Chapter one: General Introduction
1.1 Background on Agriculture sector in Rwanda
Short remark on agriculture in Rwanda
Agriculture in Rwanda accounts for a third of Rwanda’s GDP; constitutes the main economic activity for the rural households (especially women) and remains their main source of income.
Today, the agricultural population is estimated to be a little less than 80% of the total population. The sector meets 90% of the national food needs and generates more than 70% of the country’s export revenues.
The country’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS) defines a large number of programs in the agriculture sector including the intensification of sustainable production systems in crop cultivation and animal husbandry; building the technical and organizational capacity of farmers; promoting commodity chains and agribusiness, and strengthening the institutional framework of the sector at central and local level.
Transforming the Agriculture Sector to move it towards commercial farming; agro-processing; import substitution and export is key to efficient usage of Rwanda’s scarce land and critical to achieving the Vision 2020.
Agriculture contributes to development as an economic activity, as a livelihood, and as a provider of environmental services, making the sector a unique instrument for growth and poverty reduction. In Rwanda, over 80% of employment is based in rural areas. Agriculture is the main sector making up 32% of GDP1. However, rural poverty is also high, measured at 48.7%, in comparison to the urban level of
22.1%. Rural development and the role of agriculture is therefore a key focus for domestically and externally financed projects which aim to increase incomes, alleviate poverty, improve food security, combat malnutrition and drive growth to reach ambitious national targets outlined in Vision 2020 and EDPRS I. The estimated population of Rwanda in 2010 is 10,413,000. FAO estimates that the population will rise further to 14 million by 2020. (MINAGRI, 2009).
ICTs are always evolving and have been contributing immensely in development policies and programs in developing countries. Appropriate application of ICTs will help the institutions, organizations, and nations in development plans. In spite of the tremendous potential of ICTs, developing countries have not adapted a sound strategy to utilize ICTs effectively. The application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in agriculture is increasingly important. If ICTs are utilized fully in agriculture and allied fields, traditional knowledge could be improved and farmers would benefit from this new technology.
E-Agriculture is an emerging field focusing on the enhancement of agricultural and rural development through improved information and communication processes. More specifically, e- Agriculture involves the conceptualization, design, development, evaluation, and application of innovative ways to use information and communication technologies (IT) in the rural domain, with a primary focus on agriculture. E-Agriculture is a relatively new term and we fully expect its scope to change and evolve as our understanding of the area grows.
ICT in the agriculture sector must have a vision of a “Knowledge-Intensive Agriculture” that may respond to the challenges of food security, sustainable development, and the sustaining of farmer’s revenue.
1.2 Problem statement
Information and communication have always mattered in agriculture. Ever since people have grown crops, raised livestock, and caught fish, they have sought information from one another. What is the most effective planting strategy on steep slopes? Where can I buy the improved seed or feed this year? How can I acquire a land title? Who is paying the highest price at the market? How can I participate in the government’s credit program? Producers rarely find it easy to obtain answers to such questions, even if similar ones arise season after season. Farmers in a village may have planted the “same” crop for centuries, but over time, weather patterns and soil conditions change and epidemics of pests and diseases come and go. Updated information allows the farmers to cope with and even benefit from these changes. Providing such knowledge can be challenging, however, because the highly localized nature of agriculture means that information must be tailored specifically to distinct conditions.
It is in the context of globalizing agriculture where the need for information becomes most brilliant. The smallholders, who still provide a significant portion of the world’s food, need information to advance their work just as much as industrial-scale producers. Comparing the two types of farmers, industrial and small-scale, exemplifies the latter’s disadvantages. Where wealthier industrial producers can use the Internet, phone, weather forecasts, other digital tools, and technologies as simple as vehicles and infrastructure as basic as electricity to glean information on prices, markets, varieties, production techniques, services, storage, or processing, smallholders remain dependent primarily on word of mouth, previous experience, and local leadership.
1.3 Objectives of the current project study
1.3.1 Main objective
The main objective of the present project study is to assess the impact of ICT uses in agricultural sector in Rwanda.
1.3.2 Specific objectives of the project study
The following specific objectives will be useful for the proposed research project:
- To assess at which level ICT is currently known in different sectors of Kamonyi district
- To evaluate at which level ICT is being used in agriculture
- To assess the current level of acceptability of ICT in farming activities
- To review the level of goals meeting from on-going ICTs uses
- To assess the difference before and after the current use of ICT.
1.4 Research questions
1. How does ICT contributes to the agribusiness development?
2. How do agribusiness partners use ICT in their daily business activities?
1.5 Research hypothesis
Ho: there is low contribution of ICT in agribusiness development
H1: there is a contribution of ICT in agribusiness development.
Ho1: agribusiness partners do not use ICT in their daily business activities. H11: agribusiness partners use ICT in their daily business activities
Chapter Two: Literature review
2.1 Overview of ICT in Rwanda
Information and Communication Technology is a central engine to driving Rwanda’s transformation to a knowledge based economy, a fact Rwanda has acknowledged by allocating a budget to ICT – as a percentage of its GDP.
