Africa's Great Agtech Leap-Frog
..or how Agri-technologies will transform Africa and give it the Agriculture it deserves.
The challenges of Africa are well known; perennial conflicts, droughts, land ownership (and land grabs), under-performing economies and poverty.
What is less known is how in the last decade Africa has gradually improved; fewer wars, few droughts, faster growth rates and more people moving out of extreme poverty.
As the world becomes more digital Africa has benefited from technologies that don’t require infrastructure, which allowed the continent to make huge leaps forward. Mobile networks have been the most obvious example of this; now news of food relief being distributed for famine is more likely to be spread by text message or SMS. In today’s Africa, even a starving person may have a contract for their cell phone!
Mobile communications have opened a brave new world for Africans, with both good and bad consequences. In my own experience of being in the middle of Botswana a bush guide is as likely to be an expert on the politics of Arsenal’s soccer team in London as the local fauna. This has led to an unprecedented desire for migration, from Africa in particular, whenever local conditions become unbearable, due to wars or famines, and is attested to by boats of refugees arriving in southern Europe.
Access to mobile and internet communications also threatens to upturn politics, shining a light on corruption but also introducing the potential for ‘fake news’. In all ways communication is at unprecedented levels.
To use Beth Comstock’s phrase ‘Imagine it forward’ these technologies can transform agriculture in Africa, and offer a billion people safe, affordable food.
Drones not Roads.
In a continent that tends to lack a proper infrastructure, particularly with respect to the challenge of building and maintaining an effective road structure, drones make infrastructure unnecessary. Drones can carry two-kilogram packages (5 pounds) up to 100 kilometers (62 miles). Drones manufactured by DJI of China are reportedly capable of transporting half a ton up to 30 Kg at a cost of $15,000. Surely this is cheaper and more effective than a car as a mode of transportation, especially for the ‘last mile’ (or maybe last 20 miles!) which causes so many issues in Africa’s underdeveloped infrastructure.
Drones can deliver fertilizers, seeds, grains, herbicides, animal medications. They offer efficient and faster delivery for agricultural produce while reducing the risk of having to grease palms of those who insist on payment through checkpoints on roads. Using drones to avoid corruption and poor infrastructure may have consequences from those who benefit from the current status quo and this is a longer term threat.
DroneClouds (Capetown) use drones, satellites and agricultural experts help solve crop issues sooner. Their drones identify problems and actions farmers need to take to increase yields. Conducting research on farm land before it is farmed is the domain of Investiv Groupdrone. They uses drones to increase yields through surveys. Another Ivory coast Start-up WeFly Agri customers can remotely monitor farm activity. Originally with the aim of identifying when employees illegally created their own farms within the farm, it's focus now is to identify inefficiencies in production to manage land better. Interactive mapping, planting follow-up, remote management of employees and Geographic Information Service (GIS). Beat Drone (Nigeria) precision drones can execute precise spraying on farm, map farmland and supervise crops. The startup won a cash prize of N5 million in technical supports at TechFest in May 2018. Other examples of drone startups in Africa include healthcare (Arone, Matternet, Zipline Drone) and RocketMine in the mining industry.
2. Secure records, banking, elections, using Blockchain
Blockchain offers the ability to store information and records immutably on a distributed ledger, an ideal technology for African nations wanting to;
a) Address Land rights and disputes over ‘Land Grabs’. These debates arise when farmers or agribusinesses attempt to purchase larger tracts of land where land ownership is not clearly identified. Blockchain makes such record keeping secure, transparent.
b) Payments by cellphones have become more omnipresent but the challenge is to ensure that the micro-finance platform cannot be corrupted. Blockchain based payment and delivery systems can ensure this.
c) African smallholder farmers face challenges in accessing accurate and trustworthy access to markets and market information.
2KUZE by Mastercard connects farmers, agents, buyers, and banks in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Using the 2KUZE mobile platform, smallholders can connect directly with buyers and agents to secure the best price for their goods and receive payments securely via their phones, avoiding the time and energy wasted walking for hours to markets. FarmDrive(Kenya) connects unbanked and underserved farmers to credit, at the same time helping financial institutions cost-effectively increase their agricultural loan portfolios. M-Farm(Kenya) and AgroSpaces (Cameroon) eliminate price asymmetry between farmers and buyers by providing pricing data, thus allowing farmers to earn more. Farmerline and AgroCenta based in Ghana, deploy mobile and web technologies that bring farming advice, weather forecasts, market information and financial tips to farmers, who are traditionally out of reach due to barriers in connectivity, literacy, or language. Farmcrowdy’s (Nigeria) Digital Agriculture Platform empowers rural farmers, providing them with improved seeds, farm inputs, training on modern farming techniques and a market for the sale of their farm produce. It gives the farmers the capacity to farm more acres and by extension increase food production and security. Since its launch in 2016, Farmcrowdy now reaches 11,000 small scale-farmers across Nigeria.
iProcure in Kenya uses mobile and web technology to improve agri-retailer’s operations, to make smarter decisions based on real time inventory, point of sale activities and location based purchasing patterns so the retailers can predict demand to streamline distribution efficiency.
