Press reviews
A byte at a time: Africa’s progress towards a digital agriculture future
Over the past two decades, Africa has overcome multiple obstacles to economic growth and eradicating poverty, registering a widespread progress. The gradual transformation of Africa’s food systems has been key to this process, but to sustain and accelerate growth—particularly in the face of demographic changes, urbanization, shifting diets, climate change and protracted humanitarian crises—a new set of innovative solutions is urgently needed.
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Empowering Africa's women in agriculture
Godan executive director underlines the importance of empowering women in agriculture through open data initiatives at Africa women innovation & entrepreneurship forum, South Africa.
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International Day of Rural Women 2019 focuses on “climate resilience”
The world’s sustainable future cannot be achieved without the involvement of rural women and girls.
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Coordinated investment key to agri-tech in Africa
Africa’s agri-tech industry is booming, but for smallholder farmers to profit, investment is vital, writes Laura Owings.
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African small and medium enterprises a boon for farmers
Millions of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Africa are sourcing their produce directly from farmers, creating a huge industry that is enabling many in the continent live off agriculture, a new report that was launched in Nairobi on Tuesday has revealed.
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TICAD7: Digital Agriculture Next Frontier For Economic Development In Africa
Prioritizing the digital space will help shift the development focus for Africa’s agribusiness sector and overcome its many hurdles, participants at an official side event, organized Wednesday during the 7th Tokyo International Conference, heard.
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Nigerian agri-tech startup EZ Farming “fired up” after 500 Startups participation
Nigerian agri-tech startup EZ Farming says it is “fired up” after taking part in the Silicon Valley-based 500 Startups accelerator programme and accessing US$150,000 funding, and is now striving to build the biggest agriculture-focused micro-lending platform in Africa.
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Four agriculture-focused companies to inspire Africa
This article features excerpts from the London Stock Exchange Group’s Companies to Inspire Africa 2019 report. The agricultural sector is an engine of job creation in Africa and accounts for about 60% of total employment in the sub-Saharan region, while the share of jobs across the food system is potentially much larger.
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African farmers increase yields and income with their smartphones
From drones and big data to financing apps, advanced technology can be a game changer.
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There are lessons to be learned to ensure technology is a force for good for Africa’s farmers
From delivery drones to self-driving cars and chatbots, technology may be rapidly transforming the way the world shops, works and interacts. But in Africa, digitalisation is on the cusp of sparking a far more important revolution.
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First online network for women entrepreneurs in agribusiness launched
Despite accounting for 40 percent of the agricultural workforce worldwide, women’s participation in agribusiness is often limited to low-profit production.
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African agriculture economies 'bright spot' in disappointing global economy
The global economy generally fell short of its forecasts, set to weaken to 2.6 percent this year, but in Sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture-dependent countries such as Benin, Rwanda, Cote d’Ivoire, and Uganda grew positively, according to the latest World Bank report.
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Millennials ‘make farming sexy’ in Africa, where tilling the soil once meant shame
Over 2,700 agricultural officers, each issued a motorbike by the government, have been deployed across the country to educate farmers on best practices, such as which crops are most adapted to climate change.
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Kenya Taps into Technology to Attract Youth to Farm
Kenyan innovators are betting on digital technologies to attract young people to an agriculture industry that currently is dominated by an aging population. With a 98 percent mobile phone penetration, according to the latest data from the Communications Authority of Kenya, the cellphone is proving to be an important source of extension services in areas where such resources are not available.
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Why Europe Should Support Africa in Adapting to Climate Change
Farmers like to say that we owe our entire existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains, but with climate change bringing more frequent droughts, the adage is wearing worryingly thin.
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Why fixing food systems is crucial for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals
Food is a common thread linking all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), given the interconnected economic, social and environmental dimensions of food systems.
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Kenya to build Africa’s first agritech innovation incubator in three years
More than 200 key stakeholders will convene in Nairobi during a knowledge and innovation challenge conference to be held on the 5-6 April on scaling up disruptive digital technologies in the agricultural sector in Kenya.
