The Social Sustainability of Digital Information Services in Sub-Saharan Africa : a Social Practice Perspective on Smallholder Farmers’ Use of Mobile Phone-Enabled Services for Agricultural Development in Kenya

Abstract: Nowadays, mobile phone-enabled services are reaching the rural poor farmer in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with digital information for agricultural development. These digital services consist of access to social networks and customised information that are expected to enhance farm management due to knowledge exchange and learning. This thesis aimed to analyse the farmers’ use of digital services and discuss its implications for social sustainability in agriculture by looking at how digital information merges, coexists or competes with other bodies of local knowledge. The analysis was based on participant observation with eleven farmers that use iShamba, a digital platform providing agricultural information services to smallholder farmers in rural Kenya. A social practice perspective implies that digital information must consider the contextual realities of farmers in terms of material, competence and meaning. Considering that access to inputs is constrained in the context of the study, this thesis suggests that digital services could contribute to social sustainability by promoting biological-based innovations that are locally applicable in terms of the materials available to farmers. Moreover, digital services could complement their service with field advisory visits or training courses, where the role of human intermediation appeared to be fundamental. Social sustainability in agriculture is that associated with the generation of knowledge and meaning that legitimises a particular model of agricultural development. This thesis found that digital services increase the diversity of knowledge by offering several options to farmers which contributes to social sustainability in agriculture. However, digital services do not encourage innovation, directing research toward attending to the demands of poor rural farmers but rather provide farmers with the available innovations. Additionally, a key point is the potential of digital services to co-construct the meaning associated with agricultural development. But since digital information integrates diverse trajectories of agricultural development, social sustainability requires that the institutional arrangement promote and support models of sustainable agriculture at the landscape level