Will digital solution transform Sub-Sahara African agriculture?

Given its superior importance of digital agricultural solutions to overcome challenges in agricultural activities, many of the solutions are in face of challenges to scale in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). On the other hand, the impact of digitalization on economic development in developing countries is documented in several literatures but digital technologies have lately touched the agricultural sector in SSA. The objective of this study was to briefly review the impact of digital solution on smallholder farmers agriculture transformation, and the key and challenges influencing of agricultural digitalization in SSA. We used all-inclusive approach comprising original research articles, peer-reviewed articles, working papers, conference papers, book chapters, database, guide book, and indexes from 60 recent empirical academic studies conducted on impacts on digital solution in the region to produce a broad review. Results show that digital solution, when effectively used in SSA, has enabled smallholder farmers to gain a wide range of benefits involving access to real timely price, market, and farming information and safe financial transactions, alternative value chain linkages, multifaceted knowledge, better earning and yield, reduce costs, social well-being and risk minimization, women empowerment benefits. In contrast, fail to use adaptable tools, unaffordability, digital illiterateness, low participation of women and old smallholder farmers due to their low income and education status, are main barriers to digitalization in agriculture. Accordingly, it essential to the SSA countries to invest on technologies that is adaptable their target population, ensure balancing regulatory and delivery approaches that permit equal involvement of women, old age category, and remote areas, realize affordable access to digital services through reducing data costs and tax cuts on digital agricultural tools, and offering digital skill training for farmers by segmenting them into their gender, age, and education to fully harness the opportunities of digitalization in agriculture.