Smart Agricultural Entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policy Implications from Literature

The characteristics of the small-scale farming dominant in sub Saharan Africa lead to many disadvantages which may hinder smooth adoption of smart ways of farming. Small holder farming is characterized by intercropping, and crop variability within fields which may prevent the widespread adoption of smart ways of farming. Additionally, small holder farmers have limited capital base while smart agricultural technologies are frequently expensive. Furthermore, smart ways of doing agriculture requires knowledge and skills necessary to implement up to date technologies and small holder famers may not be able to invest in training and retraining of workers. The aim of the current study is to explore the literature landscape on smart agricultural entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa to provide practitioners and policy makers with insights on policy implications based on the current corpus of literature on smart agriculture in sub Saharan Africa. In order to address the research questions of the study, systematic review of literature was adopted. The study exposes the smart ways that agricultural entrepreneurs can adopt. Economic effects of smart agriculture adoption among agricultural entrepreneurs, that is, farm level, environmental and labour effects, were exposed. Consequently, policy implications with regard to farm situation, environment and labour were derived policy makers with insights on policy implications based on the current corpus of literature on smart agriculture in sub Saharan Africa.