OpenTEAM serves as a platform for dialogue. This series provides more in-depth information about organizations and companies within and outside of OpenTEAM that are working on similar topics around technology and regenerative agriculture. Lini Wollenberg and their colleagues will present a set of proposed principles for the social inclusion of smallholder farmers in the development and use of digital tools. The guide is based on a synthesis of existing principles and standards, and gives special attention to farmer co-creation of agricultural practices as a gap in the literature. The principles are an output of the Inclusive Digital Tools Project and will be used to guide development of improved tools in action research conducted by the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT in Brazil for livestock and by IRRI in Vietnam for rice. The Agroecological TRANSITIONS: Socially Inclusive Digital Tools (ATDT) project is funded by the EU and managed by IFAD and implemented by the Alliance of Bioversity & CIAT. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZBsF9xppOE Learn more about ATDT and find project outputs here: https://bit.ly/AgLEDxATDT https://agledx.ccafs.cgiar.org/about/atdt/

1. B
Best practices for
digital tool
inclusiveness and
farmer co-creation of
practices
18 May 2023
Open Team Presentation
Lini Wollenberg, Alliance Bioversity and
CIAT
Digital Tools
Digital tools

2. The Co-design
Challenge
Smallholder farmers don’t have
the means or influence to develop
digital resources that reflect their
priorities.
Yet digital tools can be a powerful
means for scaling practices while
also addressing farmer- specific
conditions.
How can we improve smallholder
farmer self-determination in the
scaling of best practices?
https://www.acdivoca.org/2021/02/av-ventures-invests-in-agrocenta-supporting-digital-and-financial-inclusion-of-ghanaian-smallholder-farmers/

3. Access
Farmer co-creation
of practices
Usability
1
3
2
Digital social inclusion

4. Agroecological
Transitions – Inclusive
Digital Tools Project
(ATDT)
Scale up best practices for agroecology and
climate change
Improve inclusiveness of digital ecosystem to
better reach smallholders
Test co-creation of innovative farm practices
using digital tools

5. IRRI Sustainable Rice Platform,
Loc Troi, Rikolto (VECO), Agrig8
(software), TCSOFT
(monitoring and advice),
MARD
Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT
Solidaridad, Pará and Mato
Grosso, ICRAF, Brazilian RT on
Sustainable Livestock, Embrapa,
Sustainable Territories Platform
Mato Grosso
VIETNAM
Mekong
Delta
Beef supply chain
E-extension
Rice supply chain
Performance assessment
Action research
2022-2024
Pará

6. Lack of relevant information for advancing progressive agriculture
1. Critiques of digital tools in agriculture
(Shelton et al. 2022)
Disconnect between farmers, scientists & developers
Data privacy & right issues
Asymmetric benefits: Women, smallholder & illiterate benefit less
Digital land grab: Data grabbing by tech & agribusiness giants
Hidden expense: Financial, social, ecological
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/125878

7. 1. Govern for an inclusive digital ecosystem & economy: regulate the data rush and give data rights
to individuals providing data
Solutions
2. Build progressive and connected social movements for food, data & social justice
4. Apply agroecology principles to digital design & development (in terms of agroecology)
• Design tools and practices with user group
• Create pathways for user feedback & input
• Use small scale, open access local technology and connect to global systems
• Augment with local and contextual data collection systems, community-built and owned
3. Code ethics into digital design

8. 2. Review of 230 advisory and
performance assessment tools
• <20% of tools supported climate change action.
• Adaptation functions focused on technical
assistance for climate information and early
warning services.
• Mitigation functions focused on performance
assessment using GHG calculators.
• ~30% of tools included features for communication
with tool users,
• Iconography, chat, voice recognition, video or
audio messages.
• Coaching and hotline functions were important
complements.

9. 3. Stakeholder and expert perspectives: What more can be
done digitally to encourage farmer co-creation of practices?
Global experts (on-line workshop and interviews)
• Understand user needs through human-centered design and bring
digital and community knowledge together in the design team.
• Use local languages and multiple channels relevant to farmers (e.g.,
text message, interactive voice recognition, pictures, and video) to
enhance farmers’ accessibility to tools.
• Generate metrics to understand the behavior patterns of target users.
• Encourage uptake of tools by incorporating incentives such as market
price information for crops or creating gamified experiences.

