March 2021 agricultural “platforms” in a digital era

Figure 1: Evolution of smallholder agricultural services
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See the ISF Briefing Note on the Role of Government in Rural and Agri-finance for more detail: 
isfadvisors.org/wp-content/up-
loads/2020/06/isf_rog_briefing_note_june2020.pdf.
Source: ISF Advisors and RAF Learning Lab analysis
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Within this context, two important shifts in 
service delivery over the last decade have enabled 
the emergence of more technology-driven
solutions for serving farmers, often by private 
sector players: 
1. A shift toward market-based approaches 
to service delivery, with a focus on 
sustainability, investability, efficiency, and 
replicability of models. This shift has also 
caused service providers to place increased 
emphasis on the customer value proposition 
and cost effectiveness of interventions.
2. Increasingly digitally-enabled service 
delivery, both by new entrants built around 
digital technology and by existing providers 
incorporating technology into their existing 
business models.
Market-based approaches have also caused a 
paradigm shift in how farmers are viewed.
In the past, farmers were considered primarily 
as beneficiaries of top-down, donor-funded 
projects or public extension. With the emergence 
of market-based approaches, private actors have 
begun to see farmers as customers with particular 
wants and needs—and as a market opportunity 
potentially worth billions of dollars. Other entities 
have followed suit, with donors, investors, and 
governments also expanding their support for 
market-based approaches to smallholder
service delivery. 
These commercially oriented models would not 
be possible without the parallel emergence and 
uptake of digital technologies. Serving farmers 
in remote areas with low population density has 
always been a costly endeavor. Now, digital
technology allows organizations to create more 
sustainable and scalable models for service
delivery. As a result, more farmers are being 
reached with services that are increasingly 
customized to meet their needs and available on 
demand. Service providers can reach greater scale 
while remaining cost effective, and can obtain better 
quality data about their customers. In turn, this data 
can be used to improve service design and delivery 
and optimize monetization strategies.