A systems-oriented framework for wise, equitable, and sustainable digital agricultural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa: A critical review

CONTEXT Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) faces mounting food security pressures amidst accelerating digital agricultural investment. Digital agricultural solutions in the region are growing rapidly, yet adoption remains uneven, often excluding women, resource-constrained smallholders, and remote rural communities. The prevailing ‘smart farming’ paradigm, which prioritizes technological optimization, has often failed to account for the structural, institutional, and social conditions that determine whether digital tools deliver durable outcomes. OBJECTIVE In this study, we argue that digital agricultural transformation in SSA requires fundamental reorientation, moving from technology-centric deployment to systems-oriented integration. We aim to operationalize the emerging concept of wise agricultural systems for the SSA context and to develop a framework that can guide more equitable, sustainable, and resilient digital agricultural transformation. METHODS We employ a critical narrative review, organizing the literature into five thematic strands covering digital advisory services and adoption, infrastructure, gender and equity, environmental sustainability, and data governance. Within each strand, we critically assess the evidence, examining underlying assumptions, identifying contradictions, and assessing where evidence is robust or remains limited. We use the wise agricultural systems concept and the Socio-Cyber-Physical System (SCPS) lens to organize our analytical structures. RESULTS We demonstrate that the primary barriers to effective digital agricultural transformation in SSA are systemic rather than technical. These barriers include weak rural road and connectivity infrastructure, fragmented, outdated, and non-interoperable public agricultural data resources, erosion of farmer trust through extractive platform design, institutional capacity deficits in extension and regulatory systems, a persistent gender digital divide affecting approximately half of SSA's smallholder farming population. These challenges are compounded by extractive platform designs that can erode farmer trust and data governance arrangements that concentrate value in corporate actors at the expense of farming communities. Digital tools that have generated durable benefits share common features, including proximity to farmer realities in design, integration with human advisory systems, and embedding within functional institutional arrangements. Drawing on these findings, we propose a four-component framework for wise digital agricultural transformation comprising ground-level integration, institutional infrastructure, equitable governance, and adaptive learning. CONCLUSIONS Wise digital agricultural systems in SSA are defined not by technological sophistication but by their demonstrated capacity to achieve balanced, resilient performance across socioeconomic viability, environmental sustainability, and social justice. Achieving this requires investment in the non-digital foundations of effective digital agriculture, including physical infrastructure, extension capacity, and data governance, and genuine participation of smallholder farmers in system design. SIGNIFICANCE In the study, we make a conceptual contribution by operationalizing the wise agricultural systems framework for SSA and by demonstrating that the persistent gap between digital agricultural promise and rural reality is a systemic rather than a technological problem. The proposed four-component framework offers actionable guidance for researchers, policymakers, development finance institutions, and platform designers seeking to redirect digital agricultural investment toward systems that serve people, sustainability, and justice.