Reimagining Africa’s agricultural sector
According to a 2017 report by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the continent’s food system requires an agricultural transformation that is focused on more than just agricultural production and encompasses the entire food system. The report further points to promoting the growth of smallholder farms and SMEs involved in Africa’s food systems, and providing assistance to smallholder farmers that commercialises viable farm business prospects and capabilities.
One view to a smart agricultural sector involves establishing a sustainable and inclusive agricultural model that promotes equitable value distribution across the value chain; creates jobs; allows the increase of productivity and improvement of logistics and storage capacities while remaining cost-effective and respectful of the environment; and implementing and monitoring effective and efficient public policies.
We believe that the bedrock of such a model is the capturing in real time of all relevant data produced by each of the different stakeholders within the agricultural value chain, so that their decisions are as rational and efficient as possible. Here, technology has a clear role to play.
A technology platform designed for smallholder farmers
In 2009, SAP embarked on the development of a solution that would enable better management of smallholder farms by tracking and collecting data related to farms, cultivated plots (via GPS coordinates), crops, farmers, and farm gate selling processes. A prototype of this solution was developed in cooperation with the GIZ, a partner of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and piloted in 9 African countries reaching more than 100 000 small-scale producers.
Called SAP Rural Sourcing Management, the solution is operated in the SAP Cloud Platform and delivered as Software-as-a-Service to farmers who access it via their mobile phones, negating the need for costly technology infrastructure investment. Rural Sourcing Management is used by the world’s largest chocolate producer, Barry Callebaut, and the Kalangala Palm Oil Grower’s Trust in Uganda, where 80% of the population is involved in agriculture.
The Rural Sourcing Management solution is helping the KOPGT grow and expand, improve efficiency, and keep all major players in the value chain connected digitally. This is shining a path toward prosperity in Uganda and supporting the government in its aspirations of moving its citizens to a middle-income status by 2040. We believe that by providing African smallholder farmers with technology tools designed to improve their day-to-day farming operations, we are creating an ecosystem of benefits across the agricultural value chain that will take the continent one step closer toward realising a brighter and more food-secure future for generations to come.
Dr Gilbert Saggia was speaking at the Smart Agri Congress Africa held at the dusitD2 Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya from 27 to 28 March 2018. For more information, please visit www.sap.com
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