Michael Hailu
A stronger regional coordination and cooperation is essential to unlock the full potential of new digital tools to boost food security and productivity, according to findings of the Digitalisation of African Agriculture Report 2018-2019.
The Report released at the ongoing African Green Revolution Forum noted that new digital services designed to boost African agriculture could reach 250 million farmers by 2030 but only with coordinated efforts across the continent.
The report by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and Dalberg Advisors further noted that investment into digital innovations has so far been piecemeal across sub-Saharan Africa, achieving only six per cent penetration.
“But new tools aimed at smallholder farmers, such as mobile advisory services or online market platforms, could transform food production across Africa with the support and guidance of a dedicated alliance for digitalisation, the authors of the report said.
Director of CTA Michael Hailu, speaking at the launch of the report said, “The potential for digital technologies and innovations to transform agriculture in Africa is enormous but there is currently no mechanism to promote partnership and channel investments to scale up digitalisation to reach millions of smallholder farmers.”
“An alliance for digitalisation bringing together governments, donors, investors, international bodies, farmer organisations and the agribusinesses should be created to advance inclusive, sustainable digitalisation for agriculture across Africa,” he said.
Partner at Dalberg Advisors and co-leader of the firm’s global Digital and Data Practice, Michael Tsan, said the digitalisation for African agriculture market can learn a lot from the experiences of other technology sectors, including the value of tackling sector-wide, pre-competitive issues from the outset.
“By sharing knowledge and developing partnerships, we can establish best practice that quickly allows the scaling up of effective digital innovations so that all of sub-Saharan Africa can benefit,” he added.
The report highlighted key gaps in the recent growth of digitalisation, including uptake among women, who account for more than 40 per cent of the agricultural labour force yet make up around only 25 per cent of the registered users of digital services.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri