Digital agric initiative launched
HEIFER International, a non-profit organisation has unveiled the Digital Agriculture Champion (DAC) initiative in Africa.
The initiative would deliver sustainable, cost effective training modules for smallholder farmers across Heifer Africa, starting with Kenya.
Heifer was advancing technology and mechanisation to address some of
the post-pandemic challenges across different agricultural value chains in Africa.
In addition, the organisation invests in digital extension systems for training as a post pandemic response
from Agriculture
strategy that would create efficient, scalable solutions for farmers and help boost the value chains in which they work
This was according to Heifer Senior Vice President Africa Programs Adesuwa Ifedi in a statement.
Ms Ifedi said Heifer was also committed to mentoring the youth who often constitute the extension staff, and was focused on empowering them to become digital champions with entrepreneurship skills to ensure quality services for farmers, and sustainable business models beyond the life of Heifer project interventions.
She said Heifer was committed to catalysing groundup engagement of the youth in Agriculture. “The Digital Agriculture Champions initiative will foster the application of digital technology in Agriculture, delivering solutions that address challenges faced by smallholder farmers at scale.
“The idea for the Agriculture, Youth and Technology (AYuTe) AfricaChallenge was conceived by Heifer based on four decades of work as a trusted partner of African farmers—and seeing firsthand the stark difference between local farms that have to
access to new technologies and those that do not,” Ms
in
Ifedi explained.
She said they are providing comprehensive digital platform for the front-line extension workers, who are referred as Digital Agriculture Champions to learn at their own pace, connect with farmers and grow their agribusiness.
“We will mentor and handhold them through their journey from incubation to the growth stage via the Kuza OneNetwork platform,” Ms Ifedi said.
In accordance with this tech innovation drive, Heifer is working with Kuza Biashara, a digital social enterprise, as technical partner, to offer a bundled solution that provides personalized digital training and extension services to smallholder farmers in Africa.
The partnership with Kuza is a product of Heifer International’s AYuTe Africa Challenge -a competition that awards cash grants of up to US$1.5 million annually to the most promising young Agri-technology innovators across Africa who are using technology to reimagine farming
and food production across the continent.
Kuza, though not emerging as winners, were top contenders with strong
capacity and capabilities to deliver Heifer’s content digitisation initiative, the Digital Agriculture Champions at scale.
The initiative will be geared towards empowering the front-line extension workers across multiple programmes of Heifer in Africa with a structured incubation model that promotes their businesses to scale, as a pathway to becoming Agripreneurs building sustainable businesses.