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Impact of digital use on practices and work in Sahelian pastoral farming

I have been an agricultural engineer since 2021, specializing in Zootechnie des systèmes d'élevage . I have been welcomed at the Institut Sénégalais des Recherches Agricoles, Saint-Louis (Senegal), to take over Anna Sow's thesis on the Transformation of Sahelian pastoral livestock systems in the digital age.
The subject of my thesis corresponds perfectly to my profile as a livestock systems technician. It gives me the opportunity to learn about a farming system I've never had the chance to work on before - pastoral livestock farming. It's a thesis that requires a lot of fieldwork, with qualitative surveys to be carried out with livestock farmers.

• Starting date: 24 April 2023
• University: AgroParisTech
• PhD school: ABIES
• Scientific field: Zootechnics of breeding systems
• Thesis management: Nathalie Hostiou, UMR Selmet, Inrae 
• Thesis supervisors: Jean-Daniel Cesaro and Selena Ferrari, UMR Selmet, Cirad
• Funding: #DigitAg 
• #DigitAg : Funded thesis – Axe 1 : Impact des technologies de l'information et de la communication sur le monde rural, Axe 4 : Système d’information, stockage et transfert de données, Challenge 7: Intégration de l’agriculture dans les chaînes de valeur

Keywords : digital divide, pastoralism, Senegal

Abstract: The mobility of herders and livestock to cope with environmental conditions and ensure access to livestock markets is at the heart of Sahelian pastoral farming (Cesaro et al., 2010). Access to information on resource status and market opportunities is a major challenge. The improvement of network coverage (Salat et al., 2012), along with the decrease in equipment prices, has facilitated the widespread use of mobile phones by herders in the 2000s. Despite its use still being considered frugal (Ferrari et al., 2023), economic actors and development stakeholders see this tool as an opportunity to increase the productivity of livestock to meet a growing demand for animal products. Development projects for new mobile applications or information systems are underway to provide technical support and facilitate access to markets for these products (Cesaro et Sow, 2021; Cesaro et al., 2021). However, the impact of the use of digital tools on livestock systems is poorly understood, raising questions about the sustainability of these livestock support services. Based on a qualitative study conducted at the scale of livestock farms in Senegal, this thesis will focus on examining how the use of digital technology has contributed to modifying pastoral and agro-pastoral livestock systems, in the practices and ways of working of herders.