ASEAN’s Digital Farming Future Depends on Reaching Smallholders, Not More Technology

IFAD’s Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, Reehana Raza, stressed that digital transformation must reach small-scale farmers at the first mile.

A digital farming tool has little value to a smallholder if poor connectivity, limited support or an unaffordable service keeps it out of reach. Across Southeast Asia, getting useful technology into everyday farming takes more than developing another app. It requires people, institutions and investment that farmers can rely on beyond a single growing season.

Accelerating Smallholder Digital Adoption at Scale in ASEAN: Strategic Pathways, a report released by Grow Asia and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The report identifies an underdeveloped delivery system as the region's main constraint, rather than a shortage of technology or innovation. Its findings draw on primary research across ASEAN Member States, including field studies and human-centred design workshops with smallholder farmers in Cambodia, the Philippines and Viet Nam.

The report is a major output of the Smallholder Economic Empowerment through Digital Solutions (SEEDS) project, jointly implemented by Grow Asia and IFAD with funding from the Republic of Korea's Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. It was presented to senior officials and ministers at the 26th Meeting of the ASEAN Ministers on Agriculture and Forestry Plus Three (AMAF+3) in Singapore on 30 October 2026. Its recommendations focus on four connected priorities: stronger infrastructure, better local delivery, more inclusive adoption and lasting partnerships.

Build the foundations farmers need

Reliable rural connectivity is only one part of the infrastructure needed to make digital agriculture work. The report also calls for interoperable farmer registries, payment systems and clear data governance, creating a foundation through which services can reach farmers more consistently. Registries that work together and dependable payment channels can help connect individual tools to a broader, usable system.

Financing these foundations means recognising their value in opening markets and supporting services across agriculture. The report sets out four investment pathways to attract more private and blended finance, including treating foundational infrastructure as investment that enables markets to function. It also highlights the need to unlock capital for the "missing middle" of agricultural small and medium-sized enterprises, aggregators and service providers that help connect farmers with opportunities.

Put trusted local networks at the centre

Reaching farmers depends heavily on the organisations and people already working alongside them. The report recommends equipping cooperatives and other intermediaries with digital capabilities, strengthening the skills of agricultural extension services, and bringing lead farmers and rural youth into delivery networks. These groups can help turn access to a tool into the practical confidence needed to use it.

Grow Asia Executive Director Beverley Postma described a gap between the availability of solutions and their consistent arrival in the hands of farmers and businesses. Her message centres on connecting infrastructure, institutions and incentives so that digital tools become a sustained part of farming life. For ASEAN, the opportunity lies in backing the delivery systems that turn the region's potential in tropical digital agriculture into results on farms.

Make adoption affordable and useful

Farmers need services that fit the way they earn, spend and manage uncertainty across a growing season. The report calls for financing and risk-sharing arrangements aligned with smallholder cash flows, alongside priority support for digital tools that strengthen climate resilience. Adoption becomes more practical when the cost and usefulness of a service match the realities of running a small farm.

IFAD's Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, Reehana Raza, stressed that digital transformation must reach small-scale farmers at the first mile. She pointed to SEEDS as evidence of what partnerships between governments, businesses and farmers' organisations can make possible. The report offers a route from fragmented pilots towards country-led digital systems that connect rural people with markets, jobs and greater resilience.

Turn partnerships into lasting delivery

The fourth priority is to establish lasting public–private–philanthropy partnership mechanisms, known as 4P, supported by a neutral, trusted regional convening function. The findings align with the ASEAN Food, Agriculture and Forestry Sectoral Plan 2026–2030 and the Action Plan for Sustainable Agriculture in ASEAN, which recognise digital innovation as an enabler of food security, climate resilience and inclusive rural development. They also support the ASEAN Leaders' Declaration for Food, Agriculture and Forestry Towards 2045 and the Philippines' 2026 ASEAN Chairmanship priorities on regenerative and resilient agriculture.

Grow Asia is putting this approach into practice through an AI skills training programme announced with the Partnership for Sustainable Agriculture Vietnam, designed to reach up to 100,000 rice and coffee farmers in Viet Nam. Supported by grant funding from Google.org and delivered in partnership with Edufarmers International Foundation and Viet Nam's National Agricultural Extension Centre, the programme focuses on practical tools for planting, crop protection and adapting to climate variability. Its combination of public, private and philanthropic support, trusted government extension channels and farmer-centred design shows how the report's recommendations can take shape in everyday agricultural services.