As the 2023 Agricultural Show opened its doors in Paris on February 25, tech is at the heart of the transformation of the agricultural sector. At the end of February, the director general of the Organization of…

In Africa, digital tools for smart agriculture are gaining ground

[Illustrative image] A farmer using digital technologies, South Africa.

Getty Images - Hiraman

Text by: Christina Okello Follow

3 mins

As the 2023 Agricultural Show opened its doors in Paris on February 25, tech is at the heart of the transformation of the agricultural sector.

At the end of February, the Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations stressed the need to adopt digital tools to stimulate smart agriculture in Africa.

And the idea is gaining ground.

For six months, Denis Okello, a young farmer in northern Uganda, has been waiting for the rain to come.

This long period of drought caused him to lose more than 1,000 euros of wheat and corn harvest.

A loss that he hopes to see mitigated thanks to digital: “

Currently, to predict the fall of the rain, we base ourselves on the seasons: the dry season and the rainy season.
We make our own forecasts.
But when the drought comes, we are caught off guard and all our crops are decimated.
With digital tools, we would be able to better anticipate the climate.

With the lack of rain, saving water has become fundamental.

One of the tracks is to promote irrigation.

A concept that Serge Zaongo, a young engineer from Burkina Faso, made his own thanks to an intelligent irrigation system: “

We have probes at soil level.
And these probes constantly inform us about the level of humidity.
So that means that the irrigation is only triggered when the plant needs to be watered.
It avoids wasting water.
This allows you to make predictions about the quantity he will need for next season.

A solution that echoes the needs of Denis Okello, the young Ugandan farmer: "

This irrigation system would help me measure the amount of water needed for my crops, because when I grow them, I would like to be able to calculate and therefore know the deadline for their performance.

A solution that could find its full meaning, because according to the World Health Organization, more than half of the population in northern Uganda is affected by food insecurity.

“We can use digital to go much faster”

More generally, digital technology could be a valuable ally for farmers on the continent, according to Sylvère Boussamba, founder of the NGO Ogooué Labs in Gabon.

We have not yet exploited all of what nature is capable of giving us as information," he explains.
But by using digital and all the ancestral knowledge that Africans have, we are able with technology to have an advantage over other areas where we are not really informed about the state of the soil

”.

He continues: “

Let me take an example: we discovered a kind of fungus in Central Africa that grows in agricultural areas when the land is ready to be cultivated.
And we see that today, with artificial intelligence, we can use photos of this fungus, fly drones around and identify cultivable areas very quickly.
We understand that it is a means of natural detection.
But we can use digital to go much faster without necessarily feeding the earth with a lot of chemicals that have an impact on human beings.

► Read also African agricultural research in the spotlight at the Paris Agricultural Show

In Africa, digital tools for smart agriculture are gaining ground

In Africa, digital tools for smart agriculture are gaining ground

“We can use digital to go much faster”

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