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Ugandan farmers test big-data solution to climate challenges
Gathering information on farmers can help find answers to their problems - from extreme weather to lack of credit - but turning that data into a business is tricky
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How good urban farming can combat bad eating
Unhealthy diets pose a massive and growing health threat across the world. In Africa, traditional foods and inner-city farms could be the answer.
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Promoting urban agriculture for food security
The world’s population is expected to increase by about 3 billion by 2050 and it is forecasted that nearly 80 per cent of that population will live in urban centres. The urban growth rate in Africa is 3.5 per cent which is highest among all continents.
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Agri-tech startup Hello Tractor to expand across Nigeria, Kenya
Nigerian agri-tech startup Hello Tractor has partnered the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) to expand its services across Nigeria and Kenya, connecting 5,000 smallholder farmers to mechanisation services.
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Developing Agripreneurs to Save Nigeria’s Youth from Crime
When Lawrence Afere told his parents he was going into farming rather than getting a job in Nigeria’s lucrative oil and gas sector, they swore he was bewitched.
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How Conservation Agriculture Could Solve Food Insecurity in Arid & Semi-Arid Lands
Over three quarters of Kenya’s land is classified as arid or semi-arid (ASALs) with 20% of this having high to middle potential for agriculture. The sector relies heavily on rainfall which often than not is not consistent. Current food production levels cannot meet demand due to among other factors, conversion of prime agricultural land to other uses and the changing size and patterns of our population.
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Farmers Secure Land and Food Thanks to ‘Eyes in the Skies’
Six years ago while wondering how best to use her engineering skills, Tanzanian ICT entrepreneur Rose Funja decided to enter an innovation competition. Years later she has turned a digital idea into a viable business that helps smallholder farmers across the East African nation access credit.
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In Africa, investing in rural development and agriculture will offer rural youth an alternative to migration
FAO Director-General highlights the importance of focusing on the troubled areas of the Sahel
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Why Europe should partner the world’s smallholders to adopt big tech
Despite the rise of industrial and intensive farming, it is the world’s 800 million smallholder farmers who continue to shoulder a disproportionate burden of global food security.
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Time for Africa to treat agriculture as a business
Addressing agriculture and food security issues in Africa is critical not only to economic development across the continent, but to the future of food production worldwide over the next generation.
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Changing the gender bias in agriculture
Women entrepreneurs are playing an important role in transforming global food security for economic growth, but they have to work twice as hard as men to succeed in agribusiness.
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These digital innovations will be the key to unlocking the investment that African agriculture needs…
Walmart. Amazon. Tesla. Many of the world’s biggest businesses started small – and would not be where they are today without the help of start-up loans.
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Boosting R&D capacity for sustainable agriculture
Africa’s over-reliance on external institutions is undermining the continent’s capacity to strengthen agricultural research and development for improving the livelihoods of millions of people.
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Africa agribusiness, a $1 trillion business by 2030
As project sponsors, borrowers, lenders and investors gathered at the Africa Investment Forum to make deals on investment opportunities, leaders of the continent’s top agribusiness companies shared their thoughts on the future of the industry.
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Making Agriculture Cool
At every conference she has attended on the youth, Nawsheen Hosenally has been frustrated to hear that agriculture is not ‘cool’. The 29-year-old graduate in agricultural extension and information systems knew she wanted to do something to redeem the image of agriculture among young people.
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Investors in Agribusiness Exploring US$82 Million Worth of Business Opportunities in Africa
by Sammy Adjei
Leading business leaders, policy makers and prominent development campaigners joined over 200 delegates to launch the first ever Nutrition Africa Investor Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, today.
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Young entrepreneurs lend glamor to African agriculture
by Thin Lei Win
In a long-sleeved shirt and jeans, expertly navigating eastern Rwanda’s bumpy back roads in a white four-wheel drive, Dieudonne Twahirwa looks nothing like the stereotypical African farmer.
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Sustainable agriculture must remain key priority in post-Cotonou negotiations
Agriculture must be at the heart of the successor to the Cotonou Agreement between the EU and the ACP community, writes Michael Hailu.
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