The use of Information and Communication Technology in agriculture in Malian's policies

What is it about?

To harness the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs), developing countries need to develop national ICT policies that serve as frameworks for integrating ICTs in all spheres of society. In the absence of such policies, there is often a lack of coordination of ICT-led interventions which often leads to a waste of resources. Thus, there is always a need to define a national framework for the promotion and application of ICTs in various sectors of a country’s economy. The purpose of this study was to analyse the national ICT policy regarding the field of agriculture in Mali. The study adopted the theory of knowledge as its guiding theoretical framework. In addition, this study adopted a qualitative research method as data was collected using policy documents and semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using the qualitative content analysis(QCA) method with the aid of NVIVO version 12 software. The results showed that Mali had two policy documents that articulated the country’s strategy towards the use of ICTs in the agricultural sector. These documents were the Agricultural Orientation Law and the National Strategy for the Development of the Digital Economy. Further examination revealed that these two policy documents did not support agriculture in modern Mali’s landscape. This resulted in the under-utilization of digital tools by agricultural extension officers, reducing the dissemination of agricultural information for higher yield towards farmers in the country. This study recommends the recasting of both documents in response to the study findings.

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Photo by Roman Synkevych on Unsplash

Photo by Roman Synkevych on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The theory draws a close link between knowledge and power. Foucault (1977) maintains that human experience is based on communication, with structures arising from the rules of communication. Furthermore, knowledge gives way to power that generates further knowledge. It is often assumed that whoever has knowledge or information is empowered and whoever lacks it, is incapacitated. In the case of an ICT policy in agriculture, the concept of information is translated as the implementation of an ICT policy (through the dissemination of agricultural information through ICT) and power could be labelled as the farmers gaining knowledge on how to increase their productivity (through ICT means). The literature (Msoffe & Ngulube, 2016) suggests that well-informed farmers make wiser decisions which, in turn, results in an increase in agricultural yields (Kante et al., 2019) and hence, more agricultural productivity (Barakabitze, Fue, & Sanga, 2017; Kante et al., 2017; Siyao, 2012). However, for farmers to be empowered, the extension officers themselves need to be firstly empowered. The extension officers could be empowered by making ICT tools such as cell phones available to them and by training them on their use. In the context of the theory of knowledge, an ICT that supports agriculture (RQ1) is related to the knowledge construct of the theory while the extent to which ICTs are used in the agricultural sector of Mali (by extension officers) (RQ2) is related to the power construct of the theory.

Perspectives