While September 24th marked the final day of Social Good Summit in New York City, it was the day of the Social Good Summit Nairobi Meetup event. Amidst all the tragedy and pain inflicted on Kenya during the week, the Nairobi event went on as planned. A show of our resolve to move on and not be cowed!
As usual the Social Good Summit, an annual three-day conference, unites a dynamic community of global leaders to discuss a big idea: the power of innovative thinking and technology to solve our greatest challenges. This year in Nairobi, technology and agriculture (including food security) were on the agenda. And I was on the panel too! What got me thinking while preparing for the session was not so much the fact that technology has a role in Agriculture, but the twist added to this whole debate by including the Youth. Obviously, statistics of Africa’s agriculture production are grim, particularly when zeroed down to who is engaged in the sector. Let’s get down to some numbers here.
Current research indicates an ageing farming population across Africa. In countries such as Nigeria, it is estimated that the average age of a farmer is 47yrs. Contrast this with the national life expectancy of 50yrs and the future outlook is not so difficult to imagine. In Ghana, Kenya and other similar countries, the situation is either the same or worse. This is notwithstanding the fact that most young people live in developing countries. It is estimated that by the year 2050, Africa will have a population of over 1.5 billion, with those under 40yrs accounting for the majority of this population. Of greater concern is the fact that the youth currently do not recognise farming as a viable and respectable vocation and employment opportunity; even though, agriculture has untapped economic and employment potential. According to the Institute of Development Studies (2012), the sector has to be made more dynamic and appealing to young people. So here is where technology has a role to play.
The application of ICT in agriculture has the potential of making farming attractive to the youth by facilitating the mitigation of key constraints that often beset the sector. Young people are often turned off by constraints such as low farming income, low access to credit and capital to invest in the required machinery, information asymmetry, poorly organised and inaccessible markets, high transaction costs and lack of agricultural insurance to cover them in times of bad weather or crop failure.
Recent applications of mobile technology in the financial and agricultural sectors indicate that technology can help reduce some of the identified constraints plaguing the agricultural sector to make it more attractive to the youth. For example, through M-Pesa, farmers can now have traceable financial transactions which can be used to access micro finance and insurance services such as Kilimo Salama Plus (formerly known as Kilimo Salama). Kilimo Salama (“safe farming” in Kiswahili) was launched in 2009 by UAP Insurance, Syngenta Foundation and a Kenyan mobile operator – Safaricom. The scheme uses automated weather stations and mobile technology to automatically determine agricultural risk levels and to insure farmers’ inputs against bad weather conditions. This product only covers against extreme weather conditions not poor farm management. Payments are made through Safaricom’s M-Pesa platform.
In other initiatives across different countries, ICT has been engaged to relay market prices to improve the bargaining power of farmers and to support critical farming decisions such as whether to take produce to the market and to which market. Such initiatives reiterate the potential role of ICTs in agriculture and their likely impact on productivity and profitability of farming.
It has to be said though, that the engagement of technology in the sector is not enough to draw the youth into agriculture. Well targeted investment in agricultural sector, improving regulatory and policy environments, and comprehensive land reforms to make land easily available for farming will be some of the enabling factors to push the youth to take up farming as an occupation. The agriculture that attracts the youth, at the end of the day, must be profitable, competitive, and dynamic.