What Technology Can (and Can’t) Fix in Agriculture

This photo was taken seven years ago in a farmers’ market in the Sine Saloum region of Senegal.Every bag in that scene carries a season of hard work, yet no one knows the price they’ll get because the market decides it in real time. It’s a vivid illustration of how unpredictability shapes behaviour — and how hard it is to build trust in such an environment.

In markets like these, price is not determined by cost or effort, but by the dynamics of the day.A buyer’s mood, a delay in transport, or a change in weather. Each can shift the value of a product within hours. Sometimes it’s the number of buyers present that day, or the intensity of competition between them. Other times, a buyer simply wants to finish quickly and close the truck before a logistics deadline. The heat of the sun, or the market’s closing hour approaching, can turn urgency into pressure, and pressure into price.

For producers, the result is a sense of uncertainty that goes far beyond price. It affects their willingness to invest, to take risks, and to trust. This reality is not unique to Sine Saloum. It defines much of African agriculture. Despite the immense progress made in logistics, mobile money, and digital platforms, one element still resists transformation: confidence.

The false promise of digital control

Technology is often presented as the solution to inefficiency, a way to fix markets, optimise sourcing, and bring order to fragmented systems. But in agriculture, the challenge is not technological. It is structural and behavioural.

We often assume that once data becomes visible, discipline will follow, that digital tools can replace trust. Yet visibility alone doesn’t guarantee reliability. Most agricultural value chains don’t lack data. They lack confidence in commitments, in timelines, in partnerships.

Dashboards don’t create reliability. Algorithms don’t build relationships. Technology can show, record, automate, but not behave. Trust remains deeply human. It grows from consistency, not connectivity.

Where technology can make a difference

Technology still plays an essential role, but not the one often imagined. It cannot replace the human work of building trust — but it can support it, document it, and make it visible.

By detecting irregularities early, highlighting good performance, and creating shared visibility, data becomes a language of collaboration. It helps actors in the chain move from perception to evidence, from “I think” to “I know”. In doing so, it strengthens relationships instead of trying to control them.

The most effective systems are not those that digitise everything, but those that translate trust into measurable progress.

A complement, not a substitute

Perhaps the real role of technology in agricultural value chains is not to replace human judgment but to complete it. It helps us measure what we usually can’t see — reliability, consistency, and credibility built over time.

Because progress in agriculture will depend less on how digital we become, and more on how predictable and trustworthy our systems can be. Technology will matter less for what it automates than for what it reveals: the reliability behind every relationship.

Photo credit

Taken by Mignane Diouf in 2018 at a farmers’ market in Sine Saloum, Senegal.