Advancing Somali agriculture through digitalization: assessing the impacts of ICT and foreign direct investment on food production

Abstract The integration of information and communication technology (ICT) into Somali agriculture has the potential to transform traditional practices, which enhances efficiency and increases production. Despite ICT’s transformative potential, comprehensive empirical studies analysing its combined influence with foreign direct investment (FDI) on food production in Somalia remain scarce. Employing the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique and Kernel-based regularised least squares (KRLS) methodology, this study examines these relationships using time series data from 1990 to 2022. The findings reveal that agricultural labour, cropped land area, and trade openness significantly enhance food production in the short- and long-run. Remarkably, mobile phone usage exhibits a positive association with food production in Somalia, which reinforces the critical role of digital communication. Conversely, internet usage negatively affects food production, potentially reflecting challenges in integrating technology with traditional practices. Capital and FDI demonstrate adverse but statistically insignificant effects. By reinforcing the ARDL findings further, the KRLS analysis further demonstrates the heterogeneous effects of these variables. Specifically, there is an increasing marginal impact of agricultural labour, land, FDI, trade openness, and mobile usage on food production, while capital and internet usage exhibit decreasing marginal effects. Based on these insights, this study suggests optimising land use, fostering ICT adoption, addressing inefficiencies in capital investments, and enhancing trade openness to support sustainable agricultural growth.