{"id":3337,"date":"2019-06-26T08:23:54","date_gmt":"2019-06-26T08:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=3337"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:22","slug":"african-farmers-need-to-adopt-ict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/06\/26\/african-farmers-need-to-adopt-ict\/","title":{"rendered":"African Farmers Need To Adopt ICT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Emmanuel Ntirenganya<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

African farmers need the\nright skills and approaches to increase their production, modernize agriculture\nand manage the risks they face, the Prime Minister has said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edouard Ngirente made the\nremarks as he officiated at the 4th Malabo Montpellier Forum in Kigali on\nTuesday, which focused on using ICT to transform Africa\u2019s agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis requires our highest\nattention as governments, policy-makers, researchers, entrepreneurs and\ndevelopment partners,\u201d Ngirente said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The forum was guided by\na technical\nreport<\/a> prepared by experts grouped under what is known as the\nMalabo Montpellier Panel, a group of international agriculture experts who\nguide policy choices that seek to improve food and nutritional security in\nAfrica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With only six per cent of the\nland in Africa under irrigation, according to African Union\u2019s Department of\nRural Economy and Agriculture, the continent\u2019s farmers depend on erratic rains\nfor harvest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using technologies, experts\nargue, would de-risk the sector and ensure sustainable food production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agriculture accounts for\naround 32 per cent of Africa\u2019s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Ngirente said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTherefore, one way of\ndeveloping the continent is increasing investment in this sector,\u201d he\nobserved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The continent faces a funding\ngap of between $23 billion and $31 billion per annum to transform the\nagriculture sector, according to the African Development Bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe use of ICT in\ntransforming agricultural sector is of paramount importance. ICT would allow\nfarmers and other agriculture sector stakeholders to access accurate and timely\ninformation for decision-making in the sector,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rwanda seeks to achieve an\nupper-middle-income status by 2035 and high-income status by 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The transformation of\nagriculture into a productive, high value, market oriented sector, with forward\nlinkages to other sectors is one of the important pillars in the country\u2019s\nvision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this end, Ntirenganya\nnoted, an inclusive national ICT strategy for Rwanda\u2019s agriculture sector was\ndeveloped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strategy aims to increase\nefficiency of the support given to farmers, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn collaboration with our\npartners, we are developing a digital project with various mobile services\nincluding weather, crop calendar and fall army worm monitoring system. This\nproject has an objective of providing rural farmers agricultural information\nand knowledge to help increase their income,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joachim von Braun, Co-Chair\nof the Malabo Montpellier Panel and Director for the Centre for Development\nResearch (ZEF), University of Bonn in Germany, said that fast transformation of\nindustries and agriculture as well as services offer great opportunities for\neconomic growth and employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe applications of digitization\nin mobility, transport, especially in agriculture and food, but also in the\nhealth sector, are enormously promising for emerging economies in Africa,\u201d\nBraun said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Rwanda, the internet\npenetration rate increased to more than 52 per cent in 2018, up from 7.9 per\ncent in 2010, while the phone penetration rate is more than 77 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the original article<\/a> on The New Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Emmanuel Ntirenganya African farmers need the right skills and approaches to increase their production, modernize agriculture and manage the risks they face, the Prime Minister has said. Edouard Ngirente made…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}