Gaborone — The agricultural sector needs to adopt and adapt to new technologies to overcome challenges such as climate change, panelists attending the US-Africa business summit said yesterday.
Ms Basadi Molelekeng of Bicolor Holdings and a member of Pandamatenga Farmers Association said despite women and youth having the largest numbers in agriculture in Africa, their input was less compared to that of men. In that regard, Ms Molelekeng said women needed to be capacitated.
"Such can be through the provision of tailor-made financial assistance. They also need assistance in mindset change to motivate them and give them confidence and belief that they are equally capable. Their mentality to self-belief is still lacking," she said.
Ms Molelekeng also said it was a concern that despite Africa holding 65 per cent of global arable land, the continent was still spending about U$35 billion in food imports annually.
"Human and natural resources are in abundance in Africa, and all we need is financing to be able to use technology. Global statistics indicate that there are about 58 million malnourished children, and agriculture is the solution should it get the right financial and adoption of technology," she said.
For his part, Zimbabwe President Mr Emerson Mnangagwa said his country had managed to turn its fortunes around as it had already achieved household sufficiency of food production.
"At the moment we have already reached a surplus at household level in both summer and winter crops, and our target is to now improve general food security at national level," he said.
He also reiterated that the agricultural sector needed targeted policies to succeed. In the current face of climate change, Mr Mnangagwa advised that Africa needed to have water bodies such as dams to ensure continuous irrigation throughout the year.
For his part, Mozambique President Mr Filipe Nyusi said that factors such as floods and terrorism had put paid to his country's realisation of its agricultural potential despite having swathes of fertile land.
"It is because of these factors that we have only managed to cultivate about 17 per cent of the available 36 million hacters of arable land," he said. Mr Nyusi also said that such unfortunate factors forced Mozambicans to strive only for sustenance for family survival. "Despite all these, however, we are alive to the need to emancipate agriculture through among others, adoption of technology," he said.
Another panelist, Mr Albert Momo who is the vice president of Trimble, a company specialising in new tools and processes for agriculture, urged African nations to adopt precision agriculture models to maximise outputs with minimal input.
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"Food security means being smart against climate change, and this talks to the use of clever farming mechanisms to reduce wastage," he said.
He cited Kenya where he said that his company had frost prediction mechanism, which helped them to act in advance to reduce damage to crops.
He also urged farmers to embrace crop insurance, which he said could give them assurance of profit all the time. "The good thing about crop insurance is that a farmer cashes in whether there are natural disaster or not," he said.
Mr Momo also advocated the use of artificial intelligence in agriculture. Other speakers included Paul Ouma from Africa Advisory and John Deere managing director for Africa and Middle East, Mr Jaco Beyers.
This is panelists deliberated under the topic: Enhancing Africa's value in agricultural value chains during the ongoing US-Africa Business Summit in Tlokweng on Wednesday.
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