A good place to start is from our primary and secondary schools. Promoting STEM education and applications in the Agriculture industry will go a long way in encouraging fresh interest and ideas from the younger generation.
Perhaps the underlying reason why an average secondary student will not want to study agriculture is the idea that agriculture or being a farmer is “not cool.” I don’t blame them though, the image of a farmer working in a farm under the scorching sun also doesn’t register as cool in my mind.
Agritechnology has the potential to change the narrative, that agriculture is more than just toiling on a farm, and that there is an entire agriculture value chain with multiple points of entry and value creation. This will drastically reduce the number of students applying to study the more traditional courses, like Accounting for example, to the less popular, but nonetheless, important courses such as Rural development, Agric engineering, and Soil science.
As a society, we must think of agriculture as an integral part of a whole. We need to lead science projects that develop tools and systems for the purpose of agriculture. We need to expose students to the endless possibilities that exist in Agriculture.
Collaborative Economy: Agritechnology will change not only how we grow food (products) but also how we facilitate the exchange and access of products and services. We are in an era of information, speed, access and convenience. Consumers more than ever can research their options and make informed decisions. This has led to a collaborative economy or what is otherwise known as a sharing economy.
For many, it will be impossible to afford a land at a location like Lekki, but by buying a flat in an estate, they can share land, and estate facilities with others, offering them the life they want to live at more than half the cost.
The same is applicable to farmers. For many, it would be impossible to hire a tractor, but with a startup like HelloTractor, they can afford to hire a tractor as a Group or Cooperative and save cost. Other Startups like SunCulture, sell drip irrigation kits that use solar energy to pump water from any source thereby making irrigation affordable and CowTribe, a startup from Ghana deploys mobile technologies that bring farming advice, weather forecasts and market information to farmers.
Digital Agriculture: 10 years ago, this concept would have sounded foreign, some would have even thought it impossible but now, digital farming and digital farmers are making the headlines. This is perhaps the best gift that agritechnology has delivered to us. Everyday Nigerians are moving from thinking about the agric space to actually making a difference in Nigeria’s agriculture industry.
Digital agriculture is the use of new and advanced technologies integrated into one system, in order to enable farmers and major stakeholders within the agriculture value chain improve food production.
Agritechnology has led to the development of technology-enabled platforms that support both the supply and demand side, and delivers seamless integration through mobile devices. In addition, this platform lowers the barrier for normal everyday people to get involved in agriculture without the need for technical knowledge or physical presence.
The process is usually transparent, structured and mutually beneficial.
The digital farmer can invest money via a secure platform into a farm cultivated by an on-site farmer. The funds are managed by the platform and go into educating the farmer, giving them improved seedlings, monitoring farm activities and maximizing farm yield.
This is a win-win situation, since the digital farmer is able to make a return on their investment, while contributing to the achievement of global food security. The on-site farmer on the other hand gets funded, increase their farm operations and is able to increase their income at the end of a farm cycle. The off takers are supplied with the produce after harvest at a good rate, while the platform that facilitates this transaction also gets a percentage.
Ultimately, there is a lot we can benefit from this new wave of agritechnology. There are several startups that have sprung up and are already offering agritech services in food safety, agri-investments, irrigation, and distribution, but agritechnology is far from saturated.
Those that will be successful must be willing to learn, test new terrains, be ready to partner, share knowledge and adapt to this fast changing world of tech.
Now is the best time to jump on this train because we have a good chance in this generation to achieve global food security.
Hannah Edia
Hannah Edia is a Content Developer and SEO Strategist at Farmcrowdy.
