Farmers Review Africa Sept/Oct 2019 Farmers Review Africa September - October 2019 dig | Page 9

NEWS
solutions to farmers and policy makers alike to
deliver meaningful impact,” added Abdella.
Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that
its Africa Development Centre would help to
advance AI innovation in agriculture, including the
expansion of FarmBeats. In addition, Microsoft
has supported a number of African agritech start-
ups and companies, including SunCulture, Virtual
City, N-Frnds and Twiga Foods.
Data positions agriculture
The potential to increase Africa’s agricultural
yields through the strategic use of data could
place the continents’ farmers at the heart of
tomorrow’s global economy, according to John
Deere Financial.
“New technologies readily available to Africa’s
farmers mean that the continent is finally at the
moment where Africa’s vast, as-yet-unrealised,
agricultural opportunity can be made relevant to
capital, mechanisation and new global markets,”
said Antois van der Westhuizen, Managing Director:
Sub Saharan Africa, John Deere Financial.
Digitally transforming
Africa’s agriculture sector
A
s a market, digital services in Africa’s
agriculture sector remains untapped say
experts and could be worth over US$2.26-
billion. Microsoft, through its 4Afrika Initiative, has
announced a new collaboration with the Alliance
for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to co-
create technology solutions in agriculture.
The collaboration was announced at the African
Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) and will support
AGRA’s digital transformation as it works to
improve food security for 30 million farming
households across 11 countries by 2021.
Microsoft and AGRA will explore uses of big data
and artificial intelligence “in enabling data-driven,
precision farming that increases farm productivity
and profitability.”
The partnership will also support farmers in
adopting new technologies through digital training
content, develop digital skills in agriculture
through an internship programme, and support
policy advocacy and government engagement
around the design of national agriculture
digitisation strategies.
Amrote Abdella, Regional Director of Microsoft
4Afrika, said, “Agriculture is a priority sector of
investment for us, not only because it sustains
some 70 percent of livelihoods, but because we
believe technology can significantly contribute to
the transformation of the sector.
Africa has a large number of farmers with
varying farming practices. We believe technology
can augment this knowledge to improve crop
yields. Using Microsoft-enabled IOT technology,
organisations like SunCulture have helped farmers
increase crop yields by 300 percent, and increase
income for farmers.”
According to AGRA, the biggest hurdle to
increasing farmer productivity in Africa today
is the continued use of outdated production
technologies and practices. Farmers are only
likely to adopt new technologies when they are
useful, affordable and available locally.
As a result, the Digitilisation of African Agriculture
Report found that 90% of the market for digital
services that support African smallholders
remains untapped, and could be worth more than
US$2.26-billion.
“We’re excited to work with AGRA in building
locally-relevant technology solutions that are
mindful of challenges local farmers face, offering
For example, John Deere has worked with ACDI/
Voca, ADVANCE and USAID as well as other
input providers in Ghana, to mechanise and
provide fertiliser and seeds to demonstration
farms aimed at improving the yield of traditional
famers in the country.
“The results have been astounding,” said van
der Westhuizen. In some cases, “yields have
increased seven-fold.”
What has changed is that today farmers in Kenya
and Tanzania, for example, now transacting
on M-Pesa can access the formal economy by
selling and buying goods online. Since these
previously economically excluded farmers now
have a digital footprint, “we can start getting a
picture of their inputs, suppliers and costs, as well
as their yields, off-takers, incomes and payments
histories,” added van der Westhuizen.
This data holds the key to revolutionising
agriculture in Africa.
Without even having a bank account, “we now
have a detailed view of the input, production and
earning numbers of previously financially invisible
farmers,” said van der Westhuizen. With GPS
technology able to provide accurate hectarage,
“We can now quickly work out how certain inputs,
and their cost, might be affordable to specific
farmers given the increase in yield that we know
these inputs will drive in that location.”
Data points
In short, with just a handful of data points, the ability to
provide credit to a much broader segment of Africa’s
farmers increases dramatically. For the first time in
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