Digital Agriculture: Mobile Phones, Internet & Agricultural Development in Africa

This study examines the non-linear relationship between mobile phones, internet and agricultural development in Africa for the period 2001–2015 using system generalized method of moments. The empirical results show a non-linear relationship between mobile phones, internet and agricultural development. Mobile penetration and squared mobile penetration have significant positive effects on agricultural value added, implying that mobile penetration has an increasing effect on agricultural value added. In contrast, internet usage has significant negative effects on agricultural value added, but squared internet usage has significant positive effects. This suggests a U-shaped pattern and a quadratic relationship: as internet usage increases, agricultural value added decreases, but after a certain level of internet usage which is the turning point, agricultural value added starts to increase. The causality analysis suggests the existence of uni-directional causality from mobile penetration and internet usage to agricultural value added. However, there is bi-directional causality between squared mobile penetration, squared internet usage and agricultural value added. This indicates that mobile phones and internet stimulate agricultural development which, in turn, boosts mobile penetration and internet usage even further in these countries. The results therefore provide evidence that mobile phones and internet play significant roles in agricultural development, as agricultural development also plays important roles in the expansion of mobile phones and internet.

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