A text message away: ICTs as a tool to improve food security

Eduardo Nakasone () and Maximo Torero

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The growing use of ICTs around the world, particularly cellular phone technology, provides a significant development opportunity. Under certain situations, ICTs can improve rural households’ agricultural production, farm profitability, job opportunities, adoption of healthier practices, and risk management. All these effects have the potential to increase wellbeing and food security in rural areas of developing countries. Several challenges to effectively scaling up the use of ICTs for development remain, however. Taking advantage of the opportunities provided by ICTs depends on increased connectivity of marginalized population groups, the content and usefulness of the information provided through ICTs, and the capacity of households in rural areas to understand and act on the information that they receive. We need innovative ways to bring together the public and private sectors to ensure that the three Cs (connectivity, content, and capacity) are addressed as a whole.

Keywords: Information and Communication Technologies; Mobile phones; Agricultural Extension; Market Price Information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 O13 O32 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-09-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

Published in Agricultural Economics 47 (2016) supplement 49–59.47(2016): pp. 49-59

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/75854/1/MPRA_paper_75854.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: A text message away: ICTs as a tool to improve food security (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:75854

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().