All the right digital ecosystem actors are in play, so why is digital adoption still limited for smallholders?

Authors: Grow Asia and Erika Balzarelli, Founder, The Sustainable Smallholder

Across ASEAN, digital agriculture is no longer emerging; it is advancing. Tools are becoming more sophisticated, the supply of digital solutions is expanding, and policy direction is clear. All the right actors are involved, and everyone is playing their part. 

In the first article of this mini-series on how to accelerate digital adoption at smallholder level, we argued that the core constraint is not (more) technology, but delivery. In the second, we explored how youth can act as powerful delivery actors, translating innovation into trust and adoption at the farm level. 

Yet a persistent question remains. If the tools exist, and the actors are all in place, why is digital adoption at smallholder level still limited? Part of the answer lies in how the challenge continues to be framed. 

There is still a tendency to look for what is missing — more tools, more training, more pilots, more actors. But in many ASEAN markets today, the fundamentals are not absent. They are already being built. 

Across the region, a recognizable set of elements is taking shape (which, as will be highlighted in the final report, form the core components of a strong delivery system): 

I. Investments in foundational infrastructure — connectivity, payments, and data systems 

II. A growing base of delivery actors — cooperatives, extension systems, youth, agri-SMEs 

III. Increasing attention to farmer economics and adoption incentives 

IV. Active engagement from governments, private sector, and development partners 

Taken individually, these are all the right moves. Yet adoption remains uneven, fragmented, and difficult to sustain. The issue is not whether the right elements exist. It is that they are not yet working as a system. We observe three key tensions that need to be addressed. 

1. Delivery remains fragmented 

The actors are there, but they are not connected. Cooperatives, extension systems, startups, and programmes often operate in parallel, each addressing part of the adoption challenge. For farmers, this translates into fragmented engagement: multiple entry points, inconsistent support, and limited continuity beyond initial introduction. 

What is missing is a shared alignment on how delivery happens end-to-end — and a common approach to designing and implementing it. 

2. Incentives are not fully aligned to adoption 

There remains a structural mismatch between how digital solutions are offered and how smallholder farmers make decisions. 

Farmers operate under high levels of income volatility and risk. Adoption requires clear, visible returns — often within a single season. Yet in many cases, upfront risk still sits with the farmer, while intermediaries are not consistently incentivized to support sustained use. 

At the same time, enabling solutions such as access to finance or insurance are often treated as separate add-ons, rather than integrated into the adoption pathway. For farmers, however, these decisions are interconnected. When solutions are delivered in isolation, they become difficult to combine into a coherent, economically viable choice. 

3. The delivery system has no clear owner or orchestrator 

Perhaps the most fundamental gap is that delivery, as a system, has no clear ownership. 

Governments invest in infrastructure and build extension systems. Startups develop solutions. Development partners fund programmes. Private sector actors promote their offerings. Cooperatives, where present, engage farmers — though often not in a digitally integrated way. Each plays a critical role. But no actor is explicitly responsible for ensuring that all elements function together in practice. 

Without this orchestration role, fragmentation will persist: not for lack of effort, but for lack of coordination by design. 

Taken together, these tensions explain a pattern that is increasingly visible across the region: progress in digital agriculture is real, but it does not consistently translate into accelerated smallholder adoption at scale. 

The key next step is therefore the design and implementation of “national delivery systems”. Addressing this requires moving from fragmented efforts to a deliberately orchestrated way of working. In practice, this means three shifts. 

First, connecting delivery actors into structured, end-to-end pathways — aligning cooperatives, extension systems, agri-SMEs, and other actors around a shared farmer journey, rather than isolated interventions. 

Second, embedding incentives into the system, ensuring that farmers, intermediaries, and solution providers are aligned around clear, near-term economic value, with finance, insurance, and services integrated into one coherent adoption pathway. 

Third, establishing a clear orchestration function: one that can coordinate across what we call the 4Ps (public, private, and philanthropy partnerships), align investments, and ensure the system functions as a whole. This requires a function that is neutral and objective, able to operate across institutional boundaries while remaining accountable to farmer-level adoption outcomes. 

This is not about adding more actors or initiatives. It is about designing how they work together — intentionally, coherently, and at scale — to unlock faster and more sustained digital adoption. 

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This article is the last article of an ongoing mini-series accompanying Grow Asia’s upcoming Digital Landscape Report. 

The DLR report builds on these observations to explore what a functioning digital delivery system looks like in practice, and the pathways through which ASEAN can move from fragmented progress toward sustained smallholder adoption at scale.