Rwanda continues to be one of the fastest growing African countries in ICT and there are several avenues for growth for the ICT sector – from e-commerce and e-services, mobile technologies, applications development and automation to becoming a regional center for the training of top quality ICT professionals and research. A robust ICT industry can create wealth, jobs and entrepreneurs.
2.2 Goals of ICT in Rwanda
- Catalyze the development of the ICT sector for economic growth
- Facilitate the deployment of ICTs to enable growth in other sectors
- Attract, convert and support implementation and expansion of local and foreign private investment in ICT sector.
Strategies
- Proactively target investors for the ICT sector and disseminate investment opportunities to them
- Provide accurate and timely responses to investor and stakeholder requests
- Advocate policy changes to improve the investment climate for the ICT sector
- Identify and develop opportunities for private sector investment in the ICT sector
- Undertake project or product development to catalyze private sector involvement in this sector
- Identify and build a niche for the Rwandan ICT private sector, especially for the export markets using a cluster approach
2.3 Rwanda’s ICT Competitive advantage
1. Cheap labor compared to other countries in the Region
2. Young and dynamic workforce (98% of the population is under 50 years and 43% is under 16 years)
3. Most favorable business environment in the Region (8th best place to do business in the world 2012)
4. Low levels of corruption – Zero tolerance (Transparency international Bribery index 2012 ranked Rwanda as least bribery prone in the EAC)
5. World class ICT infrastructure
6. Strong & visionary leadership
7. Bi-lingual business environment (French and English)
Ø Mobile broadband penetration
The country’s leading mobile telephony providers are MTN Rwanda, TIGO and Airtel. The
network coverage accounts for 99.79% of the country and the current subscriber base is at
48.1%(5,155,697 subscribers September 2012). The long term outlook of growth in these numbers is 7,437,196 by Q4 2016
Rwanda’s Internet penetration grew from less than 1% in 2000 to 7% at the end of December
2011. With the existing ICT infrastructure as well as access network rollout program, internet penetration is projected to increase tremendously to over by 2016.
2.4 ICT in agriculture
The application of information and communications technology (ICT) in agriculture is increasingly important.
E-Agriculture is an emerging field focusing on the enhancement of agricultural and rural development through improved information and communication processes.
More specifically, e-Agriculture involves the conceptualization, design, development, evaluation and application of innovative ways to use information and communication technologies (IT) in the rural domain, with a primary focus on agriculture. E-Agriculture is a relatively new term and we fully expect its scope to change and evolve as our understanding of the area grows.
E-Agriculture is one of the action lines identified in the declaration and plan of action of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The “Tunis Agenda for the Information Society,” published on 18 November 2005 and emphasizes the leading facilitating roles that UN agencies need to play in the implementation of the Geneva Plan of Action. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has been assigned the responsibility of organizing activities related to the action line under C.7 ICT Applications on E-Agriculture.
The main phases of the agriculture industry include crop cultivation, water management, fertilizer application, fertigation, pest management, harvesting, post-harvest handling, transport of food products, packaging, food preservation, food processing/value addition, quality management, food safety, food storage, and food marketing.
All stakeholders of agriculture industry need information and knowledge about these phases to manage them efficiently. Any system applied for getting information and knowledge for making decisions in any industry should deliver accurate, complete, concise information in time or on time. The information provided by the system must be in user-friendly form, easy to access, cost- effective and well protected from unauthorized accesses.
2.5 ICT applications for agricultural risk management
Overview
Risk and uncertainty are ubiquitous and varied in agriculture. They stem from uncertain weather, pests and diseases, volatile market conditions and commodity prices.
Managing agricultural risk is particularly important for small-holders because they lack resources to mitigate, transfer, and cope with risk. Risk also inhibits external parties from investing in agriculture. Timely information is essential to managing risk. Information communication technologies (ICTs) have proven highly cost effective instruments for collecting, storing, processing, and disseminating information about risks.
ICT Applications for Mitigating Agricultural Risk.
ICTs have reduced the costs of gathering, processing, and disseminating information that helps farmers mitigate risk. Information services using mobile phones and radios can direct early warnings of inclement weather, market movements, and pest and disease outbreaks to farmers. With an early warning, steps can be taken to limit potential losses. Farmers can also access advisory services remotely to support their decisions related to risk-mitigating activities or to choose the most appropriate action in response to an early warning. These decision support systems are critical for transforming information into risk-mitigating actions.
ICT Applications for Coping with Agricultural Risk.
While there have been few applications of ICTs to cope with agricultural shocks, those that exist are proving important and potentially transformative. Mobile phones enable ground personnel or affected persons to report more easily to whoever is coordinating a response to the shock.
This communication leads to better-targeted relief efforts. In the event of a shock, ICTs facilitate transfers and remittances to farmers from state and relief agencies as well as from farmers’ extended social networks.
