Abstract:
Digital technology has the potential to eradicate extreme poverty and food insecurity to
the majority of smallholder farmers in the world. This paper aims to identify knowledge gaps on
digital technology for sustainable agriculture and assess their availability to smallholder farmers
worldwide. The particular case of Tanzania receives special attention. We conducted an extensive
literature search from relevant databases for review. The advanced digital technology in agriculture,
mostly used by large scale farmers, significantly contributes to sustainable agriculture. However,
the existing digital services for smallholder farmers lack sustainability in the agriculture context
and hardly meet the needs for a comprehensive set of services in a complete farming cycle. In most
developing countries, Tanzania case included, digital technology and services respond to a challenge
at a particular stage of the farming process or to a specific value chain. Based on this literature
review, we identify inequalities among large and small farmers, as well as environmental challenges
caused by ICT itself. To conclude we provide suggestions for improvements for smallholder farmers:
developing a digital platform that addresses smallholder farmers’ challenges in a complete farming
cycle, bringing together the stakeholders at a country level, in order to achieve sustainable agriculture
and support adoption of cutting-edge digital technology. These suggestions will be the starting point
for future research.
