This article examines an ICT-based intervention (known as the DrumNet project) that has succeeded in integrating smallholder-resource and poor farmers into a higher value agricultural chain. The article assesses the design of the project, and how it resolves the smallholder farmers’ idiosyncratic market failures and examines member-farmers’ marketing margins. The article finds that the design of the DrumNet project resolves smallholder farmers’ credit, insurance and information market failures and enables them to overcome organizational failure. The article concludes that successful ICT-based interventions for integrating farmers into higher value agricultural value chains require an integrated approach to tackling smallholder farmers’ constraints. The findings have implications for the design of future ICT-based interventions in agriculture.

Developed countries are major markets for developing country fresh produce. Demand by developed country consumers for spotless produce has encouraged developing country consumers to rely increasingly on pesticides in producing fresh export vegetables. However developed country pesticide standards enacted in response to reports of increased farmer and farm worker pesticide poisoning and the food safety scandals of the 1980s and 1990s require changes in the way growers use pesticides. The EU has especially developed stringent food safety standards relating to, among other things, pesticide usage. Under EU pesticide standards (EU-PS) farmers are trained by their buyers on safe use of pesticides and then closely monitored under contract. This paper looks at the impact of these standards on developing country farmers' use of alternative pest management practices, pesticide protective clothing and the actual usage of pesticides. It finds that compliance with EU-PS increases the use of alternative pest management practices and protective clothing. However, EU-PS has mixed effect on the quantity of pesticides used. The paper also finds that farmer's education and access to information play an important role in the use of alternative pest management practices. The paper concludes that EU-PS encourage the use of alternative pest management practices and pesticide protective gear in production of fresh export vegetables. The findings imply that EU-PS promote environmentally-friendly methods of production of fresh export vegetables in developing countries.Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.

In many developing countries smallholder farmer participation in agricultural input and output markets continues to be constrained by lack of market information. Actors in most developing country markets operate under conditions of information asymmetry which increases the costs of doing business and locks out smallholder farmers. Attempts to address this problem are currently focusing on the use of ICT technologies to provide market information and link farmers to markets. This study examines the awareness and use of one such technology – mobile phones. It finds for male and female smallholder farmers in Kenya a high level of awareness and widespread use of mobile phones, mainly for social purposes. This study further finds that a low level of education, the cost of mobile phone airtime recharge vouchers and the lack of electricity for recharging phone batteries are the major impediments to the ownership and use of mobile phones, with female farmers more constrained than males. A high awareness of mobile phones among smallholder farmers presents an opportunity to strengthen smallholder farmers’ market linkage. However constraints to the usage of mobile phones will need to be addressed. The study findings indicate priorities for policymakers dealing with the specifics of ICT adoption as a tool to promote rural viability via rationalization of Kenyan agricultural markets.

This article examines an ICT-based intervention (known as the DrumNet project) that has succeeded in integrating smallholder-resource and poor farmers into a higher value agricultural chain. The article assesses the design of the project, and how it resolves the smallholder farmers’ idiosyncratic market failures and examines member-farmers’ marketing margins. The article finds that the design of the DrumNet project resolves smallholder farmers’ credit, insurance and information market failures and enables them to overcome organizational failure. The article concludes that successful ICT-based interventions for integrating farmers into higher value agricultural value chains require an integrated approach to tackling smallholder farmers’ constraints. The findings have implications for the design of future ICT-based interventions in agriculture.

Lack of agricultural information has been attributed to the inability of smallholder farmers to transition from subsistence to commercial agriculture. Recent efforts to improve smallholder access to agricultural information have seen increased application of ICT technologies in developing agriculture. These efforts use ICT-based market information to reduce transaction costs of smallholder participation in markets, promote commercialization, and improve household food security. Emerging studies document the benefits of such ICT-based applications in agriculture, including increased incomes and improved performance of agricultural markets. Unfortunately these studies have been context specific and the link between provision of ICT-based market information, smallholder commercialization and household security remains unclear. This paper develops a framework that can be used to analyze the link between ICT application in smallholder agriculture, household commercialization, and food security. The paper generates testable hypotheses relating ICT application in agriculture and reduction in transactions costs, smallholder farmer commercialization, and household food security. It then provides illustrative cases where ICT application in agriculture has benefited smallholder production and improved market performance. However, more research must be done to test the generated hypotheses. The paper discusses the implications of the framework for practitioners.