Three tech innovators are to share a US$1.5 million prize to scale up their innovations and enable smallholder farmers to boost productivity, resilience and incomes amid a historic food crisis, the award organisers say.
Farmers in Africa are battling with the effect of COVID-19, climate change and the war in Ukraine as well as lack of access to basic goods and services such as quality seeds and fertilisers, finance, access to land, market prices and opportunities, technical advice, and infrastructure, according to Dayo Aduroja, youth and innovation lead for Africa at Heifer International, a non-profit organisation, that administers the prize.
The yearly AYuTe Africa Challenge, now in its second year, is aimed at accelerating the development of digital agriculture entrepreneurship on the continent, added Heifer International.
DigiCow based in Kenya, Brastorne Enterprises in Botswana, ThriveAgric in Nigeria will share the prize money to help them scale up their operations, according to the prize .
"It has given us a confidence boost," said Peninah Wanja, founder of Kenya-based DigiCow.
The platform, launched in 2016, gives farmers 24-hour access to training, digital records and analytics.
When a cow falls ill farmers dial a 'secret code' on their phone, a veterinarian is despatched to treat the cow in less than an hour. The vet also keeps records of all animals electronically.
Over 80,000 dairy farmers are using DigiCow as it helps them make data-driven decisions and access service providers including the veterinary service providers, explained Wanja, who plans to scale the platform within Kenya and outside Kenya.
"We believe that the AYuTe Africa challenge showcases African talent, and we are excited to be a part of it," said Naledi Magowe, co-founder of Brastorne Enterprises in Botswana, which came second in the challenge.
Brastorne helps farmers access farming information, markets, and short-term finance through their phones. The rural poor without smart phones get localised farming information and ask questions through mobile phone text messages, and all people on the platform can to create profiles, groups, chat, send in-person messages, or broadcast messages.
"One example is our Agtech solution, a multi-channel solution providing farmers access to a marketplace, advisory services, and select internet sites on their feature phones via text messages, or voice," said Magowe.
"Farmers receive agricultural information and can trade, chat, access sites such as Wikipedia and e-mail in local languages," she explained.
With two million users across Botswana, Cameroon and Democratic Republic of Congo, Magowe told SciDev.Net that they intend to scale up Brastorne into new areas and reach more farmers.
She also looks forward to building new partnerships and connecting with thought leaders and industry experts to expand their impact across Africa.
Ayodeji Arikawe, co-founder ThriveAgric in Nigeria, said winning the AYuTe Africa Challenge is a validation of the hard work his team has done. "It gives us hope that with partners like Heifer we can truly fulfill our vision of Building an Africa that feeds herself and the world," Arikawe says.
ThriveAgric's Operating System captures farmers' details entirely offline, maps out their farmlands and then provides that data to financial institutions like banks who can then offer loans to these farmers.
"We also use the same data to provide farmers with information to improve their productivity and lastly connect the farmers to sell their products too," Arikawe said.
ThriveAgric has over 2,000 field officers with the applications installed on their smartphones they use to provide services to farmers. The farmers who have smartphones can also access the services or interact with officers through text messages in their local language.
"Our innovations have ensured farmers have accessed over US$150 million in credit, while tripling their productivity and doubling their income," she told SciDev.Net.
Over 500,000 farmers are using the ThriveAgric. "This is just 0.1 per cent of the smallholder farmer population in Africa, we believe we are just getting started," Arikawe explained.
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Bernard Ehirim, a plant breeder and African Agricultural Technology Foundation stewardship lead for West Africa, an organization that focuses on innovative agricultural technologies, told SciDev.Net that while agricultural technologies are fine, sustainability could pose a challenge.
"Rewarding systems are okay but my worry is in the sustainability of the system," he said.
Ehirim explained that sustainability could be attained through research, product stewardship, quality management system and maintenance of product integrity throughout the product life cycle.
"This has everything to do with any innovation at all in agriculture," he said.
He, however, added that it is important to deploy innovation in agriculture and improve access to technology that will enhance productivity in agriculture, particularly as Africa grapples with the effects of climate change.
This piece was produced by SciDev.Net's Sub-Saharan Africa English desk
