Huge potential for digitalisation in African agriculture

The study by CTA and Dalberg Advisors, found nearly 400 different digital agriculture solutions with 33 million registered farmers across sub-Saharan Africa.

But the current digitalisation for agriculture (D4Ag) market was likely to be the tip of the iceberg, with a penetration of just six per cent and turnover in 2018 of an estimated € 127 million (US$ 143m) out of a total addressable market of € 2.3 billion (US$ 2.6bn).

Annual growth of more than 40 per cent

The Digitalisation of African Agriculture Report 2018-2019 found an annual growth of more than 40 per cent for both the number of registered farmers and the number of digital solutions, suggesting the D4Ag market in Africa is likely to reach the majority of the region’s farmers by 2030.

“Digitalisation can be a game-changer in modernising and transforming Africa’s agriculture, attracting young people to farming and allowing farmers to optimise production while also making them more resilient to climate change,” said Michael Hailu, Director of CTA.

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Early figures indicated that farmers saw improvements in yields ranging from 23 to 73 per cent, and increases of 18 to 37 per cent in incomes from using digital farming solutions. – Photos: AFP

“This report indicates that despite challenges, the economics are rapidly improving, with a handful of players beginning to develop viable, large-scale businesses. To reach its full potential, companies will now need to focus on converting customer reach to actual use in order for this type of model to yield returns.”

Farmer advisory services

Among the digital solutions tracked and analysed in the report were farmer advisory services, which provided weather or planting information via SMS or smartphone applications, and financial services including loans and insurance for farmers.

Other solutions linked farmers with markets for farm inputs and farm produce, or provided supply chain management to improve traceability and last-mile logistics.

Also read: African farmers increase yield with fertiliser app

Some services used satellite imagery, weather data, powerful big data analytics and machine learning techniques to deliver valuable real-time agricultural insights and forecasts at national and regional levels.

More than a third of participants in the study said they already used at least one form of advanced technology such as drones, field sensors, big data or machine learning, and almost 60 per cent of respondents said they expected to integrate these types of technologies into their operations in the next 3 years.

Improvements in yields ranging from 23 to 73 per cent

Early figures indicated that farmers saw improvements in yields ranging from 23 to 73 per cent, and increases of 18 to 37 per cent in incomes from using these solutions. Models that bundled more than one solution together – so-called “super platforms” which combine digital market linkages, digital finance, and digital advisory service – were associated with yet further improved yields of up to 168 per cent.

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A technician holds a drone used to scout a plot of a heat-tolerant hybrid maize growing at the Chiredzi Research Station in Zimbabwe.

The report highlighted several gaps in D4Ag uptake, particularly among women, who account for more than 40 per cent of the agricultural labour force yet comprise only a quarter of the registered users of digital services. Such digital divides and other concerns such as the privacy and safety of farmer data remain potential risks, the authors said.

“The last decade has been the ‘ICT4Ag’ age, focused on developing and testing the potential for digital solutions in agriculture,” said Benjamin Addom, team leader, ICTs for agriculture, CTA. “The next decade—the ‘D4Ag’ age—will be about translating this potential into reality and doing so equitably and sustainably.”

Recommendations

The report made several recommendations for harnessing the potential of digitalisation in African agriculture. These included:

• The creation of an alliance to promote partnerships and scale up solutions,
• More attention to farmer data privacy and security,
• Further focus on measuring D4Ag impacts,
• Substantially scaled up investment for D4Ag infrastructure such as national agriculture data systems, weather/climate surveillance, and digitised field agronomy assets.

Also read: Precision farming taking off in South Africa