Finally, disaster management is using more sophisticated applications to collect and synthesize information from the field. In the future, these disaster management applications might be applied to respond to agricultural shocks
ICT meets these tasks/roles in agriculture:
- ICT enables rural financial services and micro-insurance for smallholders
- ICT helps in meeting producer organizations
- Using ICT enables Agricultural Innovation Systems for smallholders
- Strengthens Agricultural Marketing
- ICT cooperates with agriculture in the context of “green growth”
- ICT helps and makes easier the Data Collection, Monitoring and Evaluation. All these are achieved by the work of these great performances:
- Recordtext, drawings, photographs, audio, video, process descriptions, and other information in digital formats,
- Produce exact duplicates of such information at significantly lower cost,
- Transfer information and knowledge rapidly over large distances through communications networks.
- Develop standardized algorithms to large quantities of information relatively rapidly.
- Achieve greater interactivity in communicating, evaluating, producing and sharing useful information and knowledge.
Chapter Three: Materials and Methodology adopted
3.1 Introduction
This chapter outlines how the project will be undertaken; it also describes how the different tasks will be done in order to achieve the stated objectives of the project. It also addresses methods to be used in obtaining the required data, selection of materials to be used in the study, the methods to be used in the design process, elementary design and detailed design as well as the expected results.
3.2 Materials to be used:
Under below there is a list of helpful materials for the completion of this work:
- Computer
- Handbooks
- Pens and pencils
- Digital cameras
- GPS (geographical positioning system) machine
- Modem
3.3 Data collection methods
3.3.1 Interviews (with a designed questionnaire) and consultations
The research will be qualitative and quantitative in nature. Research organizations and farmers as well as business makers dealing with the ICT use will be visited so as to obtain the required data. The following tools will be used to obtain the required data;
- Conducting oral interviews with the members of the research institutes
- Consultations with research institutes about the existing ICT use.
- Consultations with farmers about their current experiences.
We will also draw its evidence, examples, analysis and lessons from two major sources:
1. Extensive reviews of existing theoretical literature, project evaluations, economic and sectoral analyses, and related literature and evidence (including data sets) from the RDB, NISR,ministry of agriculture, ICT in charge ministry and other partners;
2. Interviews with partners(NGOs) operational staff, other donor staff and other country partners engaged in current projects related to ICT and agriculture, or projects that have a significant information/communication component.
3.3.2 Desk study
Required information on existing use of ICT use in agriculture will be obtained using internet as well as the use of library books, journals among others.
3.4 Data analysis
The data collected from the field will be analysed through different computer software like
Ms excel, Cipro-5, SPSS 17.0 Version and their corresponding interpretations for better understanding.
3.5 Expected results
Expectations:
To provide frameworks and models for the complex investments and partnerships that are required to extend affordable ICT access and services to agricultural stakeholders and key institutions of the rural economy and promote locally appropriate ICT innovation
To provide a framework for understanding the contribution of ICT to agricultural development and for incorporating ICT in agricultural development strategies, investments and programs
Strengthening and diversifying agricultural research, extension, advisory services and innovation through ICT
3.6 Proposed research budget.
1. Services purchase budget.
| items place | Accommodation Fees/day(rwf) | Transport Fees/day(rwf) | Restaurant Fees/day(rwf) | Time- bound | Consumer quantity | Tot.(rwf) |
| Kigali | 30,000 | 20,000 | 10,000 | 2 | 2 | 240,000 |
| South | 15,000 | 30,000 | 10,000 | 4 | 2 | 440,000 |
| North | 15,000 | 30,000 | 10,000 | 3 | 2 | 330,000 |
| East | 15,000 | 30,000 | 10,000 | 5 | 2 | 550,000 |
| West | 15,000 | 30,000 | 10,000 | 4 | 2 | 440,000 |
| Total service charges: 2,000,000rwf | ||||||
2. Materials purchase budget.
| Items | Quantity | Price per item (rwf) | Total price (rwf) | Tot amount (rwf) |
| Computer(laptop) | 1 | 350,000 | 350,000 | 368,700 |
| Handbook | 2 | 500 | 1,000 | |
| Papers | 1 box | 2,500 | 2,5000 | |
| Pens | 2 | 100 | 200 | |
| Modem | 1 | 15,000 | 15,000 |
3. Internet and computer software charges
| Items | Quantity | Price(rwf) | Total charges(rwf) | |
| Software: | 81,000 | |||
| Cipro-5 | 1 | 40,000 | ||
| SPSS 17,0 | 1 | 20,000 | ||
| Monthly | network | 1 month | 21,000 | |
| connection | ||||
Total project’s budget: 2,449,700rwf
3.7 Proposed activity schedule
1. Data collection
Kigali: 2 days; from 14thto 15th April, 2014
South: 4 days; from 16th to 20th April, 2014
North: 3 days; from 21th to 23th April, 2014
East: 5 days; from 24th to 28th April, 2014
West: 4 days; from 29th to 2nd May, 2014.
2. Data entry and analysis
It is supposed to take one week from 3rd to 10th May, 2014.
NOTE: This proposed budget and rerated activities schedule have been worked out for the whole country research project.
Download complete project in PDF Format: Appendix: RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE ON “THE IMPACT OF ICT USE IN AGRIBUSINESS”, CASE STUDY: KAMONYI DISTRICT