According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, by 2050, the world will need to produce 70% more food than currently. There is also a growing urgency to address the environmental impact of agriculture.
Through its subsidiary Mezzanine, Vodafone is helping to digitalise agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa with the eVuna platform. eVuna is Mezzanine’s smallholding agriculture product suite. It includes various software-as-a-service offerings, as well as a marketplace. The eVuna software offered to farmers includes dairy management and e-vouchering.
Using eVuna e-vouchering, Safaricom supported the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries with the rollout of a government fertiliser subsidy to more than 5.9 million smallholder farmers in around 40 counties in Kenya. The vouchers can be used to buy inputs to support the cultivation of maize, rice and coffee.
In South Africa, Mezzanine continues to support the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development. The programme has issued more than 270,000 vouchers to smallholder farmers, worth a combined value of over ZAR1.6 billion.58