10. Brazil: Priorities for inclusive digital tools in beef supply chain
`
Infrastructure
and
technology
Technical
Assistance
Governance
Policy and
Investments
1. Improve access to internet in rural areas;
2. Create demand by finding what producers want and how they view DT adding value (“demand drives tech. adoption”);
3. Carry out a diagnosis of existing DT and access the needed structure for producers and public entities to use them;
4. Foster the communication between stakeholders working in the same region;
5. Organize and disseminate information in a participatory way;
6. Develop DT tools with information that help understand practices and economic returns of agroecology interventions;
7. Link DT with financial institutions to improve smallholders’ access to credit;
8. Build public policies integrated with incentives (such as PES, for example)

11. • Long term engagement is a challenge – Incentives may be
necessary
• Farmers using digital tools although mostly use social media for
back and forth communication e.g. Whatsapp, Zalo, Messenger
• Contracting farmers are more familiar with digital tool use
• Training and working with aggregators is important
• Focus on reaching women – timings, locations, responsibilities
etc
• Trade-offs important – apps should not be aimed to replace
face-to-face interaction but rather to support (videos, images,
etc)
• Long-term sustainability of digital tools through a business plan,
bundled services, uptake by private mobile service provider
Vietnam–
priorities
for rice

12. 4. Review of principles
for social inclusion
1. Understand the state of existing
principles to guide our own work
on inclusive digital tool
development.
2. Guide development of digital tools
to benefit smallholder farmers to
better enable their social inclusion
and co-design of farm practices.
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/126103

13. Principles review: Methods
• 31 reports, articles and blogs were reviewed
for principles related to the inclusive use of
digital tools, or more broadly, inclusive digital
development
• 9 provide explicit principles
• 14 provide explicit actions,
recommendations or strategies
• 8 provide important evidence gaps or
next steps

14. Principles review:
Findings
• Synthesis using six
principles
• Co-creation is a gap
• Lack of guidance related to
climate change and
agroecology

15. Principles Guidance Standards
DIAL1 GSMA2 POLLICY3 DPGA4 WBA5 Tufts6
Social Inclusion Principles
Principle 1 X X X X
1.1 X X X X
1.2 X X X
1.3 X X X
Principle 2 X X X X X
2.1 X
2.2 X X X X
2.3 X X X X
Principle 3 X X X X X
3.1 X X X X X
3.2 X X
3.3 X
3.4 X X X
Co-creation Principles
Principle 4 X X X X
4.1 X X X X
4.2
4.3 X X X X
4.4
Principle 5 X X
5.1
5.2
Principle 6 X X X
6.1 X X X
6.2 X X
6.3 X X X
1 Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) - Principles
for Digital Development
2 Global System for Mobile
Communications Association (GSMA) –
Principles for Driving the Digital Inclusion
of Persons with Disabilities
3 POLLICY – Inclusion, Not Just an Add-On
4 Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) –
Digital Public Goods Standard
5 World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) –
Digital Inclusion Benchmark
6 Tufts University – Beyond Access: How
Digital Technologies Power Inclusive
Innovation in Smallholder Farming

16. Social inclusion
principles
Principles Guidance Standards
DIAL GSMA POLLICY DPGA WBA Tufts
Social Inclusion Principles
Principle 1 X X X X
1.1 X X X X
1.2 X X X
1.3 X X X

17. Principles Guidance Standards
DIAL GSMA POLLICY DPGA WBA Tufts
Social Inclusion Principles
Principle 2 X X X X X
2.1 X
2.2 X X X X
2.3 X X X X
Social inclusion
principles

18. Principles Guidance Standards
DIAL GSMA POLLICY DPGA WBA Tufts
Social Inclusion Principles
Principle 3 X X X X X
3.1 X X X X X
3.2 X X
3.3 X
3.4 X X X
Social inclusion
principles

19. Principles Guidance Standards
DIAL GSMA POLLICY DPGA WBA Tufts
Co-creation Principles
Principle 4 X X X X
4.1 X X X X
4.2
4.3 X X X X
4.4
Social inclusion
principles

20. Social inclusion
principles

21. Social inclusion
principles

22. • Would these principles be useful in your work?
• What would you change?
• What innovations can help?
Feedback on principles

23. Looking forward
Improve climate change and scaling functions of
digital tools in critical adaptation and mitigation
hotspots and supply chains.
Develop open-source climate change modules for
digital tools to enable rapid scaling.
Link tool development and intermediary
capacities to best reach smallholders.
Systematically support innovations in tools and
their use to meet social inclusion and co-creation
principles

24. B
Thank You!
Project page: https://alliancebioversityciat.org/projects/inclusive-digital-tools-atdt
For more information contact lini.wollenberg@uvm.edu
P r o j e c t
For a complete list of publications see ATDT: https://bit.ly/AgLEDxATDT
ATDT Core team
• Sessie Burns, Digital specialist
• Ciniro Costa Jr., Brazil Team leader
• Kyle Dittmer, Research analyst
• Katie Nelson, Vietnam Team leader
• Bailey Rowland, Program manager
• Sadie Shelton, Communications officer and research assistant
• Trang Vu, Vietnam researcher
• Solidaridad- Brazil , Action partner
• Lini Wollenberg, Project lead