Access to mobile internet can positively impact farmers’ lives: Vodafone report

KOLKATA: Mobile internet access via smartphones can lead to a 50% increase in a small farmer’s revenue in India, especially if the correct inputs — read agricultural information — are used, telecom company Vodafone said in a report.

“A 1% increase in yields can lead to a 0.6%-1.3% reduction in poverty in India, having a greater impact than prices alone,” said the report, ‘Towards a more equal world: the mobile internet revolution’, on the potential of mobile internet access in tackling inequality in developing markets.

Written by independent experts, the Vodafone report looks at how the shift to smartphones and data services in emerging markets represents a turning point.

Small farmers, it says, typically have limited access to internet resources, services, information, markets and social networks.

The report underscores that mobile internet access through smartphones can positively impact the lives of small farmers in developing economies like India, especially when the intensity of information needed in agriculture is increasing.

These can be in the form of “reliable weather information, which can guide farmers on when to plant and harvest” while “increased price transparency” could help them obtain better prices for their crops.

Mobile internet access, according to it, is also pivotal in reducing information asymmetries and equalising access to wider social networks and opportunities, but digital literacy is important in ensuring such potential is realised. “Differential access to information has the potential to create an even bigger divide than exists now between rich and poor farmers, in effect creating a new division between farming communities based on their access to information,” the report warns.

Growth in agriculture, it says, particularly benefits those on the lowest incomes. "A 1% gain in GDP originating from higher agricultural production generates a 6% increase in spending by the poorest tenth of the population, who are predominantly small farmers in most developing countries."