A Survey on Digital Agriculture in Five West African Countries

Jules Degila (), Ida Sèmévo Tognisse, Anne-Carole Honfoga, Sèton Calmette Ariane Houetohossou, Fréjus Ariel Kpedetin Sodedji, Hospice Gérard Gracias Avakoudjo, Souand Peace Gloria Tahi and Achille Ephrem Assogbadjo
Additional contact information
Jules Degila: Institut de Mathématiques et de Sciences Physiques (IMSP), Université d’Abomey-Calavi (UAC), Porto-Novo 01 BP 613, Benin
Ida Sèmévo Tognisse: Institut de Mathématiques et de Sciences Physiques (IMSP), Université d’Abomey-Calavi (UAC), Porto-Novo 01 BP 613, Benin
Anne-Carole Honfoga: URPHORAN, Laboratoire d’Electrotechnique, de Télécommunications et d’Informatique Appliquée LETIA, Université d’Abomey-Calavi (UAC), Cotonou 01 BP 526, Benin
Sèton Calmette Ariane Houetohossou: Laboratoire de Biomathématiques et d’Estimations Forestières, Université d’Abomey-Calavi (UAC), Cotonou 04 BP 1525, Benin
Fréjus Ariel Kpedetin Sodedji: Non-Timber Forest Products and Orphan Crops Species Research Unit, Laboratory of Applied Ecology (LEA), University of Abomey-Calavi, Cotonou 01 BP 526, Benin
Hospice Gérard Gracias Avakoudjo: Non-Timber Forest Products and Orphan Crops Species Research Unit, Laboratory of Applied Ecology (LEA), University of Abomey-Calavi, Cotonou 01 BP 526, Benin
Souand Peace Gloria Tahi: Laboratoire de Biomathématiques et d’Estimations Forestières, Université d’Abomey-Calavi (UAC), Cotonou 04 BP 1525, Benin
Achille Ephrem Assogbadjo: Non-Timber Forest Products and Orphan Crops Species Research Unit, Laboratory of Applied Ecology (LEA), University of Abomey-Calavi, Cotonou 01 BP 526, Benin

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: This study focuses on agriculture, which is the main source of economic growth in many West African countries. In recent years, conventional agriculture has undergone a remarkable evolution and digital technologies are widely used for different purposes. While the world is rapidly using advanced digital technologies to grow their agriculture, Africa seems to be lagging behind, especially West Africa. To know how to contribute effectively, it is important to know what is being performed about this issue. The objective of this study is to examine the state of digital agriculture in five countries, namely, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria. The study consisted of an analysis of the scientific contributions of these countries and the cases of actual deployment. This is carried out by means of a bibliometric study based on data collected from the Web of Science and a comparative review of the technologies used in the target countries using data from several sources, such as IEEE, Scopus, Science Direct, Google Scholar, etc. The bibliometric analysis based on 3249 publications revealed that research interests have increased significantly since 2014. Climate change, machine learning (ML), and adoption have been the hottest topics of discussion and most of the organizations working on the topic are academic bodies. Moreover, a considerable amount of the scientific input was obtained from Nigeria, which is the most populous of the five countries considered. The survey on digital farming showed that publications in Nigeria that address deployment cases were focused on the internet of things (IoT), wireless sensor networks, blockchain, and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. In Ghana, practical cases of blockchain, AI, and big data deployment were observed, while Burkina Faso focused on IoT and AI. In Côte d’Ivoire and Benin, the deployment cases generally focused on AI.

Keywords: technologies; innovations; agriculture; artificial intelligence; internet of things; machine learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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