M-Pesa launched by Safaricom, a simple method of texting micro-payments between users and claims it reaches 30 million users just ten years after launch. Transactions are as easy as simply clicking a ‘send money’ option on the phone.
Blockchain promises to increase transparency encourage Rwanda to apply it to their last political elections.
3. Sensors to replace guesswork?
Illuminum Greenhouses (Kenya) constructs affordable greenhouses with affordable automated drip irrigation to help smallholder farmers optimize economic production. Serving 3,450 farmers, they increase income through sensor systems that provide early warnings of deviations from normal growth or other factors. Zenvus, (Nigeria) measures and analyzes soil data such as nutrients, temperature and vegetative health and uses data-analytics so small-scale farmers apply the right fertilizer and optimize irrigation, reducing input waste and increase farm productivity. SunCulture makes drip irrigation affordable by using solar energy to pump water from any source.
4. Do Robots have a role?
It is to be imagined that with plentiful cheap labor Africa will be a late implementer of Robots. Perhaps not. Agricultural robots automate slow, repetitive and dull tasks for farmers, allowing them to focus more on improving overall production yields. Some of the most common uses of agriculture are in harvesting, picking, weed control, autonomous mowing, pruning, seeding, spraying, thinning, phenotyping, sorting, packing and inventory management. Harvesting and picking is one of the most popular robotic applications in agriculture due to the accuracy and speed that robots can achieve to improve the size of yields and reduce waste from crops being left in the field.
DroneScan has developed a scanning product light enough to attach to a commercial drone and scan product inventory in warehouses. It makes stock-taking an easier procedure by having drones fly around the warehouse to scan item barcodes.
5. Overcoming part shortages in remote locations; 3-D Printing
Africa’s poor infrastructure creates tremendous challenges for the use of sophisticated and specialized equipment, but this challenge compromises it's international competitiveness. Printing of small goods or machine parts avoids involving transport and importing from other distant locations, or even other countries. Products can be printed as required to exact specifications, even for older machinery that is no longer being manufactured. In 2013 WoeLab designed an affordable 3D printer using only discarded electronic components. Their 3D printer allows farmers to print the tools they require on farm, indirectly allowing them to increase crop yields. Buni Hub (Tanzania) is similarly producing 3D printers.
Reality replaced with Virtual Reality (VR)
VR can be used to improve a farmer’s skills and train them how to use new machinery or in new techniques. Veterinarians can use VR to offer real time assistance to farmers with livestock inquiries, thus avoiding losses. Examples of Smartphone compatible VR’s include Microsoft’s HoloLens (used by Plant.IO) and Google’s Daydream View (compatible with Google Pixel) for L&D purposes. Zimbabwe claims farmers can expect to benefit from these technologies once Government and academic institutions conduct more trials. The World Bank is partnering with companies like Digital Green—which delivers digital ‘how to’ farming videos to smallholders in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi and Niger.
The World Bank’s newly established Agriculture Observatory accesses and deploy high resolution agro-meteorogical data to help detect and respond proactively to food shocks before they become famines. Interestingly this was used in Kasai, Democratic Republic of Congo, by the Agriculture Observatory to confirm that food security and crop failures weren’t due to climate change, and quickly redesigned their project to address the relevant stressors.
7. The future is computer vision/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence uses images and other information made available through data capturing devices such as computer vision, sensors, to make intelligent real time decisions. Previously the goal was to replicate human cognitive functions, but current systems have shown the ability to exceed human abilities without traditional human biases or misconceptions. UjuziKilimo (Kenya) big data and analytic capabilities to transform farmers into a knowledge-based community. Their goal is to improve productivity through precision insights. Data on soil and crops are obtained with sensors, and the AI helps to adjust irrigation and determine the needs of individual plants.
