Embracing AI: How Intelligence in Rural Africa Can Lead Growth

I n the most technologically advanced countries, there is an ongoing debate about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on jobs and life in general.

AI is already contributing to GDP growth and a host of socio-economic benefits. The recent complete mapping of the wheat genome to prepare for higher temperatures in the northern hemisphere is just one example that also provides important opportunities for African countries. But there is also a fear that AI will replace the need for human workers across vast swathes of industry.

And yet technology keeps on advancing – and those who fear AI are getting left behind while those who embrace and deploy it ethically make advances.

For the most part, in Africa, the AI we need to master is not artificial. It’s Agricultural.

What is Agricultural Intelligence? The Ancient Egyptians knew. Animal traction in farming was used there more than 2,000 years ago. Yet, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, more than 94% of African farmers would consider animal traction as an advance in land tilling.

Ancient Egyptian priests deployed a secret instrument known as the Nilometer to help divine interpretations on whether the Nile would emit too little water, causing famine, or too much, causing catastrophic flooding, according to John Lanchester’s How to Speak Money. For many in modern Nigeria, such tools would represent an advance. Weather, climate and harvest information is seldom applied to plan farming. Our use of fertilizers is abysmally low. Those that do use fertilizer too often fail to implement the necessary soil tests. Many farmers do not use crop care products. While the developed world grapples with the implications of their version of AI on human employment, our own Agricultural Intelligence will surely also replace many farm labourers – but that’s a good thing. The fewer people involved in agriculture, the more productive a country becomes in both per capita and overall numbers.

More than 80% of the populations of Burundi, Chad, Somalia, Central Africa Republic, Malawi, Eritrea, Guinea Bissau and the DRC are employed in agriculture, according to the World Bank, yet most of these countries import food from places where less than 10% of people are involved in food production.

With 91% of people employed by farming, Burundi produces just $202 of agricultural produce per capita. Slovenia with less than 5% employed in farming produces $239,000 per capita. In Nigeria, where a little over a third of us are employed in agriculture, our output is a mere $8,906.

In Nigeria, as across most of Africa, too many people are involved in producing too little. Rather than viewing agriculture as a low skill source of employment for all, we must embrace technology and innovation in the complex business of farming. With fewer farmers but Agricultural Intelligence on their side, we will deliver quantum productivity in numbers and quality and spur the creation of jobs elsewhere within our economy. Countries with higher levels of productivity deploy technology ranging from mechanization and irrigation to use of weather and soil analysis, fertilizer, improved seeds, and farm management software.

Progressively improving our use of technology helps to attract investment in climate resilience, for example, guided by a clear focus on the long term. Freeing up farmers to instead engage more productively in diverse areas helps our economy.

So, how do we get there? Land is the first factor of agricultural production, and this must be cleared and developed with irrigation, and the land prepared with techniques that prevent soil degradation. Most agricultural land in Nigeria is not properly cleared and there is little financing available for land clearance. We must understand the soil and use this understanding to determine what the earth needs to support crops that are suited to the land.

We must understand our crops better, and how to take care of them; and we must realise all of the complex relationships that need to be managed with the right tools to get the right results on the field and in the market place. With fewer farmers producing more, farm businesses will attract more technologically savvy entrepreneurs who will create more jobs and commit more funds to the innovation that will in turn spur even greater productivity.

Research and development will thrive, and their outcomes will nurture expanding farm businesses.

Higher incomes from the farms will support the diversification of our economy and provide jobs and revenues in light manufacturing (and eventually more complex industries), health care, energy, technology and wide-ranging disciplines as people specialize, get better at what they do and become globally competitive.

With fewer farmers but Agricultural Intelligence on their side, we will deliver quantum productivity in numbers and quality and spur the creation of jobs elsewhere within our economy. Countries with higher levels of productivity deploy technology ranging from mechanization and irrigation to use of weather and soil analysis, fertilizer, improved seeds, and farm management software.