Making geospatial technology work from farm to policy scales in West Africa

Kurzfassung

Despite growing efforts to promote sustainable intensification (SI) in West Africa, decisions around input use, land management, and risk often rely on coarse and imprecise data or fragmented systems. Geospatial technologies can play a key role in addressing these issues by concurrently improving how smallholder farmers, value chain stakeholders, institutions and policy makers manage resources and uncertainty. These tools can help address practical challenges, such as the shortage of insurance claims assessors and the suboptimal use of inputs. Field boundary delineation is a particularly relevant application, with potential to support input savings, improve land tenure security, and facilitate yield loss assessments. While farmers can engage with these tools when properly trained, uptake remains limited due to a combination of social, technical, and institutional barriers. To understand these challenges, we apply the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to assess perceived usefulness, ease of use, and behavioral intentions towards geospatial tools among smallholder farmers in Ghana and Senegal. Data come from participatory boundary mapping workshops, focus group discussions (FGDs), and socio-economic surveys covering demographics, smartphone ownership, and adoption of sustainable practices such as System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM). As expected, farmers acknowledge the benefits of field mapping, particularly for input planning and strengthening land claims, but pointed to persistent barriers including limited smartphone access, digital literacy, GPS inaccuracy, technical language, and poor network coverage. These challenges varied by gender and age. Still, “adoption champions” emerged across demographic groups, i.e., farmers who engaged early and helped others do the same. We analyze these findings in the context of broader institutional and data coordination systems with financial and governance implications. Remote sensing (RS) technologies enable large-scale field delineation and crop monitoring for agricultural policy, subsidies, and insurance. At the farm level, RS-based products depend on ground-truthing by extension agents and/or private operatives, who validate data with local knowledge and deliver tailored support. In settings where trust between farmers, extension, research and other stakeholders is fragile, improving the accuracy and transparency of agricultural and financial processes holds transformative potential towards equitable and resilient SI, if intelligently negotiated and co-constructed across scales and roles. To foster broader adoption, targeted interventions are needed: locally adapted training, inclusive access models, strong institutional integration and shared, inclusive governance. Promoting awareness of long-term benefits at both farm and governance levels will be critical to leveraging geospatial tools for enhancing resilience and equity in Sub-Saharan African farming systems.