformation. However, the widespread adoption of Western-style data ownership models could hinder progress. These models prioritize individual control over data, which may not align with Africa’s socio-economic realities. Given that many farmers operate in low-connectivity regions with limited digital literacy, enforcing individual consent-based data governance models risks excluding the very people who should benefit most from these innovations.
Instead, Africa must adopt a governance model that enables farmer cooperatives, local institutions, and trusted intermediaries to collectively manage data access and use. This model would align with the continent’s social dynamics and leverage social capital, networks, and shared resources to improve productivity, resilience, and market access for smallholder farmers. An open data ecosystem rooted in collective governance has the potential to drive efficiency, foster innovation, and ensure that smallholders are active participants in the digital agricultural ecosystem, with control over how their data is used.
Currently, Africa’s agricultural sector suffers from fragmented data management, where various organizations gather and maintain data independently. This leads to inefficiencies, duplication of efforts, and suboptimal decision-making. For example, many smallholder farmers are asked to provide the same personal and farm-related information multiple times to different organizations, resulting in inconsistent data. This lack of coordination also extends to agricultural training and extension services, where farmers often receive conflicting advice from competing organizations, leading to confusion and poor adoption of best practices.
A well-integrated data system could address these inefficiencies by allowing farmer support organizations to share data, streamline operations, and provide more tailored support. This could also reduce the financial burden on organizations, as data collection and management are costly processes. By pooling resources and collaborating, organizations can increase the impact of agricultural programs and reduce redundancy.
Farmers, in particular, stand to gain the most from a coordinated and transparent data ecosystem. Currently, many smallholders have little access to the data needed to make informed decisions about farming and market strategies. Under a collective data governance model, farmers could access insights on market prices, climate trends, and agricultural best practices, empowering them to make better choices regarding crops, inputs, and selling strategies. This could also open the door to new services, such as affordable credit scoring models from fintech companies and precision agriculture tools that help optimize planting schedules and resource use.
Moreover, an open data system could enhance farmers’ bargaining power by providing greater transparency in pricing, supply chains, and demand trends. With this information, smallholders would be better positioned to negotiate with buyers and suppliers. Cooperatives could also use data to advocate for better government policies and investments in infrastructure, further improving farmers’ livelihoods.
Beyond improving existing systems, an open data ecosystem could foster innovation and entrepreneurship. By providing access to sector-wide insights, tech startups and agribusinesses could develop new digital solutions that cater to farmers’ specific needs. Governments could also benefit from better data for policy planning, resource allocation, and climate adaptation strategies.
For this transformation to succeed, African governments must craft policies that prioritize innovation, farmer empowerment, and sector-wide collaboration. Rather than adopting rigid data protection laws modeled after Western frameworks, Africa’s data governance should reflect its unique agricultural and social context. By embracing a collective consent model, Africa can unlock the full potential of data to drive agricultural growth and empower its farmers.