8. Store food (& inputs) better
Africa wastes 30-60% of food and inputs due to ineffective supply chains, especially through storage. Wakati lowers post-harvest losses through the supply chain by maintaining fruits and vegetables in premium quality at farm level. On-farm storage maintains crop quality longer thereby avoiding waste and increased profitability. Wakati operates in pop-up style tent (capacity 20-1000 Kg) made of an airtight fabric, which controls the microclimate during storage and uses a 10 Watt solar panel to control humidity by ultrasonic evaporation, while an electric corona discharges ozone.
9. Alternative Proteins for Africa? Insects
Large scale farming of poultry, pigs and fish is dependent on protein from land-based grains and marine captured fishmeal. Prices for Soybean meal, fishmeal and other agricultural inputs are up to three times that of other continent. AgriProtein have developed a sustainable protein source by feeding recycled organic waste to larvae. AgriProtein has been developing it's protein products for animal nutrition since 2009 and went live with the world’s first industrial scale insect recycling site in Cape Town in 2016.
10. Access – Digital Farm Data and Market Data
Aerial images from satellites or drones, weather forecasts, and soil sensors are making it possible to manage crop growth in Africa in real time.
Kitovu uses data science powered mobile platform that combines market demand and soil data. They confirm that crop yields of most farms in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa are low and post-harvest losses are high, with a direct impact on farm income. Using market data they advise farmers on the best crop specifications and varieties to secure returns. Sokopepeoffer market information and farm record management services to farmers via SMS and web tools for similar ends. Eskos also aims to provide smallholder farmers with market prices, weather forecasts and agronomic advice, linking buyers with sellers all via SMS and call centre and improve the lives of rural communities.
CowTribe: Ghanaian startup CowTribe was founded in 2015 to provide an on-demand mobile (USSD-based) subscription service allowing farmers to schedule veterinary treatment for their livestock. The platform tracks and helps deliver animal vaccines. Winner of Seedstars Accra and regional finalist for the MEST Africa Challenge, the service had reached 29,000 farmers in 2016. Selina Wamucii is based in Nairobi. Its USSD platform can “shorten and transform the agriculture supply chain” between smallholder farmers and buyers to cut costs. The platform makes the entire supply chain digital without requiring farmers to have access to smartphones or internet. M-Farm is another platform that connects farmers with buyers to get information on how to plan, manage and sell crops.
Ghana’s reported tractor deficit (13,000 for smallholder farmers, 7,000 to serve commercial farms) has been the driver behind TROTRO Tractor:. TROTRO Tractor connects even the most remote farms with nearby tractor operators through a cell phone-based system. Another system WeFarm utilizes SMS to enable farmers access to get specific information from other farmers through their phones. This connected network allows users to share and access vital information on anything relating to farming, without needing to leave their farms, spending money or going online to find it. The service has over 1.1 million users across Kenya and Uganda. Twiga Foods created an e-commerce platform to consolidate the fragmented purchasing power of urban retailers by delivering better quality and better priced stock. For its 9,000 farm users this means a guaranteed market, price transparency, farming advice and resources and credit access from Twiga’s partners.
11. Connecting all the dots.. the Internet of things (IOT)
Hello Tractor has become one of Africa’s most quoted companies, and is similar to Uber in that it allows farmers to connect with tractor owners and rent tractors using a mobile app. In Africa where there are just 13 tractors per 100,000 Km2 this is a potential game changer (globally, there are 200 tractors for every 100,000 square kilometer). The tractors having tracking devices as a management device and anti-theft, and uses IBM’s artificial intelligence and blockchain to run the system.
Conclusions. Digital Agriculture in Africa; Leap-frogging its technology deficit.
A recent article in the Harvard Business Review by Dr. Ndubuisi Ekekwe points out digital technology can transform Africa’s food and farming system in three ways.
Access to capital and resources; rent expensive equipment or access capital at competitive interest rates.
Digital technology disrupts value chains through economies of scale, allowing smaller players to be integrated into the value chain
Precision agriculture can be achieved at small scale through access to information on land, soils and other resources allowing farmers to apply inputs like fertilizer and water precisely.
As Dr. Ekekwe (Fasmicro) says ‘Entrepreneurs can now deliver solutions to small-size African farms at cost models that farmers can afford. Technology is making farming exciting for young people. As they see that developing mobile apps alone cannot feed Africa, many will turn to farming as a business.’
Digital technology can transform farming and food production in Africa to a degree not imagined or possible in other areas of the world. The GLIMPSE factors which have prevented the continent from achieving its ‘vast untapped potential’ can be solved by digital and ancillary technologies will reward farmers, investors and entrepreneurs and result in Africa leapfrogging to farm, feed itself and perhaps reach its promise as a breadbasket of the world.
Thanks Isha Munde of Cainthus for her help in research for this blog.
