Digital Technology Adoption and Potential in Southeast Asian Agriculture

While the rural agriculture sector has traditionally been seen as backward relative to the urban industrial and services sectors, it is a potential “low-hanging fruit” ripe for a much-needed digital transformation for agricultural development. ASEAN has seen a U-turn in progress in addressing undernourishment as early as 2014–16, owing to multiple factors. These include climate change which impacts have led to a slowdown in agricultural yield growth amidst growing consumption requirements. Digital technologies are important in adapting the agriculture sector to climate change and rising demand for it to serve as a key sector for food security, income, trade, and employment in the region. However, adoption of digital technologies in agriculture within the region is still relatively nascent, partly because of a general lack of understanding of such technologies and how they contribute to agricultural development. Also lacking is a common framework for understanding and classifying the relevance of such technologies. Thus, this article proposes a common framework and narrates how it was developed and used in facilitating discussions that helped develop the 2021 ASEAN Guidelines on Promoting the Utilization of Digital Technologies for ASEAN Food and Agricultural Sector. We draw insights from our earlier work on the state of adoption of digital technologies in agriculture in the region and give an overview of key challenges and policy opportunities for scaling up.

尽管传统上农村农业部门相较于城市工业与服务业被视为相对落后，但它却是潜力十足的「低垂果实」，正值农业发展亟需的数字化转型的最佳契机。东盟早在2014至2016年间，在解决营养不良问题上的进展出现逆转，这源于多重因素：其中包括气候变化，其影响导致在消费需求持续增长的背景下，农业产量增速放缓。数字技术可助力农业部门适应气候变化并应对日益增长的需求，而农业本身也是本地区粮食安全、收入、贸易与就业的核心支柱产业。然而，本地区农业领域的数字技术应用仍处于相对初期阶段，部分原因在于业界普遍对这类技术及其对农业发展的赋能作用缺乏认知。目前也缺乏一套用于理解和分类这类技术适用性的通用框架。因此，本文提出了一套通用框架，并阐述了该框架的研发与应用过程——其助力相关研讨，最终促成了《2021年东盟促进粮食与农业领域数字技术应用指南》的制定。本文基于此前针对本地区农业数字技术应用现状的研究成果，对该领域规模化推广面临的核心挑战与政策机遇进行了综述。