Integrating ICT in Agriculture for Knowledge-Based Economy

Abstract

Rwanda with its embrace to knowledge-based economy, having nearly 80% of agriculture –based livelihoods, demands the integration of ICT knowledge with agriculture. Already projects such as Agriculture Management Information System (AMIS), and e-Soko (which means electronic marketing) – which provides farmers with the price decision making tools enlightens the path to socio-economic development through agriculture. This paper explores the impact of these systems by analyzing the data collected from Executives (initiators of the Project), Service Providers (Medium Level who helps to realize the project) and farmers (ultimate stakeholders).The bottlenecks identified were ICT illiteracy among farmers, nonavailability of relevant and localized content, lack of awareness about the technology and lack of willingness to embrace the technology at the side of farmers, The technical bottlenecks were the contents of the website that are static and needs to be changed as an interactive one and the localization of contents of the website. Having explored all the bottlenecks, necessary infrastructure and technology accessibility, the possible factors for enhancing the technology usage are recommended.